October 23, 2004

FIDEL HAS FALLEN AND CABANA BOY CAN'T GET UP:

New Ads Use Animal Theme (Edwin Chen and Nick Anderson, October 23, 2004, LA Times)

The Bush campaign also aired another new ad in Miami that accused Kerry of backing the interests of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The 30-second spot, in Spanish, shows images of Castro and of Kerry as a narrator condemns the Massachusetts senator's vote against a 1996 law, the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened economic sanctions against the island nation at a time of heightened diplomatic tensions between Havana and Washington.

Kerry and the "liberals in Congress," the narrator charges, "don't understand what a dictator is." The spot, first seen Thursday, sought to tarnish Kerry's standing with the Cuban American community, a key voting bloc in Florida. Kerry was among 22 senators, including four Republicans, who opposed the legislation in March 1996.


In politics it's never a good idea to be on the 20% end of an issue.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 23, 2004 1:42 PM
Comments

I actually saw an ad here in Texas (rare!) on a different subject that mentioned "Kerry and the liberals in Congress."

That's the sort of thing that many liberals around here are dismissing as Bush's vanity at work (they think he's merely trying to boost his numbers in a state he will win). I love that reaction! Those ads could well make the difference to the extent any of the districts reconfigured to elect Republicans have any doubts about jettisoning dinosaurs like Martin Frost. The same should be true in close Congressional races elsewhere.

Posted by: kevin whited at October 23, 2004 1:51 PM

kevin:

The GOP can pay for those ads instead of the campaign if I recall correctly, because they mention other Democrats than Kerry.

Posted by: oj at October 23, 2004 1:58 PM

I don't pretent to understand Cuban/Florida politics. At another site they were ripping Bush saying he was losing Cuban support because he wouldn't drop the emobargo. We'll have to wait until 11/2 to see who is right.

Posted by: AWW at October 23, 2004 10:25 PM

As I understand it, the Miami Cubans want the embargo, they want anything that they perceive as hurting Castro, effective or not.

Possibly the Cuban support that Bush is losing consists of people still in Cuba.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 24, 2004 2:48 AM
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