Subject: [big campaign] Update on new Cuba Travel Ban polling & upcoming dates
From: Aniello Alioto <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:11:09 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Friends -

It's a very exciting time for folks support Member efforts to lift the
Congressional Travel Ban on Cuba & I wanted to keep everyone in the loop as
we move closer to the fight (and success) of lifting the Travel Ban on Cuba,
the only country in the world to which the US government restricts us from
traveling. The 'Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act' currently has 180 cosponsors
in the House & 33 in the Senate... and growing.

Daily news articles appear from around the country re: the need to lift the
Congressional Travel Ban on Cuba & expanded trade that can help local, state
& national economies in the U.S.; as well as focus strict restrictions on
Cuban bloggers or reforms in Cuba proper & quiet, direct Obama
administration engagement with the Cuban government. Yesterday new Cuban
American specific polling appeared (see link & Miami Herald article embedded
below) & we have a number of milestones in our near future:

   - October 28th UN vote that will almost unanimously condemn the US
   embargo on Cuba (and numerous other Cuba events in DC on 10/28), which will
   be the first of the Obama administration
   - November 6th speech by Chairman Kerry at Boston University re: foreign
   policy towards Cuba
   - November 10th Chairman Baucus speech on Trade
   - A soon to be scheduled hearing of the full House Committee on Foreign
   Affairs (which should be excitingly explosive)
   - A few more surprises that will be soon revealed....

The newest round of Cuban American specific Bendixen polling can be found at
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1469557&da=y

~~~~~~~

http://www.miamiherald.com/1264/story/1292944.html

  [image: Print This
Article]<http://www.miamiherald.com/1264/v-print/story/1292944.html#>
  Posted on Wed, Oct. 21, 2009
All Americans should be allowed travel to Cuba, says new poll

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
[email-masked]

 JOHN VANBEEKUM / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
 Security Coordinator Anthony Da Roza of Ultra Aviation Services helps
passengers traveling to Cuba move their blue, shrink-wrapped luggage into
the right line at Miami Internaional Airport.
A new poll of Cuban Americans shows a strong majority favor allowing all
Americans to travel to the island, a major shift from a 2002 survey that
showed only a minority supporting the change, the Bendixen & Associates
polling firm reported Tuesday.

Executive Vice President Fernand Amandi said he was surprised by the
magnitude of the swing in just seven years -- from 46 percent in favor in
2002 to 59 percent in the Sept. 24-26 survey. Only 29 percent were opposed
in the new survey, compared to 47 percent in 2002.

``The significant thing is how quickly they have moved in a short period of
time,'' Amandi said, adding that the shift took place across all age groups,
from older exiles to more recent arrivals.

A campaign to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba has become a key
Washington battle ground this year for those who favor and oppose easing
U.S. sanctions on the island. Permitting such travel would allow U.S.
tourists to visit Cuba. Only Cuban Americans are now allowed virtually
unrestricted travel to the island.

At least three bills lifting all restrictions on travel are now before
Congress -- two in the House and one in the Senate. While most analysts
believe the House may well approve some version of the measure, they say it
will have little chance of gaining Senate approval because of opposition
from Sen. Bob Menendez, a powerful Democrat.

Amandi noted that the results of the September poll should disarm the
argument that the travel restrictions on Americans cannot be eased because
of the political power of Cuban Americans who oppose it. ``This removes the
final fig leaf for why the time has not come to change policy -- that Cuban
Americans were opposed,'' he said.

Florida's Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American and ranking Republican
on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, predicted the ban on American travel
will not be lifted and had a different take on Cuban-American sentiments.

``The majority of Cuban Americans want the Cuban people to have free
elections, guaranteed human rights and freedom for political prisoners. That
is what constituents in South Florida want,'' she said in a statement to El
Nuevo Herald.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a key sponsor of one of the House bills,
noted Cuba is the only country where American tourists cannot visit and said
the new poll shows Cuban Americans support a more open approach to Havana,
except for ``a dwindling clique locked into a Cold War mentality.''

The latest Bendixen survey, conducted on the phone, had a sample of 400
Cuban Americans across the United States and a margin of error of plus or
minus 5 percentage points. The poll was not commissioned by anyone and
Bendixen, which has done several other surveys on Cuba issues, conducted the
poll on its own, said Amandi.

Bendixen reported the latest poll also showed that lifting the travel
restrictions on Americans was supported by 48 percent of Cuban Americans who
arrived in the United States before 1980 -- the so-called ``historic''
exiles. In 2002, that number was only 32 percent.

A ``generational gap'' remains, however, with the latest survey showing that
62 percent of Cuban Americans 18 to 64 years of age support lifting all
travel restrictions, while 49 percent of those 65 or older favor the change,
the company added.

http://www.miamiherald.com/1264/story/1292944.html

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