Let me count the ways....

The Republican candidates want to court the Cuban American vote. The problem is that they uniformly like the embargo, with the exceptions of Brownback who voted in favor of travel to Cuba, and Ron Paul, whose libertarian philosophy leads him to oppose the embargo entirely.

So how to break from the pack and love-bomb Calle Ocho with real impact?

Let’s recap.

Giuliani is the most endearing; he professes a love for Cuban food and says his wife is learning Spanish. Thompson loves Gloria Estefan and quotes her with ease, but that may be problematic now because she has Carlos Santana on her new CD and Santana wore a Che Guevara t-shirt, and you can read Babalu for the rest (see 7/24 here). So he may have some work to do.

Mitt “Patria o Muerte” Romney, playing a little catch-up, was in Florida over the weekend making good sense on trade but avoiding an ethanol subsidy question like the plague. From the AP account of his visit:

Romney also spoke to veterans of the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion at their small museum in Miami‘s Little Havana neighborhood and promised to seek out their intelligence expertise on Cuba if elected president.

Hasta la victoria siempre!

But seriously, there’s a real chance that candidates will move beyond symbols and gestures and promise real change in policy as the election nears, or if McCain drops out and his supporters are up for grabs.

Will one promise to repeal wet foot-dry foot? (I still wish someone could confirm that Giuliani promised that on his last trip to Miami.) Will one promise to add a second plane to broadcast Radio/TV Marti from the U.S. airspace south of the Keys, or to fly the plane over international waters, right up to Cuban airspace?

This is a serious question. What is left for them to propose, to promise?