Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and now, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., are the current front-runners for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Anticipating that these two heavyweights would enter the ring, the Washington Post earlier this month took a look at their respective voting records in the Senate, and found at least 40 times when they took opposing positions.
One of those votes was on Cuba policy.
The Post reported:
One budget-related vote with broader political implications would have stripped funding for TV Marti, which beams television programming to Cuba, though the Cuban government jams the signal. Critics in Congress complain that the United States has spent almost $200 million on the failed effort and have targeted the program year after year.Obama twice voted to cut off TV Marti funding, while Clinton supported maintaining it. Those votes will have resonance in Florida, which is a key primary state and may reschedule its 2008 primary date from March to February.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the senator's opposition to TV Marti was primarily about cost. But within Florida's large Cuban exile population, one of the most powerful voting blocs in the state, Clinton's and Obama's stances ally them with distinct groups: the older hard-liners and a younger, more progressive group of second-generation Cuban Americans and more recent immigrants whose numbers are growing. Clinton "is going with the status quo," said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster who specializes in Hispanic voters. Obama, he said, "is with the position of change."
Wow, so there is one thing on which Clinton and I agree.
What will be revealing during the campaign is whether those differences between Clinton and Obama will extend to broader Cuba-related questions, like the embargo and the normalization of relations.
Sign petition for release of Cuban political prisoners
