Obama's Troubles in the Cuban Community

Politico article - 'Elian Gonzalez saga could haunt Obama' states the difficulties Senator Obama could have with the Cuban community, particularly in Florida...

Eight years after the furor over the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba possibly cost Al Gore the state of Florida in his 537-vote loss to George W. Bush, the international custody saga has returned to haunt another Democratic presidential nominee: Barack Obama.

Having two top advisers who played key roles in the episode — Greg Craig, who represented Gonzalez's father in Cuba, and Eric Holder, then a Clinton administration deputy attorney general when federal agents stormed the Miami home of Gonzalez’s relatives to remove the then-6-year-old and return him to Cuba — Obama now finds himself on the wrong side of an emotional issue in a battleground state.

The wound reopened again last week after Gonzalez returned to the headlines in South Florida following a report in a Cuban communist youth newspaper that he has joined Cuba’s Young Communist Union.

Miami-based Republican political consultant Ana Navarro said the stature of Holder and Craig in the Obama campaign “shows a tone-deafness to the Cuban American community's concerns.”

Was Clinton Right? Obama Campaign Questions their Ability to Win Ohio and Florida?

The AP reports "Obama campaign looks for way to win presidency without Ohio, Florida." The struggles the Obama faced in the primary are showing that Ohio may be a difficult state for Obama to win. The campaign is looking for other states that may provide the electorates to make up for an Ohio and Florida loss. McCain has polled well ahead in Florida and the Democratic Party's bumbling of the state's primary, as well as difficulty with the Jewish vote, has left Obama at a disadvantage. This may leave the Obama campaign with some difficult math as the some of the Northwest states that they've hoped to turn from red to blue do not have nearly the number of electorates Florida and Ohio do. It's interesting that the general election has barely started and Obama's electibility is coming into question within his own campaign.