WASHINGTON -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart is reviewing the paperwork a staffer has put before him, but his mind is elsewhere -- on a conversation he wishes he could have with his late father.

''I wish my dad were still alive,'' he muses, reflecting on the passion for history and politics instilled in him by Rafael Diaz-Balart, the charismatic patriarch and Cuban legislator.

For Lincoln Diaz-Balart, 54, a Cuban-born child of exiles, his future and present are almost always entwined with the past. A dedicated patron of the Library of Congress, he is rarely without a stack of historical and political biographies on his desk. It sharpens and informs his decision-making, he says.

''We've all got to have a hobby, no?'' he says.

But his emphasis on history goes to the heart of criticism against him: that he is wed to the past, in particular to Cuba. When Congressional Quarterly, a publication that covers Capitol Hill, named Diaz-Balart one of the 50 most effective members of Congress in 1999, it nevertheless called him a ''niche player,'' noting that ''to his colleagues and constituents, he is known, first and foremost, for his crusade against Castro's Cuba.'' Critics say little has changed nearly a decade later.

At times, the crusade is explosive. In 1995, Diaz-Balart was arrested outside the White House while protesting President Bill Clinton's Cuba policy. Just a year after his 1992 election to Congress, he took retribution on a lawmaker who had cut Radio and TV Marti's budget. Diaz-Balart slashed millions more from a project in the Colorado lawmaker's district.

Now, facing the first real challenge to his seat from a populist Democrat who says today's voters are more worried about home foreclosures than Cuba policy, Diaz-Balart is campaigning aggressively and raising more money than ever.

As of Aug. 6, he had raised $1.7 million, about a quarter of it from law firms, real-estate interests and political action committees with interests in foreign and defense policy, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in Washington.

Yet, even some Republicans in his district say Diaz-Balart remains a bit of a mystery.

''Most people don't know what it is he's been doing all the time he's been up there,'' said Robert Bueso, a Republican and treasurer of the East Kendall Homeowners Organization. ``We do know his opinion on Cuba.''

`AN INSULT'

Diaz-Balart's focus has prompted accusations that, as the premier defender of U.S.-Cuba policy, he views his seat in Congress as a stepping stone to the job he really wants: president of Cuba.

Diaz-Balart, who wears a wrist bracelet with the word cambio -- change -- to show solidarity with Cuban dissidents, finds the assertion offensive.

''That's an insult to those who today are in Fidel Castro's dungeons,'' said Diaz-Balart, whose aunt was once married to Castro. ``Those are the heroes of Cuba. Those who have given their freedom, their blood, they are the ones who have earned the presidency.''

The race and its potential to change the tenor of U.S.-Cuba relations is drawing national attention, and Diaz-Balart is seeking to broaden his appeal. When interviewers ask about his proudest accomplishment, he doesn't start with his role in seeing that the U.S. embargo against Cuba was enshrined into law.

Instead, he touts a 1997 law that prevented an estimated 150,000 Nicaraguans from being deported. A photograph on the credenza in his office bears witness: the lanky congressman greeted as a hero in Miami by a cheering Nicaraguan crowd.

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