The Havana primaries

NEITHER Ted Cruz nor Marco Rubio fared as well in the hills of New Hampshire on February 9th as they did in the plains of Iowa a week earlier. Even so, the two Republicans (pictured) are both closer to winning the White House than any Cuban-American has come before. You might expect the citizens of the country from which their parents emigrated to take an interest in their political fortunes, and they do. But it is not a friendly one. “I’d rather vote for Donald Trump,” harrumphs a professor in Vedado, part of Havana.

To judge from informal conversations and press chatter (nobody is systematically canvassing opinion) Cubans are underwhelmed by the prospect of a Cuban-American president. A big part of the reason is that both Mr Cruz and Mr Rubio are hardliners on the subject of Cuba, the traditional stance of émigrés and their families. Mr Rubio, who is the better known because he is a senator from nearby Florida, would roll back the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States initiated by the countries’ presidents in 2014. He has threatened to put Cuba back on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Mr Cruz is no friendlier to the new policy. The Obama administration is “being played by brutal dictators”, among them Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, he thunders.