THE CUBA QUESTION. One final debate note. A political practioner friend who's no Hillary Clinton shill pointed out something very interesting in Barack Obama's debate answer on meeting with anathema regimes .

Hillary nailed him...for a...reason, subsumed within the larger distinction between their answers: The Cuba issue. It would be bracing if a Democratic candidate coherently and bravely made the case to change our irrational policy toward Cuba. But that's not what Obama was doing -- he just checked off a list of authoritarian leaders and said, "Sure, I'd be willing to talk to these guys." He barely noticed that one's opinion about one of these "guys" can decide a presidential election. If a Dem candidate could shave the GOP Cuban American edge from 80-20 to 60-40, they wouldn't have to worry about Ohio because they'd win Florida.

So the political trouble with Obama's answer is that every Cuban is South Florida heard it (still 9% of the electorate in Florida). Note that Hillary specifically named Castro among the people she would NOT be willing to talk to unless a lot of things changed -- that was soley directed toward Little Havana and nowhere else. The move of an experienced, cynical pol -- Obama looked like a naif.

I still think Obama connected best during last night's debate, but sometimes the ability to connect emotionally only gets you so far.

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has more on the local media reaction in Florida, where The Miami Herald ran with the headline "Obama, Edwards say they would meet with Castro, Chávez" for the story on their debate remarks on "two leaders who top South Florida's most-hated list."

--Garance Franke-Ruta