“[Wasserman Schultz] wields great credibility amongst the Cuban-American community. She’s an honorary Cuban-American. If she were the one running for president, she would do extraordinarily well in our community,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee. “However, the president’s policies of easing sanctions and unilateral concessions to the Castro regime are likely to be judged on their own.”

Claver-Carone, a former Treasury Department attorney, said Wasserman Schultz’s new prominence within the Democratic Party “certainly provides the Cuban-American community comfort.” But he was quick to predict that neither her popularity nor her new role as presidential promoter will temper the suspicions of Cuban-American voters toward Obama’s Cuba positions.

“Obama’s policies of unilaterally lifting sanctions is already spilled milk that’s tough to put back into the glass,” Claver-Carone wrote in an email.