I think you’re both right–the problem has always been that the one who says such sensical things always gets demonized in Florida, and that hurts you badly in general elections. That’s really the reason why that has always worked that way. Some people say the same holds with Israel and the New York votes. China gets a pass because (a) they’re very large and hard to ignore as a potential market, and (b) there is no strategic constituency that demands we distance ourselves from them. Were it not for the Cubans in Florida and the small size of the country, we probably would have normalized long ago. I mean, look at what hell Clinton caught in Florida for doing the right thing in the Elian Gonzales affair. Wikipedia notes, “In an essay prior to Elián’s release, Gabriel García Márquez suggested that ‘many Cubans are worried that the Clinton administration does not dare to return the child, in spite of its laws and its own convictions, fearing that Democratic candidate Al Gore will lose the Florida vote.'” It is even conceivable that if Gore had championed the Cuban population in Florida and interceded to keep Elian here, he would have won Florida by a wider margin than he did (and no, that’s not a typo or other error).