With the Cuban Communist Party Conference, the first of its kind, held in order to maintain steady progress on economic reforms laid out by the 6^th  Party Congress last April, now concluded, and with the Republican primary battle in full promise-the-moon mode this last week, it’s clear that both in Cuba and the United States, some things remain painfully slow to change.

While significant economic reforms have gained momentum on the island for the last year or so, issues we might consider more political – such as migration reform or legalization of multiple political parties – aren’t on the immediate horizon.  Raul Castro called for greater accountability in the media and "democracy" in government decision-making.  Though Castro himself has pointed to the need for migration reforms, so that Cubans who work abroad aren’t forced to leave the country and their possessions permanently, for instance, he told Parliament in December that he considers it a complicated and delicate issue, one which (shocker alert) is inextricably linked to the longstanding U.S. embargo of Cuba.  This weekend he dispelled any notions that Cuba will turn away from a one-party model of government.  Why?  Because to do so would be “to legalize the party or parties of the [U.S.] empire.”  In one respect, of course he’s right – it would be hard to stop Cuban exiles from pouring money into and trying to shape the agendas of newly legalized political parties on the island.  But despite the obvious counter-productivity and “meddlesome”-ness of U.S. policy, it cannot always be the reason why Cuba’s leaders refuse to take a given course.  Just as the U.S. must not wait for Cuba to adopt policies we think it ought to, Cuba should not wait for the U.S. to suddenly offer a “new beginning” with Cuba.

Of course, that is the change that President Obama promised nearly three years ago – a “new beginning” with Cuba.  On the campaign trail, he sniffed at the Bush administration’s tough-talking pandering to the hard line segment of the Cuban American community, which in truth accomplished nothing, neither its swaggering determination to bring about the Castros’ demise, nor any improvement in conditions for Cubans.  The Obama administration did make a number of tactical changes to the policy, including expansions of travel for certain sectors, notably for Cuban Americans his campaign surely hoped would return the favor in 2012.  But none of these limited changes broke any truly new ground (with the exception of allowing additional airports to serve licensed travelers), and in fact, its refusal to fully reform the controversial USAID or Radio and TV Marti programs it inherited from the Bush administration signaled it wasn’t so comfortable with change after all.

Meanwhile, this week the Republican presidential hopefuls – minus Rep. Ron Paul - pedaled furiously backward into Florida, land of the hard line Cuban exile (and a few other voters).  Newt Gingrich, who had previously declined to reverse President Obama’s travel reforms, changed his tune.  Mitt Romney has been careful not to call out “Patria o Muerte, venceremos!” this time around, with prominent exile politicians Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers standing, literally, behind him, he won't make that mistake twice.  And both candidates signed up for a laundry list (here's Romney's) of exile wishes that might as well date back to the Cuban Revolution, like enforcing Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act (it would allow people who weren’t American citizens at the time the Cuban government expropriated their properties to bring suits in U.S. courts, and that’s why no president has yet to implement it), fighting Cuba’s “information blockade” by funding radio, tv and social media programming (that never reaches the vast majority of the Cuban people), and funding democracy promotion (which is to say, more of the same unsuccessful USAID efforts in Cuba).  Also, Mitt Romney will “demand” the release of Alan Gross, the American USAID sub-contractor convicted of crimes against the Cuban state.  Someone ought to tell him that the Obama administration has done that for two years and it hasn’t exactly worked. 

None of these proposals are new or interesting.  None will bring about any outcome other than what we’ve got right now.  One wishes that either President Obama or the potential Republican nominees would show a bit of imagination, a smidge of courage.   Maybe one of them could propose to allow all Americans to travel freely to the island or to end the policy that welcomes illegal Cuban migrants to our shores, which could appeal to libertarians and immigration hard-liners, respectively, and, both of which could place severe pressure on the Cuban government if we must still cling to the decades-old, tried-and-untrue belief that that Castros will fall to the right (our) pressure. 

And what if Cuba lifted its own travel controls – making the U.S. the only one of our two countries inhibiting its citizens’ travels?  Or what if Cuba released Alan Gross on humanitarian grounds - unilaterally?  These measures taken on either side of the straits could bring real change to the relationship.  But though both sides claim to want it, neither Cuba’s leaders nor U.S. politicians seem ready for real change yet.