JVLV: HOW WILL PUTIN “VOTE” IN AMERICA´S 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION? MARCO´S PASSION VS HILLARY’S POTEMKIN ROLLOUT, By Jiri & Leni Valenta, 4/17/15
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has just declared his readiness to mend his ties to the West as long as Moscow is not treated as a “vassal.” Why now? Likely because the Obama era of “strategic patience” is nearing its end. The presidential primaries will be soon upon us.
Like his predecessors, Putin views U.S. elections as important phenomena; something we learned from the late Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Moreover as I demonstrated years earlier in an Orbis essay, the Kremlin analyzes our primaries, and also “votes” in our general elections. At times it has engaged in diplomatic initiatives and October surprises trying to manipulate elections to Russia´s advantage. Putin will doubtless “vote” in 2016 too.
He may also have noticed Marco Rubio, 43, who just declared his presidential candidacy. Rubio´s message of a generational issue – that Hillary is “yesterday” and new approaches are needed in the 21st century, is gaining ground. The descendants of refugees from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Eastern Europe Jewry, but also the many Anglos, who attended his roll-out were not a pre-selected audience. They were genuinely inspired by Marco´s passionate words about his debt to America and his country´s needed renewal. Many also appreciate the multiple national security challenges we face at the present time.
The setting Rubio chose for his speech was symbolic, Miami´s Freedom Tower, long the “Ellis Island of the south” for Cuban refugees from the Castro brothers’ dictatorship. What a contrast to Hillary! An escapee from Benghazi-gate, e-mailgate, Fostergate and inquisitive reporters, she made her own announcement riding in her Scooby Doo van during her Odyssey through America´s heartland. That was when she wasn’t eating burritos with Potemkin “real Americans” at Chipotles, reported to be well-vetted, Democratic operatives.
Freedom Tower was restored in 1997 by my friend, the late Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation [CANF]. Jorge and his assistant, Rene Silva, introduced me to Marco many years ago. I was impressed with him. Vladimir likely will be too if Marco is elected. Like Vladimir himself, Marco is a self-made man, the son of Cuban immigrants, a bartender and a maid. He looks younger than his 43 years, but he is not naïve. Conservative yet flexible, he is quick, sharp, likable, workaholic, and steeped in foreign affairs. Above all he is a family man and deeply patriotic. If he is elected there won´t be a “reset” button with Russia, nor hesitation about arms to the Ukraine, nor will he tolerate Kremlin incursions into the Baltics. Neither will he be easily bluffed. If Putin tests him as Khrushchev did Jack Kennedy in Cuba in 1962, Rubio will pass the test.
Rubio´s home base is Miami, a city the Russians discovered during Boris Yeltsin´s 1989 visit tomy former Institute of Soviet and East European Studies [ISEES]. We organized what became known as the Moscow-Miami Dialogue with my Russian counterpart, Andrey Kortunov, today the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) in Moscow. With the help of Cuban American leaders like Jorge and Feliciano Foyo, as well as Jewish American leaders like Abel Holtz and Sanford Ziff, we opened the most anti-communist city in the nation to dialogue with Russian politicians, educators, journalists and businessmen.
When I met Rubio many years ago, I remember joking with him, that maybe he should change his name to Rubin to get even more votes. He laughed. “Good idea.” However, the mutual support of Cuban-American and Jewish-American groups in Miami and nationwide is no joke. These groups are still important in presidential elections and the Cubans, as Jorge, a former honorary consul of Israel, repeatedly explained, learned much about lobbying from the Jews .
Meanwhile, Miami itself has grown in importance. Small wonder we now have the unprecedented situation of two formidable national candidates for president, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, from this one city. Both men can also make their case to Hispanic voters nationwide in fluent Spanish.
Like Jorge and Foyo, and most Cuban-Americans, Rubio is a staunch supporter of Israel, a country with which Putin is friendly, while our own president engages in unbecoming attacks on their prime minister. What is not yet well known, however, is that Hillary, in her turbulent past, has been a staunch friend of the PLO. Bestselling New York Times Reporter Christopher Andersen, revealed this in his book, American Evita, Hillary Clinton´s Path to Power. Anderson also, reveals that she not only long favored the PLO, but contributed to organizations that supported them. Moreover, during her Senate campaign, “pains would be taken to downplay the fact that Yassir Arafat had been invited to the Clinton White House more than any other world leader.”
Perhaps Hillary would say, “What difference does it make now?” But to Jewish voters, it does. Normally 77% vote Democratic. Polls show it’s down to around 50% now, not only because of Obama but also due to veiled anti-Israel policies that originated with Hilary and Kerry. You have to give it to Putin that unlike the Soviet leaders of the past, he neither supports PLO terrorism, nor is he anti-Semitic.
It may surprise some that during the Soviet era, the Russians ceased to favor the liberal Democrats and began to lean towards conservative Republicans. True, in 1968, they offered money to help finance the campaign of Democratic Party candidate Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey wisely refused. But thereafter the Russians came to the conclusion that Humphrey´s opponent, Nixon, was a better choice. The feared Cold Warrior and anti-communist, Nixon developed a remarkable personal relationship with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and concluded SALT I with him. Once considered a warmonger by the Russians, Ronald Reagan eventually developed a good relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev, resulting in the INF treaty and cooperation in resolving regional conflicts.
As a Cuban American, Rubio has already been doing what neither Democrats nor Republicans have done so far – looking carefully at the ties of Russia with dictatorships in our backyard. It does not escape him that China and Russia show interest in helping to kick off the building in Nicaragua of a rival to the Panama Canal. Naturally, Rubio is also cognizant that Russian intelligence ships have been visiting Cuba and Venezuela, and that Russia is bolstering the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan militaries.
As the senator who led the sanctions against the erratic, revolutionary Maduro regime of Venezuela, Rubio is also aware that the U.S. rapprochement with Cuba came on the heels of a Venezuelan oil crisis. Clearly, since Venezuela is Cuba´s oil supplier, the U.S. could have gotten a much better deal than Obama did. Rubio has also been quite articulate about his opposition to the deal in the absence of Cuban concessions on human rights for dissidents and Cuba’s harboring of Basque, Fatherland and Liberty [ETA] terrorists and Columbia´s FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia]. Meanwhile Cuba has been taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Follies are bipartisan. George Bush and Condi Rice made the same mistake with North Korea in 2008.
Obama has succeeded in neutralizing Senator Bob Menendez (D) New Jersey, the Senate´s main critic of both Obama´s opening to Cuba, but even more, the nuclear deal with Iran. The corruption charges against him, still unproven, were perfectly timed. We predict that Rubio´s role will consequently be enhanced in the future debates on these important issues
Hillary is a Potemkin-like, opportunistic leader. Moreover, the string of scandals that trail behind her indicate she might not be able to pay full attention to the enormity of the challenges she would face as president. No matter that this candidate is facing charges of unethical or even criminal behavior, for those wedded to “continuity,” she is primarily supported by the usual suspects, the old advisors and foreign policy experts power-hungry to get back to senior and middle level jobs in a new Clinton administration.
Whatever you may think of Putin, knowing his determination and deeply rooted patriotism, it is hard to imagine he would leave three security men and an ambassador at the site of a terrorist attack without trying to rescue them and punishing their killers. Or to prevaricate to the mother of one of them that the deaths were due to a video. This would be totally out of the Russian character. In fact it used to be totally out of the American character.
On balance, Putin may eventually determine that it would be better to “vote” for someone like Rubio, or if he is not the choice, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. As with Nixon or Reagan earlier, the Russian president might eventually find more in common with yet another conservative and hard line GOP candidate despite the latter’s replacement of “strategic patience” with strategic courage. However, it won´t be easy to work things out with Russia no matter who is in the White House, until Putin ends his persistent myth that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine, or aims for another ambiguous Minsk agreement.
Is Vladimir, like Leonid and Mikhail earlier, getting ready to “vote” Republican?
Jvlv.net @JiriLeniValenta
For background see Jiri Valenta and John Cunningham, “How Moscow Votes in Presidential Elections,” Orbis, vol. 33 issue 31, winter 1989, pp. 3-20. Jiri Valenta wishes to give credit to the former editor in chief of Orbis, Daniel Pipes, for inspiration.
President of the Institute of Post-Communist Studies and Terrorism
Blog: US, Russia and China: Coping with Rogue States and Terrorists Groups
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