A bitter (no pun intended) irony unfolded this morning when I got an e-mail from my cousin down in Sant'Agnello, Italy, near Naples and Sorrento, where she has been living for the past five years and where I had hoped to escape in exile should McCain win in November.
She gives me bad bad news; Well it turns out the Italian people, by a wide margin, made Italy a little less desirable for me.
More on the flip
After throwing out the power-obsessed, dictatorial, narcissistic, Mussolini-wannabe Silvio Berlusconi in favor of a more left-wing government, Italy's Bush has returned. The margin 48%-38% wasn't even close;
Media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi won a decisive victory Monday in Italy's parliamentary election, setting the colorful conservative and staunch U.S. ally on course to his third stint as premier.
The victory in voting Sunday and Monday by parties supporting the 71-year-old Berlusconi avenged his loss two years ago to a center-left coalition.
Berlusconi is a dangerous man. I mean picture Rupert Murdoch as President of the United States...THAT is what Italy is dealing with.
While I would blame the stupidity of the Italian people. (where are the headlines that scream "How could 14 million people be THIS stupid?"). The truth is the government of Romano Prodi completely flopped. After spending sometime in my adoptive second homeland last summer, I discovered that while Italians had a bitter (again, no pun intended) taste in their mouths after years of neofascist Forza Italia Berlusconi rule, they were saddened and disheartened to discover the Olive Tree Prodi coalition was inept and not able to govern effectively. Prodi proved just as unpopular as his predecessor. Just as shocking, despite the unpopularity of Berlusconi, Prodi's coalition only narrowly won the 2006 elections...so narrow in fact many in Italy referred to the election as "Italy's Florida 2000"
Berlusconi capitalized on discontent over Italy's stagnating economy and the unpopularity of Romano Prodi's government
What's more disheartening is Walter Veltroni, the liberal candidate seeking to replace Prodi, linked his campaign to Barack Obama's (Obama is REALLY popular in Italy btw). His campaign slogan was "Si può fare" translated to English; Yes We Can (literally It Can Be Done)
How can Italy's Obama lose?
Well in my analysis there are two connections one can make here. Was Veltroni's Italy's Obama, the left-wing candidate running in a historically right-wing country many perceived as being receptive to left-wing policies? or was he Italy's McCain, a strong candidate (he was Mayor of Rome) for his party saddled by being a member of the unpopular party in power
Who knows, maybe I'm looking too far into this, but an interesting fact is that three of Europe's major powers; France, Italy and Germany, currently are governed by right-wing governments. With left-wing governments in the UK and Spain teetering on the cliff, it seems, at the moment, the hope for a left-wing world lies with us.
Perhaps I need to rethink my relocation to Italy's Sorrentine Peninsula should we lose in November.
Oh hell, who am I kidding, have you ever been there? How can someone NOT want to live there?