McCain, Obama ...and Beppe Grillo!

In love and in war everything is allowed. Is this “rule” be applied in an electoral campaign too? Sometimes…
Reading newspapers these days I’ve noticed that politicians say and do whatever they can say or do to prompt electors (see the two signature tunes of the two main parties in Italy!). In order to gain a vote everything is used as a proof for this or that idea, sometimes the same fact can confirm two different thesis!! But that’s politics!

In the New York Times there’s a good example of that. (Read article). The fact relates to Iraq, where a fighting broke out last week as Iraqi security forces tried to expel Shiite militias from Barsa. This occurrence was used by McCain to strengthen his opinion according to which the “troop escalation is working”(Friess and Powell, NYT). But Obama said exactly the opposit! To him is the fighting in Basra an "evidence that the American troop buildup has failed to provide stability and political reconciliation" (Friess and Powell, NYT). Who's right?

In foreign newspapers still nobody cares about Italian elections (but there are a lot of Italians that do the same!). But I found an old article in Die Zeit about Beppe Grillo who gave a performance in German (with two simultaneous interpreters) describing Italy the way he usually uses here, and it was a great success!...I don't think that it would be the same success if a German comic actor would do such a performance (in German with interpreters) in Italy!

Newspapers!!!

What a mess this task! I had some difficulty in finding some newspaper articles about the electoral campaign dealing with the same topic. For this reason I focused my attention on the way in which some newspapers treat the political campaign. I made a comparison between USA and Italy and then I looked at a third source, two German newspapers.

These are my considerations:
There's a big difference between American online newspapers and Italian ones.
I read the New York Times and USA Today for American elections and Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica for Italian campaign. The first impression one may have, opening an Italian newspaper (as for politics) is of a situation that he/she doesn't understand. I mean, if you don't raed the newspaper every day, you don't follow what happens in the political campaign, you can't totaly understand the articles. That's because there are a lot of references to previous facts or declarations that journalists suppose the reader knows.
There isn't a comparison between all the parties based on issues or whatever else! So, if someone buys the newspaper in order to know the points of view of the parties and clarify his/her ideas, I'm sure he/she will understand anything!



American newspapers are well organized under this point of view. A part from the ordinary politics news regarding the candidates, both in the NY Times and in the USA Today there's a section in which the reader can understand what the candidates think about the most important topics of the political campaign, such as health care, Iraq, immigration, Education, Economy and so on.


German newspapers don't absolutely care about Italian electoral campaign, surely because it isn't as important as the American one. Talking about US election both Der Spiegel and Suddeutsche Zeitung have an entire section with interviews, opinions of the readers but also explanantions, videos and histories about the delegates.

American vs Italian elections

In these days Italy and Usa have something more in common: they are both in full of electoral campaign. On the other side of the ocean the most captivating battle is between the two democratic candidates (Clinton and Obama), whereas the conservative representant has already been elected: it's McCain.
The situation in Italy is different, here there are (more or less!) 2 main parties that run to form the new government.

This week we are supposed to analyse the way in which the rightist leaders of each country speak in this electoral campaign to their potential electors.

In the way of leading the electoral campaign there is a main main difference between Italy and USA. In the USA the attention is focused on the person; the candidate is seen first of all as man, and secondly as representative of a party, while in Italy this aspect has less importance.
As for McCain, I noticed that in many videos he appears like a brave man, there are many images of him, where, as young man ha served the navy.Or the interview to his mother, who describes her son as a man born to lead America. In his speeches words like COURAGE and FAITH are very frequent. He dwells on the contept of America as the nation with a big responsabitlity towards the world.
RELIGION is something presents in both American and Italian rightist candidate. McCain ends every speech with "God bless you", while, even if in Berlusconi speeches this is less evident, in his case there are other implicit messages that convey this concept (for example the picture behind him during an interview mande in his house).
In his case one of the k-words of his speeches is: FREEDOM (presents almost everywhere! it is part of the name of the party too).
Usually he starts every speech in the same way: saying what the previous government did wrong or dindn't do and then telling the slogan of his party: "Italy stand up and free yourself etc."
FAMILY, SECURUITY are other recurring words, together with the idea of the way in which Italy is considered in the world.