Well I’m sure you are all just dying to know who is advising each of the candidates on how to deal with that muddled country area known as Latinoamérica, which, like Arabia–the country next to Caucasia–is just one big brown mess.
Here at the Coconut Caucus, we have the breakdown for you! From Panamanians to blonds to black men, they all turn to a team of semi-brown people for help. Some boring, some known, some unknown, here they are, in no particular order:
Some of Obama’s key Latin America policy advisors also come from the Clinton administration ranks,(ed. note: ouch, Hilaria) including Anthony Lake, Clinton’s former National Security Advisor, according to campaign insiders. The director of the State Department’s policy planning staff during the Carter administration, Lake authored a book critical of U.S. actions in Central America, Somoza Falling.
Clinton’s Latin American team includes Arturo Valenzuela, a Georgetown University professor and former senior director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere in the Clinton White House. People familiar with his work say Valenzuela adheres to the Democratic mainstream, like conditioning free trade deals to higher labor standards.
Also listed: Thomas ”Mack” McLarty, a former special envoy to the region and a pro-NAFTA Democrat. Another centrist Democrat listed is Peter Romero, a former top State Department diplomat to the region.
The team also includes several former U.S. ambassadors in Latin America — Donna Hrinak (Brazil and Venezuela), James Jones (Mexico), Luis Lauredo (Organization of American States) and Charles Manatt (Dominican Republic) — and Dan Erikson, a young Cuba and Caribbean specialist with Inter-American Dialogue.
The group is coordinated by Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations who last year penned a paper suggesting “an overhaul of U.S. policy may well relax the siege mentality that keeps Cuba’s own reforms muzzled — and recast U.S.-Cuba relations in a more normal light.”
Sweig’s writings don’t worry anti-Castro lobbyists (ed note: aka la Hilaria is going after the FL vote!!).
And now, surprise surprise! Guess which dynamic duo plus small wonder will advice our favorite Panamanian?
Sen. John McCain has skipped assembling a full-scale Latin American group for now but his website lists among his advisors the three Miami Republicans in Congress — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz Balart.
Our power trio is definitely the bastion of the immigrant experience. Who needs other Latinos when you have Cubans?
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Themocracy