The US Mid-Terms & Cuba Conference

I have to admit, when I was younger (so much younger than today), the idea of appearing on a panel in Cuba at a conference meant to allow Cubans and Americans to exchange ideas would never had occurred to me.  That I would do it twice is beyond comprehension.

The conference's title translates loosely to "The Relations of Cuba and the United States: the Election of the Mid-term Elections of the Administration of Donald Trump."  I was on the opening panel, after a welcoming introduction and then a polemic speech by the Director General for the US from the Ministry of External Relations.

Our panel started late, but zipped along.  Introduced as "Professor" by the moderator, Charlie Cook went first, followed by an actual professor, James Thurber.  A Cuban professor went third, so I batted clean-up.  By that point, I had made two decisions.  

First, I was not just going to repeat what Charlie and Jim had already said.  Fortunately, I had enough to say that I was able to avoid a lot of repeating.  Second, I was not going to try spend one breath on analyzing the impact of the mid-terms on US-Cuba relations.  I know my wheelhouse, and foreign relations ain't in it.

Two years ago I had, with Dem pollster Paul Maslin, presented the results of a survey we had conducted on US-Cuba relations, but this time I had not done any recent data on Cuba.  

I was also introduced as "Professor" which is nice but not true.  I am open to any university that wants to grant me an honorary degree however.  I will wait by my phone for the offers to pour in.

The presentation went fine, and then we took questions.  This was the first time all questions were asked first, and then the panelists were asked to comment after all questions were asked.  None of us commented on all, of course, but it was a weird flow.

After the panel, Carol and I headed back to the hotel, catching a Lada taxi -- a Russian made car that's way too small for people over about five feet tall.  It's not a long ride back, but I did note to Carol the Lada is another example of why the US won the Cold War.