January 2026 | By Kurt Loft
I was separated from my parents during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when I was 15. I wasn’t aware of just how close we came to nuclear confrontation.
They didn’t call it Operation Pedro Pan back then (the secret exodus of 14,000 Cuban children to the U.S. in 1962), but my parents knew it was a way to get me out of the country. It was to spare children from military conscription and political indoctrination. It was scary but also an adventure.
I took a train from Sagua la Grande to Havana, and my aunt took me to this meeting. The organizers were risking their freedom doing it, and some ended up spending 20 years in jail. But Castro hadn’t completely asserted himself yet, so I was able to fly on a plane to Miami.
The Catholic Church organized things there, and they found a foster family who welcomed me as a complete stranger, and that was a beautiful thing. I thought it was temporary and that I’d go back to a normal life in Cuba, but I didn’t see my parents again for four years when I helped them get settled in America.
I always felt this country was a welcoming place for people in difficult circumstances.
I came from a country that was unstable, the rule of law nonexistent and without constitutional rights. But I believe in norms.
I thought running for mayor of Orange County was the long-and-short of my political life. Then my wife Kitty and I decided to throw my hat into the bigger ring.
When I was a courtroom lawyer, you always treated everyone with respect, and when I went to the U.S. Senate, I found a place that was collegial. I met Ted Kennedy and thought he was a delightful man, very kind. We didn’t vote the same way, but we treated each other with respect.
Civility in politics is a problem today. Hyper-partisanship has a lot to do with social media and with the anonymity that allows people to be ugly to each other in a way that isn’t real. We’re in an ugly moment in politics, but I hope we have a better moment ahead.
Politics is about not losing the goal. But it’s become too much of a performance art that isn’t concerned with outcomes. Our very divided country provides for a very divided Congress that can’t get things done as it should.
It’s important that we accept some sort of immigration reform, a system that works for our county. But it’s become more of a political football than a serious effort to manage our immigration problems.
The restaurant industry has a million vacancies right now. Somehow, these aren’t jobs Americans want, but we need a labor force. People can come here to work and help us become a better country.
People of good character make good public servants; people without it don’t. We need good people in public life, people who go into politics for the right reasons. Eisenhower once said, ‘I don’t care what the organizational chart looks like — you just put the right people in the right place, and it all begins to work.’
Overdevelopment in Florida is a tremendous danger, and we have to be cautious.
I don’t think Florida was intended to have 23 million people.
The idea of the Martinez Doctrine (in 2000) was that we won’t allow new development and homes to be constructed in Florida where schools aren’t adequate for the population. It’s not right for a school built for 300 students to have 550. But it invited a conversation between developers, school boards and counties, and that’s how problems got solved.
The lessons from my career have taught me a lot, including the importance of faith, self-reliance and education. Nothing is more important than giving our children a chance to have an education. It’s fundamental.
Family life is a wonderful outlet for stress. My wife and I would always plan things every week to keep a semblance of a family life to counter all the madness I was involved in through my career.
I love Cuban food, but Orlando is in a black hole when it comes to it. Tampa and Miami have great Cuban restaurants, and there’s a lot more than just the Columbia.
I’ve been around boats all my life. The wonderful thing about living in Florida is you get out on the water, and you don’t think about any of that other stuff in your life.