Cuban-Americans Hope Obama Will Alter Policy

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Byline: Carmen Gentile, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

MIAMI -- With the inauguration last week of Barack Obama, many Cuban- Americans are anticipating a change in policy toward their homeland that reflects the new president's campaign promises and shifting views and demographics among a once-solid Republican political bloc.

Mr. Obama won more than one-third of Florida's Cuban-American vote in November, a voter base that in the past has favored Republican presidential candidates by margins of more than 80 percent.

During months of stumping in the Sunshine State, Mr. Obama promised that as president he would drop increasingly unpopular Bush administration restrictions on travel to Cuba for Cuban-Americans and allow them to send unlimited remittances to the communist-run …