What are your thoughts on how Obama will affect the current situation in Venezuela?
Given the recent elections and their outcome here in the U.S. are there any Venezuelan Americans that are concerned that Obama might some how exacerbate the current situation in Venezuela?
And please no hate mail or angry responses this is just a question. Please respond if you are aware of the current events in Venezuela not if your pro or against Chavez, Obama, McCain, Socialism, Capitalism etc. and your just here to state that thought alone.
Not to detract from the current reponses but I also welcome any responses from Venezuelan Americans as well.
I’m not Venezuelan, but I lived there for two years at the time of Chavez’s first electoral victory in 1998, which I thought was a victory for the masses of people (not the rich) of Venezuela. I’ve been following the political situation there as closely as I can since then.
From what I gather, Latin American leaders optimistically view Obama’s recent electoral victory, seeing it as an opportunity to establish more favorable relations with the US. Chavez contextualized Obama’s win in line with the recent victories of the left across Latin America, in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. This is, in some ways, true.
However, I do not think that Obama will seek out any sort of close relationship with any of these countries, and especailly not Chavez. He will not want to open himself to criticism of being too close to him, which would have repercussions on his 2012 re-election campaign.
Here’s a column from the Miami Herald saying much of the same thing.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/andres-oppenheimer/story/758998.html
Chavez’ problems were with Bush and Co. Not the American people. And given Chavez openly declaring that he would have no problem in dealing with Obama, what makes you think any such meeting will bring about any ‘exacerbate(ing) the current situation.
Any meeting between the two should be quite fruit full – for both sides.
( how about citing exactly what the "current situation" is in Venezuela ? if you know ?
We’re not talking about Bush anymore…
its a brand new day…
and it will be brighter than ever when Obama sits in the Oval Office.
If you don’t want Chavez to stay in power, it will be bad for you and Venezeula, if you support Chavez, than you should be happy. Especially since the democrats are against domestic drilling and want the USA to continue to depend on foreign oil, and most of what we import comes from Venezeula. A lot of people in the USA are too incompetent to understand this.