Obama works the sizable crowd. Photo by Larry Thorson

Barack Obama’s got a lotta nerve. Really. I mean, how dare he set foot on the very Little Havana stage Ronald Reagan once used to swoon my old guard Cuban-American pals and call for a complete change in the way we deal with Cuba? And to stump in front of a mammoth American flag, à la Springsteen when he was Born in the U.S.A.? Nerve, man, nothing but nerve.

Never mind the mad fact that he had his minions assemble the largest and most ethnically diverse crowd thus far seen in South Florida presidential rallying.

Next thing you know, the South Side irregular will insist America’s ready to have a black man occupy the Oval Office.

Oh wait, he’s already done that. And if the reaction to last weekend’s Miami marauding is any indication, there’s more than a small gaggle of good folks who actually believe he’s gonna do it too.

Someday be president, that is.

Why wouldn’t they wanna believe that? After eight years of going to hell in a cabal-held handbasket, it’s gotta be kinda refreshing to hear the future might be held in your very own hands.

Or at least in the hands of someone who washes.

Yep, Obama came to town last week and left this city awash in audacity — the audacity of hope.

In advance of his landing, the Miami Herald ran an editorial in which the gentleman called for an overhaul of the way we do business with Cuba. Oh, Obama didn’t suggest we lift the trade embargo and do actual business with the island — not yet, anyway — but he did propose granting unlimited travel between our two countries for those with relatives still left behind. He also recommended we remove the cap on monies a family can send down to their kin. His reasoning? The more they get from elsewhere, the less they’ll have to rely on the regime.

The notion seems sound. It seems even sounder when you consider that America has been toeing the same hard line for 50 years without any real success whatsoever.

Back in ’04 Bush placed restrictions that cut travel to once every three years (where it had been annually) and remittance to $300 per household every quarter (whereas it had been three grand). It was a kow-tow. And, like most of what the Younger has done, it didn’t do a bit of good.

Onstage at the fabled Miami-Dade County Auditorium, Obama told the tear-down house of nearly 2,000 that he’d reverse that reduction.

“Just 90 miles from here there is a country where justice and freedom are out of reach,” said the senator. “That’s why my policy toward Cuba will be guided by one word: liberty.”

Even Joe Garcia, current chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Committee and former head of the Cuban American National Foundation, seemed swayed. As he told the AP’s Laura Wides-Munoz: “[Obama’s plan] shows courage, and it shows commitment to move beyond the status-quo politics of rhetoric, which is all the Cuban-American community has received from any party for the last half-century.”

Of course if a candidate without the charisma of Obama rode into town with such high-falutin’ notions, he’d quickly be ridden right back out — on rails. But this is Barack, who steeps his stump in such resounding smoothness you don’t even notice the utter chutzpah behind his platform.

A black cat coming to Miami and leading us to believe a change is gonna come?

That’s nerve, baby. Dig it.

Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com. Hood is online at letters@miamisunpost.com.

Wanna hear more? Univision and the University of Miami are hosting a Democratic Presidential Forum on Sunday, Sept. 9 in the UM’s BankUnited Center. Appearing will be (in alphabetical order) Sens. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson. Be there, or be unaware. Visit www6.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/1,1770,2593-1;56927-3,00.html.