By Tom Raum, .c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON, 19 (AP) - Four decades after he seized power, Fidel Castro continues to loom large in American politics as a nemesis for all seasons and to both parties.
Why does this aging leader of an impoverished island nation, isolated from the rest of the hemisphere and long ago abandoned by his Moscow benefactors still command so much attention from U.S. policy-makers?
A trade embargo has stood fast through nine American presidencies - even as the United States has moved in recent years to trade with communist-ruled China and Vietnam and to try to forge ties with North Korea.
``We are driven by the electoral votes coming out of the state of Florida, and that goes unchallenged,'' said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who has waged a long and still-uphill battle for normalizing relations with Havana.
And, Rangel added, ``Castro is the only communist dictator in the Western Hemisphere.''
The riveting drama over custody of Elian Gonzalez could place another obstacle to efforts by those like Rangel and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who want to ease the embargo.
Elian, 6, was rescued at sea Nov. 25 after his mother drowned trying to reach the United States.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has ordered him home to his father in Cuba. President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno have supported the INS ruling, but it is presently being challenged in federal court by the boy's Cuban-American relatives in Florida.
If anything, the controversy seems to have hardened political animosity toward Castro after a period that appeared to be moving toward a slight thaw - with baseball team exchanges, a limited increase in travel and the easing of restrictions on humanitarian aid.
Now, one of the first things Congress will take up when it returns next week is legislation - both in the House and the Senate - to automatically grant Elian U.S. citizenship.
That would block the INS from being able to deport him.
The citizenship bill has strong backing from Florida's congressional delegation, and from Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., authors of a 1996 law that tightened the embargo.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., has signed on as a cosponsor of the bill; and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., expressed support for the move.
Not only have all the Republican presidential candidates criticized the INS ruling, but the two Democratic candidates are now agreeing that the boy's father should come to the United States to seek Elian's custody.
``I think we should remember and honor the fact that this child's mother lost her life, sacrificing her life in order to try to get her child freedom,'' Vice President Al Gore said in Monday's Democratic debate in Iowa.
Echoed rival Bill Bradley: ``The best answer would be for his father and Elian to be in the United States.''
Gore earlier said the issue should be decided by the courts, while Bradley had said he wouldn't ``second guess'' the INS.
``I'm a little disappointed in Gore and Bradley,'' said fellow Democrat Rangel. ``It is so inconsistent for them to support wanting to keep the Cuban kid here when it would never enter their minds to do the same for a kid from China or North Korea.''
Business leaders, farmers and tourist organizations continue to push for an easing of the embargo that was first imposed when Dwight Eisenhower was president in 1960.
Craig Johnstone, a former senior State Department official who now heads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's international division, said the Elian drama ``makes it harder for people to take an informed and rational position'' on the Cuba trade issue.
``There are two losers out of the embargo process: the American people and the Cuban people,'' he said in an interview.
Johnstone said that some opening with Cuba seems inevitable, but added: ``What is not inevitable is the timing.''
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who like many farm-state senators opposes keeping the embargo, said that while Castro ``is no friend to freedom,'' current U.S. policy is a relic of the past - and has done nothing to displace Castro.
``We close our eyes to the fact that the world has changed,'' Hagel said.
EDITORS NOTE - Tom Raum covers national and international affairs for The Associated Press.
AP-NY-01-19-00 0247EST
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