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Bush promises to rid Cuba of 'tyrant' Castro
US President George W. Bush vowed Sunday to "keep the pressure on" to rid Cuba of Fidel Castro, an appeal to the hard-line Cuban-Americans Bush was counting on to win Florida and the White House.
If only he means this.
"I strongly believe the people of Cuba should be free from the tyrant," Bush told a boisterous crowd of supporters here two days before the election, winning the rally's loudest cheers and chants of "Viva Bush"—long live Bush. "Over the next four years, we will continue to press hard and ensure that the gift of freedom finally reaches the men and women of Cuba," he said. "We will not rest, we will keep the pressure on, until the Cuban people enjoy the same freedoms in Havana they received here in America." The crowd packed into the Coconut Grove Convention Center cheered, screamed and applauded, waving pro-Bush signs in English and Spanish and shouting: "Four more years!"

Like most Republican candidates in Florida, the state that decided the disputed 2000 election, Bush's hopes of victory here rest in large part on the support of the state's sizeable anti-Castro Cuban exile community. That reality underpinned the latest horseplay from Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, whose only words to reporters travelling to Miami with the president were a shouted "Cuba Libre" -- free Cuba. But Bush dropped the Cuba comments at campaign stops in Tampa, where the Cuban population is tiny, and Gainesville, where it is nonexistent. He was to travel to Ohio, without which no modern Republican has won the White House. Instead, he focused on attacking Kerry as certain to raise taxes and fickle on national security issues, and leavened his speech with an upbeat appeal to Americans to "come stand with me" come Tuesday. "If you believe America should fight the war on terror with all our might and lead with unwavering confidence in our ideals, I ask you to come stand with me," he said in Tampa.
Posted by: Steve White 2004-11-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=47473