El Comandante is gone. At least that's what he said — or, more accurately, wrote. After almost 50 years of limelight-hogging narcissism, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro announced his retirement in a brief written statement published below the fold in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party's daily newspaper. It seemed almost surreal and did nothing to abate the long string of proposed conspiracy theories that the Bearded One has actually been dead for months; he has, in any case, made no public appearance in more than a year and a half.

Last week, across the country and indeed the world, news of the ascension of Fidel's brother, Raul, was greeted with headlines reading something like "Cautious optimism" and followed by stories that referred to a Raul Castro who, more pragmatic than charismatic firebrand Fidel, would institute long-awaited reforms on the island. Hell, that story line spilled over from nearly all the major media to the U.S. presidential campaigns.

"The new leadership in Cuba will face a stark choice; continue with the failed policies of the past that have stifled democratic freedoms and stunted economic growth or take a historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations," read the statement from Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, opened his statement with, "Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history."

On the other side of the aisle, Republican presidential nominee (yeah, yeah, I know — he's not officially it yet, but let's be real) Sen. John McCain's statement read in part, "Cuba's transition to democracy is inevitable; it is a matter of when, not if. With the resignation of Fidel Castro, the Cuban people have an opportunity to move forward and continue pushing for the moment that they will truly be free."

But here in South Florida, the mood was more pessimistic. There were no sudden street celebrations and Castro death-watch parties like those that had greeted the news of Raul's then-temporary takeover in 2006. Val Prieto, founder and editor of popular anti-Castro blog Babalú (Babalublog.com), voiced a typical reaction to the news. "Those that say Raul is a reformer don't know the man. He was trained by the KGB and the Stasi. He's even more brutal than his brother," Prieto says, sounding far calmer over the phone than in the brash, bravado-laden language of his blog. "Perhaps he realizes he doesn't have the charisma that his brother does, and so he may have to institute changes. … But I don't think the guy is going to do anything. As long as there is a Castro in power in Cuba, there is no freedom."

Despite being, at 43 years old, only half the age of many surviving members of the first wave of Cuban exiles, Prieto, in his writings, is reflective of the view of American politics that has come to be seen as stereotypical of the older Cuban community — that is, a distrust of the left has made even the mushy-middle, center-left Democrats complete anathemas. But even among the younger crowd, which conventional wisdom suggests is more-open to lifting travel restrictions to the island and loosening the embargo in other significant ways, news of Raul's takeover was greeted with a similar response.

Half the members of the overtly political Miami-based punk-rock outfit Güajiro (Guajiromusic.com) are Cuban American. Politically, singer Will Lopez and bassist Jorges Gonzalez Graupera share only a loathing of Castro with Prieto; one of Güajiro's songs boasts the line, in Spanish, "Your large beard of pubic hair/Doesn't hide the truth." But they also share a similar outlook on Cuba's future.

"I guess it was inevitable," Graupera says of Castro's stepping down. "I don't think, ideologically, it's going to change much. A lot of people aren't really riled up here [in Miami], and I don't think, politically, anything's gonna change. I don't really think too much of it."

"What we've been doing hasn't been working," Lopez adds, referencing the embargo and American policy toward the island. "Castro hasn't really been at the helm, so hopefully this will open the door for some reform and some change. Hopefully we can realize that what we're doing isn't working and what they're doing isn't, either. Both sides need to rethink what they're doing.

"Besides," he adds with a laugh, "we get a lot of great feedback from underground Web sites there. So just for purely selfish reasons, I'd love to have everything cleared up over there just so we could go there and play."

Despite Graupera and Lopez's belief in the wrongheadedness of the American embargo and Prieto's fiery insistence on struggling against the regime until a bitter end — "some people say [transition in Cuba] is going to be peaceful; some people say it's going to be bloody " he says, adding, "I agree with the latter" — they all seem to agree that, with

Raul at the helm, the new boss is the same as the old boss.

"I think [the Cuban Revolution] is almost like a person that has cancer, and you have time to adjust to them dying, unlike, say, if they die in a car accident and it's sudden," Graupera explains. "It's going to go little by little. But for now, Castro's officially been out of power for, what, a week? And for a long time before that, unofficially. So, for now, this doesn't change much."

"You can't have a copy of the U.N.'s declaration of human rights in Cuba," Prieto says, his voice finally rising, quickening and taking on that Babalú tone of rage. "You can get thrown in jail for cooking a chicken. … What will change? Nothing. There are still prisoners of conscience in Cuba. There is still apartheid in Cuba. … Well, I'm free to voice my opinion here, in this country, goddamn it, and I'm gonna go voice it."

Envíe las amenazas de la muerte a Dan Sweeney at dfsweeney@citylinkmagazine.com.