By Ana Menendez | Miami Herald

The candidate did not wear a guayabera. He did not endlessly stroke the Cuban ego. And he did not pretend to know everything.

Barack Obama stood Friday beneath the banner of the Cuban American National Foundation and delivered an address notable not just for what it contained, but for what it did not.

''I won't pretend to know everything about Cuba,'' Obama said at the beginning of a speech that touched on the island and the United States' policy throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Later, with a smile, he added: ``The easy thing to do for an American politician is to come down to Miami, talk tough and go back to Washington and nothing changes.''

In a town where political flattery is cheaper than a Versailles cafecito, Obama refused to indulge in the old platitudes.

His speech — delivered to a cross-section of the supportive, the skeptical and the plain curious — broke the pattern of condescension that has defined so many of these events in the past.

Read the full story at MiamiHerald.com.

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