CUBA: Foundation warm to Obama's ideas

BY CASEY WOODS, ALFONSO CHARDY, AND BETH REINHARD
Miami Herald

The prominent Cuban-American organization that Republican President Ronald Reagan once counted on to secure victory in Florida was electrified on Friday by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In a lunchtime speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, Obama offered a new Cuba policy approach to an audience accustomed to presidential candidates coming to show solidarity, but not to challenge the long isolation of the island's communist government.

Obama, greeted by a standing ovation and scattered chanting of his campaign slogan, ''Yes we can,'' touched on one of his more controversial ideas: a willingness to meet with Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

''I know what the easy thing is to do for American politicians . . . Every four years, they come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington and nothing changes in Cuba,'' he said.

"After eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush, it is time, I believe, to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions.''

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