BERLUSCONI's life !!
There was an interesting article came out about BERLUSCONI in the Wall Street Journal (USA). I thought I should share the article with you all here.
Enjoy !!
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120554327505238583.html
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Berlusconi Levity Is Back in Form
By GABRIEL KAHN
March 15, 2008; Page A5
ROME -- How can you tell it's campaign season in Italy? Silvio Berlusconi is cracking jokes again.
With a month to go before national elections, the center-right coalition led by Mr. Berlusconi, the billionaire media magnate and two-time prime minister, holds a comfortable lead in the polls. On the campaign trail, he is projecting his trademark self-confidence.
When a 24-year-old woman asked him during a TV show Thursday how she could possibly start a family while earning a meager salary with shaky job security, Mr. Berlusconi replied: "As a father, I'd advise you to try to marry the son of Berlusconi, or someone similar," he said, adding: "With that smile of yours, I think you could pull it off."
The joke, as expected, set off angry reactions. Italian union leaders accused him of insensitivity toward the plight of workers, whose spending power has eroded. Left-wing opponents labeled him sexist. One of the few who didn't appear offended was the woman who asked the question, Perla Pavoncello. Ms. Pavoncello was widely quoted by Italian media as saying she would probably vote for Mr. Berlusconi. And late yesterday, in a coup de théâtre typical of Mr. Berlusconi, his party announced that Ms. Pavoncello would be a candidate for upcoming elections for Rome city council.
Therein lies one of the secrets of Mr. Berlusconi's persistent appeal. Often dismissed by critics as a political lightweight more concerned with the affairs of his own media empire than with running the country, Mr. Berlusconi still manages to connect with voters in a way few others can.
While opponents find his comments inappropriate, voters often find them endearing. While many Italians have grown fatigued with Mr. Berlusconi -- now 71 -- he is still by far the country's most popular politician. Mr. Berlusconi's campaign is an alternate universe from that of his chief opponent, former Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, head of the Democratic Party. Mr. Veltroni has been crisscrossing Italy in a bus, extolling his economic initiatives, education plans and talking up his ideas for political reform.
There is a lot at stake for Italy. Predictions for the country's economic growth this year have been cut back by some estimates to close to zero. The productivity of Italian workers has slipped dramatically compared with German and French ones. And the country's political system suffers chronic instability.
• The News: A month before national elections, the levity-laden campaign of Silvio Berlusconi drives the polls.
• Background: Economic growth is under siege, productivity is on the wane, and the country's political system suffers chronic instability.
• Outlook: Viewed by some as a political lightweight, Mr. Berlusconi still is Italy's most popular politician.Despite these problems, Mr. Berlusconi often grabs the headlines with his colorful rhetoric.
While addressing officials and candidates in his political party, the People of Liberty, Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi urged them to press the flesh of voters, saying: "Go speak to the priest, the pharmacist, the doctor...I have excellent relations with the pharmacists, and not because I buy Viagra."
Mr. Berlusconi's frequent off-color remarks aren't accidents, says Beppe Severgnini, a newspaper columnist and author of "La Bella Figura," a book about Italian mores. "This is not a slip of the tongue. With one innocuous sentence he managed to enrage his opponents and endear himself to many voters. The man has got some talent. Italians on the whole are more relaxed about these things."
If anything, Mr. Berlusconi's joke about the young woman managed to divert attention from another campaign misstep: his party's decision to present Giuseppe Ciarrapico -- a 74-year-old controversial Rome businessman who has spoken proudly of his fascist past -- for Parliament. Mr. Berlusconi tried to dismiss that uproar, saying that Mr. Ciarrapico "doesn't count for anything, he's just one of many" candidates. Experience would indicate that Mr. Berlusconi has little to worry about. In previous campaigns he has done things that might have ended the careers of other politicians. For one campaign, he navigated around Italy's coastlines in a rented cruise ship. He has told jokes about AIDS patients and kidded about cheating on his wife.
Two years ago, in the run-up to national elections, he compared anyone who planned to vote for his opponent to a part of the male anatomy. While the remark, just a few days before the vote, dominated newspaper headlines for days, Mr. Berlusconi exceeded pollsters' predictions and came within a hair of winning the election.
Write to Gabriel Kahn at
gabriel.kahn@wsj.com
