| | |  Americas & Beyond | July 2008 
A Sweep Through the America's Former 'Backyard'
 Rory Carroll - Guardian UK
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| | The US Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, gestures to journalists at a joint press conference in Cartagena with the Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. (Jose Miguel Gomez/Reuters) | | |
John McCain has moved his presidential campaign to Latin America to cast himself as a friend of the region and its diaspora in the United States, a key constituency that could tilt November's presidential election.
The Republican candidate arrived in Colombia yesterday for a two-day visit and will head to Mexico tomorrow in the hope of shoring up his appeal to Hispanics.
His visit will focus on trade, immigration and the "war on drugs", issues with which he hopes to outflank the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Both men have acknowledged that Washington needs to improve relations with a region vital to US interests.
After a meeting at the Colombian president's mansion in the colonial port of Cartagena, McCain said they had discussed a free trade agreement between the two countries and that he had pressed Alvaro Uribe to improve Colombia's record on human rights. "I've been a supporter of human rights for my entire life and career ... We have discussed this issue with President Uribe and will continue to urge progress in that direction. I believe progress is being made and that more progress needs to be made," McCain said.
While the Bush administration focused on Iraq, many of the countries south of the Rio Grande - once considered the US's "backyard" - have become more independent, elected leftwing governments and challenged gringo hegemony.
"US-Latin America relations are at a low point," said Michael Shifter, of the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank. "There is a big job ahead for the next US president to repair the damage."
The Arizona senator can expect a warm reception from his hosts. He has - so far unsuccessfully - championed immigration reform that could help legalise millions of Hispanic workers in the US. He has also backed the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), much cherished by Mexico, and a proposed trade agreement with Colombia.
"Senator McCain wants to demonstrate that if elected president ... they will have a respectful but experienced and focused leader in the White House," said Tucker Bounds, a campaign spokesman.
It was an attempt to send a message to Hispanic voters in the US, said Julia Sweig, director of Latin America studies at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. "They're going to be an important factor in swing states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada," she said.
The battle lines between the rival candidates will sharpen if McCain takes fresh swipes at Cuba and Venezuela, socialist allies he considers an affront to US values. Obama has advocated a less confrontational approach.
The Republican has won plaudits from conservative Cuban-American exiles by bashing President Raúl Castro and promising to maintain the four-decade-old embargo against Havana. He has also ruled out talks with Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, calling him a charlatan and a thug.
Obama, who may visit Mexico after a trip to Europe and the Middle East, has also endorsed immigration reform but promised to renegotiate Nafta to protect US jobs and opposed the pending deal with Colombia, citing human rights concerns. The positions match the Democrats' protectionist mood but roil the Mexican and Colombian governments.
On Cuba the Illinois senator has gambled by ignoring the hardline anti-Castro exiles, who often dominate Florida politics, and supporting the younger generation of exiles that wants restrictions on travel and remittances eased. He has also promised to meet Raúl Castro under the right circumstances. "Obama has crafted a position on the basis of the exiles' new demographic reality," said Sweig, who is due to publish a new book on Cuba.
The Democrat has also opened a potential channel of communication to Caracas via Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, who recently visited Chávez. "Ostensibly it was about hostages in Colombia but the agenda was much wider," said one senior European diplomat.
For many, Latin Americans policy positions matter less than the heady prospect of a dark-skinned man occupying the Oval office. It would soften the image of the US, a meddling superpower that inspires longing and loathing, an ambivalence captured in the old joke: "Gringo go home. And take me with you."
No one wants a return to the era of CIA-backed coups and rightwing dictatorships but there is, say policymakers, a yearning for a productive engagement with Washington that was sorely missed during the distracted Bush administration.
The immediate issue for McCain and Obama is wooing the estimated 17.2 million Hispanics eligible to vote. Bush won about 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, the highest ever for a Republican presidential candidate. McCain would receive 28%, according to a poll for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.
"He is banking on the assumption that Hispanics in the US will be swayed to vote one way or the other because his positions on key issues are more in line with those of most Latin American governments," said Shifter, the analyst.
But bread-and-butter domestic issues mattered more for most Hispanics, he said. "Obama's approach is likely to be more successful if he is able to convince them that he can do a better job in fixing the health and housing problems facing their community." |
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