Elections 2008: U.S.A. and ITALY
This is a project on 2008 American and Italian elections. In this page you can find information about the candidates’ profiles and platforms, their communicative strategies, the electoral systems, etc. The focus is on comparing the two countries from a political point of view in order to find out differences and similarities between the two cultures. First of all, the candidates’ biographies are presented. As regards the right-wing candidates, John McCain and Silvio Berlusconi, particular attention is given not only to the early years of their lives (childhood, education, private life) and their political career, but also to their military and business careers respectively. The left-wing American and Italian candidates are described focusing on four different aspects: early life, work experience, previous political career and political platforms briefly. Secondly, the project focuses on the candidates' keywords, speeches, gestures, style and strategies of communication, with an exhaustive analysis of their websites too. The project follows with some remarks about the basic points of the Italian and American candidates' platforms. Finally, the main differences between American and Italian electoral systems and party funding are discussed.
Right wing
Below you will find the milestones in John McCain's and Silvio Berlusconi’s lives. Both of them are candidates for the right wing: John McCain is the Republican candidate for the
John McCain
John McCain is one of the candidates for the U.S. Presidential Elections together with the Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He won the Republican nomination on Tuesday March 4 after sweeping primaries in
Childhood, education & private life
John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in
After World War II, the McCain family settled in Alexandria (Northern Virginia), where John attended the elite Episcopal High School from 1946 to 1949. When he was a child, John was known for his strong attitude towards his superiors and classmates, which caused him a lot of demerits during his high school career (John McCain: Biography and Much More from Answers.com, 2008). Continuing the McCain tradition of serving the country, he attended the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis, Maryland), from which he graduated in 1958. In 1965 he married Carol Shepp, a model from Philadelphia whom he had met in Annapolis. They adopted two children, Douglas and Andrew (who were 5 and 3 years old respectively at the time) and had a daughter, called Sidney, in September 1966 (Wikipedia, 2008).
In 1979, when he was in Hawaii for a military reunion, he met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, and began a relationship with her; he separated from his wife Carol in 1980 and married Cindy a few months later, on May 17. They have four children: Meghan, Jack, Jimmy, and Bridget (Wikipedia, 2008).
Military career
After having spent two and a half years of practicing as a naval aviator at Pensacola Station, Florida, he graduated from flight school in 1960 and became a naval pilot of attack aircrafts. He was enrolled in A-1 Skyraider military force of the aircraft carriers USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise. After two bad collisions McCain was then recalled to shore duty at Pensacola Station, where he became a flight instructor at Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi. In 1966, during the Vietnam War, McCain was stationed in the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, which was soon assigned to join the Operation Rolling Thunder, an air campaign against North Vietnam (McCain's military career, 2008).
On July 29, 1967, at Yankee Station, he was almost killed when a rocket accidentally slammed into the carrier deck, but he eventually managed to escape from the jet aircraft. The explosion partly destroyed the Forrestal; McCain was then moved to the USS Oriskany squadron, but soon after he was shot down and captured by the Vietnamese. He was then sent to Hanoi's Hoa Loa Prison, where he was denied medical care and often underwent torture (McCain's Military Career, 2008). Thanks to the Paris Peace accords (signed in 1973), which put an end to U.S. direct commitment to the war, he was finally released on March 15, 1973 after 5 years’ captivity (Wikipedia, 2008).
Once he came back to the US, he reunited with his wife Carol, who had become disabled from a car accident when his husband was in Vietnam. During 1973-74 he received medical treatment for his injuries and attended the National War College at Fort Mc Nair in Washington. There he underwent physical therapy in order to be able to fly again. He managed to regain his naval flight status and shortly afterwards became the Commanding Officer of VA-174, a Navy training squadron in Florida. In 1974 the Admiral Jim Holloway promoted McCain to captain and moved him to Washington, where he served as the Navy Senate liaison officer (Wikipedia, 2008).
Political career
John McCain began his political career in 1982 becoming a Representative for
Three years later he began his Senate career after having defeated his Democratic opponent Richard Kimball. He soon became a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee as well. Even though all these posts gave him considerable visibility, he was implicated in a scandal in the 1980s, which clearly threatened his political career even if he was only judged of having used quotes and poor judgement. Since this unpleasant event, he had long been considered [time unclear as is 'considered' by whom?] a “maverick” Senator (Wikipedia, 2008). As far as his policy is concerned, he attacked pork barrel spending within Congress and worked on financial reforms, cigarette taxes and health funds increasing.
As regards his presidential campaign, McCain announced his candidacy for President on
Finally, McCain started his present-day 2008 presidential campaign in
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi (born September 29, 1936) is an Italian politician, entrepreneur, media mogul and ex premier. He has been President of the Council of Ministers twice (1994 and 2001-2006); now he is the leader of PdL (Il Popolo della Libertà), a centre-right coalition, and one of the candidates for the Italian general elections 2008. According to Forbes magazine (2008), he is in the second place in the list of
Childhood, education & private life
Berlusconi is the first-born son of an upper middle-class family. His father, Luigi (1908-1989), was bank clerk at Banca Rasini (a small bank in Milan
In 1954 he completed his classical studies at the Salesian Liceo “Sant’Ambrogio” in Milan Milan
In 1965 he married Carla Elvira Lucia Dall'Oglio, and they had two children: Maria Elvira, also known as Marina
Business career
It’s in the building industry that Berlusconi started his business career in the 1960s. Over two decades, he set up several companies operating in this field. For his success in the construction business, Berlusconi was nominated Knight of Labor by the President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone, in 1977 (Wikipedia, 2008).
In the late 1970s Berlusconi entered the world of media for the first time. In 1978 he took over Telemilano (before Telemilanocavo), a local cable television station, and soon afterwards he formed his first media group, Fininvest, a network of local TV stations which had similar programming throughout the whole country and functioned therefore like a single national network. This marked a break with the public broadcaster RAI’s monopoly. In 1980 Telemilano became Canale 5 – Italy Publitalia , Italy
In the publishing industry, Berlusconi is the major shareholder of the two largest publishing houses in Italy, Mondadori (whose publications include Panorama, one of the most popular news magazines) and Einaudi, and of some other minor publishers too. His brother Paolo owns Il Giornale, a centre-right newspaper which has a clear bias in favour of Berlusconi (Spiritus Temporis, 2005; Wikipedia, 2008).
As for cinema and home video distribution, Silvio Berlusconi held shares in Blockbuster Italia from 1994 to 2002, and now he is the main shareholder of Medusa Cinema, a movie production company. As far as the distribution business is concerned, Berlusconi bought Standa, an Italian chain of department stores, which was then sold off to Coin (another chain of stores) in 1997-98 (Wikipedia, 2008).
Berlusconi has interests in insurance and banking too, as he is the majority shareholder of Mediolanum, a company providing financial services. In addition, he is the president of one of the leading football clubs in the world, AC Milan (Athletic Club Milan), which became a sport club association in the early 1990s when Berlusconi bought some baseball, rugby, volleyball and ice-hockey companies in Lombardy, a region in the North of Italy (Wikipedia, 2008).
Political career
In 1993 Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia, and publicly announced his decision to enter politics. He formed a coalition with the right-wing parties, Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) and Lega Nord (Northern League), and managed to win the national elections in 1994. However, Berlusconi’s government collapsed as a result of the inherent contradictions in his coalition and the rivalries between the leaders of the three different parties.(Wikipedia,2008)
In 2001 Berlusconi ran as leader of the centre-right coalition Casa delle Libertà (House of Freedom), once more with his former partners and UDC. During the electoral campaign he signed the so-called Contratto con gli Italiani (an agreement with the Italian citizens) where he declared that he would improve the economic situation, lower taxes, increase employment and diminish crime. His coalition received 45.5% of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies and 42.5 for the Senate (Wikipedia,2008). Thanks to this success, he managed to lead the country for the second time.
In the 2006 Parliamentary elections Berlusconi’s coalition narrowly lost to Prodi’s left bloc. Berlusconi tendered his resignations after leading the longest Italian government since world war II (BBC News).
In 2007 Berlusconi managed to unite centre-right parties under a new grouping, named Popolo delle libertà (People of Freedom). After the collapse of the centre-left government led by Prodi, Berlusconi is running as the leader of his new cohalition in the elections set for 13 and 14 April.
Recent polls suggest that the PdL has enough votes to win the elections (source: Il Sole 24 ore ). The main challenge is still that of facing Veltroni’s PD (Democratic Party). As a matter of fact, analysts say that the Democratic party represents an incredible novelty and Italian people would be easily led to vote for Veltroni (Telegraph).
Left wing
These are the three candidates of the left wing: Walter Veltroni for
Walter Veltroni
Walter Veltroni is the leader of Partito Democratico and the candidate for the major left-wing party in the next Italian political elections. He is married toFlavia and he has two daughters, Martina and
Walter Veltroni's photo taken from Partito Democratico's website URL: http://www.partitodemocratico.it/gw/producer/index.aspx?t=/pd/organismi_dirigenti.htm
Early life
He was born in Rome in 1955 and he has always lived there. His parents are Vittorio Veltroni, one of the first RAI managers and journalists in the 1950s, and a Slovenian woman named Ivanka Kotnik. Ivanka Kotnik was the daughter of a Slovenian ambassador who helped many Jewish people to escape from the Nazi persecution during World War II (Wikipedia, 2008). During his youth, he attended the Instituto professionale per l’industria e l’artigianato and he had his first approach to the world of cinema thanks to his father’s job. At the age of 15, he started his political career joining the Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana.
Work experience
Walter Veltroni’s work experience is highly intertwined with his political career. After being elected city councellor in
In addition to being an active politician, he has been an editor-in-chief and author as well. When he was 40 years old, he became a professional journalist and worked as editor-in-chief of the new born party’s newspaper called L’Unità from 1992 to 1996. Between 1976 and 1996, he published various books. Among these, there are Il Pci e
He received an honoris causa degree in Public Service from the John Cabot University of Rome in
Previous political career
His most active role in Italian politics started in 1995 with the birth of a new political party, L’Ulivo, run by Romano Prodi. This party won the national elections in April 1996 where Walter Veltroni proposed himself as vice-premier candidate. During the leadership run by Prodi, he was appointed Vice-president of the Council and Minister of Cultural and Environmental Heritage focusing in particular on entertainment and sport. Thanks to his office, he worked hard towards the preservation, retrieval and enhancement of the rich Italian cultural heritage in order to turn
In 1998, after resigning from his previous appointment, he was elected National Secretary of Democratici di Sinistra (DS). In June 1999, he was elected among the deputies of the European Parliament where, in accordance with his passion for the issues of communication, he worked in the Commission for Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport.
His leadership of the Democratici di Sinistra’s party ended in 2001 when he was elected Mayor of Rome with 53% of the votes. Five years later, he was reconfirmed Mayor of Rome with 61.4% of the votes. Walter Veltroni’s administration in
As mayor of
On October 14th, 2007 the Partito Democratico was founded after the primary elections in which the Partito Democratico gained 75.8% of the votes. Walter Veltroni, who was publicly asked to run for the party leadership by the majority of the centre-left politicians, presented his candidacy for the leadership of Partito Democratico and was elected the first leader of the centre-left party.
Political program in brief
After the defeat of Romano Prodi’s government in January 2008, Walter Veltroni took on the leadership of Partito Democratico which is running for its candidacy in the next general political elections on April 13th- 14th, 2008. On February 2008, he resigned from his appointment as Mayor of Rome to focus on the electoral campaign of his party against its major opponent party, Silvio Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà. The Partito democratico’s main purpose is to solve the four major problems of current
Hillary Clinton
photo by http://images.google.it/images?gbv=2&hl=it&q=hillary+clinton
Early life
Hillary Clinton was born in 1947 in Illinois. Since she was a girl she was deeply concerned with issues of social justice and politics. She graduated from Welleslay College in political science in 1969 and then entered Yale Law School, where she carried out research on child brain development and child abuse; at the same time she started volunteering at New Haven Legal Services to provide advice for poor people. After receiving a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973 she started a year of post-graduate study in medicine and children at Yale Child Study Center.
Work experience
She then began her career as a lawyer. In 1975 she married Bill Clinton—the future 42nd President of the United States—thus becoming the First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 where her husband was governor and the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She was listed as one of the one hundred most influential lawyers in America in 1988 and 1991 and was very active in a number of organizations concerned with the welfare of children. In 1997 and 1999, Hillary Clinton played a significant role in the establishment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (which aimed at supporting children whose parents could not afford to provide them with health coverage) and the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Throughtout her career as a lawyer, Hillary Clinton has published many articles on legal and social issues, many of which deal with childhood and medicine. As First lady of the USA she published several books: the most famous of them is her autobiography "Living history", released in 2003.
Previous political career
After moving to New York, Clinton was elected as senator for New York State in 2000, thus becoming the first female senator from that state. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush government on some foreign policy issues, for example on the Iraq War. She then opposed the administration on its conduct of the Iraq War and on most domestic issues. She was re-elected senator of New York State in 2006. In 2007 she announced her intention to become a Democrat candidate for president in the elections 2008.
Political program in brief
1. Providing affordable universal health insurance
2. Putting an end to the Iraq War
3. Improving the American school system (college should be affordable for all)
4. Supporting parents, caring for children, fighting for women rights against any form of discriminatio
5. Reforming the American immigration system
(taken from her official website www.hillaryclinton.com/issues)
Barack Obama
photo taken from: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2055/2287332094_c170aeddb1_m.jpg
Early life
Barack Obama was born in 1961 in
Work experience
Before entering Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, where he worked against unemployment. After his degree he directed a voter registration drive in Chicago and Chicago magazine acclaimed him to be “a new political star”. From 1993 to 1996 he worked as an associated attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland representing community organizers, discrimination claims and voting rights cases. (Wikipedia)
Previous political career
From 1996 to 2004, Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate and in 2003 he became chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee. In 2004 he resigned from the Illinois Senate to be elected to the US Senate (after un unsuccessful run for US House of Representatives in 2000). As a senator he supported welfare reforms promoting subsidies for childcare, he worked for a legislation which reformed ethics and healthcare laws, and he engaged with police organizations for legislative death penalty reforms.
He was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and from 2005 to 2006 and served on the Environment and Public Works Committee (Barack Obama, U.S. Senator for Illinois). In February 2007 he announced his candidacy for the 2008 US Presidential Election.
Political program in brief
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Civil rights: ensuring every citizen the ability to vote
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Disability: fighting against unecessary barriers, stereotypes and discrimination
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Economy: increasing investments in infrastucture, energy independence, education, research and development
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Economy: ensuring all students a quality education regardless of race, class or background
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Energy and environment: energy independence
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Foreign policy: preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and stopping genocide in Darfur
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Iraq: he has always been against the war
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Technology: investing in scientific research
(taken from Obama '08)
Candidates' key words, speech and gestures
In examining each candidate it is important to take into consideration not only the verbal language, but also their body language, their attitude and the way they relate to the audience, their slogans and hymns. In other words, it is fundamental to study these politicians from different points of view and consider important elements such as words, speech and gestures. We decided to use a table in order to clearly compare the differences between the candidates.
As gestures and physical appearance are very subjective, we reported this kind of information as we perceived it: they are just our personal observations.
| words | speech | gestures | physical appearance | |
| John McCain | family, justice, children, democracy and other terms typically used by the conservative party that are freedom, exportation of democracy, "endurance freedom" and terrorism | addresses his audience using the expression 'my friends'; always starts a discourse with expressions such as 'God bless you' or 'God help you' | has an aggressive behaviour; has a way of speaking which might appear irritating [to whom? this is unclear]; is not able to interact successfully with the audience [what exactly does this mean?] | does not consider his look at very much; he is rather casual |
| Silvio Berlusconi | famlily, values, the need to reduce taxes | when speaking to his audience he frequently raises his voice in order to be more convincing although he is definitely popular among Italian people; uses a lot of irony in his speeches, especially when he addresses the members of the left party; almost all of his speeches are attacks on the left party and what they did and did not do during their government | always smiles and assumes a position which conveys dominance; very self-confident; can successfully interact with his audience | gives a lot of importance to his look, e.g. always wears suits and uses make up |
| Barack Obama | nation, young men [only men?], safe, hope, democracy, dream | his language is very influential [what does this mean here?] and creates a collective emotiveness; makes people believe in themselves by using strong words and detailed phrases regarding American history; uses a lot of rhetorical questions and in this way he excites the audience, which usually answers with a great applause; tends to use more abstract key expressions: 'our time has come'., 'we can turn the page of politics', 'we can stand up', 'we can dream big dreams', 'yes we can' | is a great communicator: he tries to put people at ease, he has a great smile and conveys great warmth | always wears a black suit and a tie |
| Hillary Clinton | economy, US leadership, education, children | never forgets to point out that she is the best qualified and experienced person to run for the office of President | appears very self-confident, smiley, happy, friendly, kind, pragmatic and competent; gives the impression that the situation is under control and that she isn't scared by her rival Obama; waves her arms and hands; is willing to interact with her audience and focuses on helping unprivileged people and chooses negotiation and mediation over conflict | uses bright red lipstick which helps point out her femininity |
|
Walter Veltroni |
change, hope, innovation, unity, young people, women |
full of repetitions and adverbs [what kinds of adverbs?] as well as series of ambiguities; only occasionally pronounces the name of his main antagonist Silvio Berlusconi whereas both Obama and Hillary often point out the weak points of Mc Cain policy |
??? |
an old-fashioned style [what exactly do you mean by this?] |
[It would be useful if this table were followed by a brief comparison in order to point out similarities and differences. Or is this what the following section is about? I'm a bit confused about the differences between the two sections. Should they be merged?]
Candidates's style and strategies of communication
In order to develop our analysis of the US election campiagn, we've decided to focus on the following issues: the candidate's style and the strategies of communication applied throughout their campaining. In our analysis we focused particularly on the websites of each candidate (layout, colours, photos, and more) and on the keywords and slogans they've been using in both their speeches and on their websites.
US left wing: Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton
First of all, there are no great differences between the political programs of Obama and Hillary. They both focus on almost the same points, which can be summarized as follows: health care, the problem of the homeless, the need to end the war in Iraq and the economic recession. However, there are some differences in their interaction with the audience and in their style. In his speeches, Obama always stresses the importance of family: in his homepage, for example, there is a photo of his family taken from his photobook. Hillary, on the other hand, is seen alone in her homepage. Moreover, there are some other differences concerning their websites: Obama's is clear, i.e. he uses few colours and the layout is simple and effective. On the other hand, in Hillary's website there are more icons and more colours so that it may look a bit confusing.
As for their style and gestures, Hillary is always smiling and charming, while Obama is more serious and resolute. Obama's keywords are: "change", "believe", "can", and "new"; in Hillary's speeches there aren't many recurrent words, except for some patriotic references or allusions to her past experience as First Lady. Obama's keywords are evenstressed in his website whereas Hillary's recurrent expressions are less underlined and repeated.
US right wing: McCain
The US right wing candidate McCain stresses a lot the importance of the war in Iraq and the need to fight Islamic extremism because of the fact that he himself is a veteran, was a war prisoner and fought for his country. Even if he also deals with issues such as health care, economics and alternative sources of energy, the strong point of his campaign is the need to actively fight against Al Qaeda and the Talibans in Afghanistan.
In his website there are a lot of photos of his past and present life; at the top of the page there is a big photo of him with his wife, while in the centre of the page there are many pictures taken during his campaign throughout America. In his homepage the words "service" and "serving" are repeated many times because he wants to stress the importance of serving and defending the country. This idea is strengthened by the presence of some old photos regarding his past experience during the war in Vietnam.
Italian centre-left wing: Veltroni
Veltroni's speeches are very dry and sometimes it's difficult to follow him. His word range belongs to "politichese", i.e. [I would define this word in English]. There are similarities with Obama's platform: their slogans are the same, e.g. 'si può fare' = 'yes we can'. Indeed, Veltroni and Obama use more or less the same keywords: while Obama often uses the adjective "new" combined with many different topics, Veltroni combines it with almost the same nouns: for example "new force", "new language in politics". Moreover, the two of them stress the idea of being the new ones in the politics scene. Other buzzwords Veltroni uses are: cambiamento (Obama's "change"), credere (Obama's "believe") and fiducia (Obama's "confidence"); he also conveys the idea of simplifing the situation in the Italian political system.
As for the website, Veltroni's homepage (which is actually the Partito Democratico's one) is quite effective: there's the slogan "Si può fare" right at the top of the page, and then there are a number of links, buttons and windows (which actually may look a bit confusing). Moreover, in the website the main colours are white, green and red, which are the colours of the Partito Democratico (and of the Italian flag, of course), and which make the overall layout of the homepage quite eye-catching.
Italian right wing: Berlusconi
In all his speeches Berlusconi always appears smiling and optimistic; his way of addressing the public is very persuasive and he reinforces his position by criticising what the left wing did in the past government. The slogan of his campaign is "Italia rialzati!"("Italy get back up!") and in order to improve Italy's situation he suggests a kind of formula: fewer taxes on families, on work, on companies = more consumption, more production, more work= more revenues in the state coffers to help who is in need, to build infrastructures, to reduce the public debt. Moreover, in his website, Berlusconi uses effective slogans, photos and ads to catch the attention of the audience; he's obviously trying to give his campaign a pleasant look, which is clearly a way of pleasing people too. However, his website may look a bit confusing, because it's so full of buttons, links, colours and, most important, his slogan does not appear in the homepage, which is actually a bit strange, given the fact that it is everywhere in Italy.
Differences and similarities between the Italian and the American left wing
It is much easier to make a comparison between Obama and Veltroni, rather than Hillary and Veltroni, because it's a given fact that the two male left wing candidates have a lot of things in common, from keywords to their style and slogans. In fact, as far as the similarities are concerned, Veltroni and Obama use more or less the same keywords. While Obama often uses the adjective "new" with many different topics, Veltroni combines it with almost the same nouns. Veltroni's cambiamento corresponds to Obama's "change", Veltroni's credere corresponds to Obama's "believe" and Veltroni's fiducia corresponds to Obama's "confidence". In addition, Veltroni's slogan "Si può fare" corresponds quite perfectly to the idea of Obama's "Change, we can believe in". [This is all a repitition of what you've just said about Veltroni. Put it here or there but not in both places.] Moreover, Obama and Veltroni have quite the same style, serious and resolute whereas Hillary's style is very different. [Could you say something more about this?]
As concerns the differences, Veltroni never appears with his wife and children while for Obama the presence of his family is very important.
Differences and similarities between the Italian and the American right wing
Both McCain and Berlusconi speak to the audience in a very calm and relaxed way. They sometimes become a bit angry when they speak about what the opponent party want to realize in a possible nominee as President. Generally speaking, they seem very optimistic as regards their chances to become the next President and hopeful for the mission they want to realize.
Moreover, in their campaign both McCain and Berlusconi speak about the importance of fighting against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan (even if it is obviously a topic which is more relevant ic McCain's campaign). As Berlusconi does, also McCain deals with issues such as health care, economic growth, taxes and social services, but he stresses a lot the importance of combating the Islamic extremism, and this may be due to the fact that he was a war prisoner and fought for his country.
5. BASIC POINTS OF ITALIAN AND AMERICAN CANDIDATES' PLATFORMS
This section focuses on the platforms' basic points. Based on the current information found in newspapers and on the net, even though in Italy there are four coalitions the race is between the right- and left-wing delegates, which are Berlusconi and Veltroni. In the same way in the USA the media gives its attention to the "fight" between the two democratic candidates Hilary and Obama, while McCain seems to be temporarily out of the limelight.
In Italy people should decide between two opposite political points of view, while in the USA the race involves a decision between gender and skin colour.
In Clinton and Obama's personal webpages the basic points are:
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ending the war in Iraq
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providing affordable and accessible health care for all Americans
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securing American borders and creating new laws against hiring and exploiting undocumented workers
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reducing greenhouse gas emissions by leaving carbon-based economy and developing climate friendly energy supplies and achieving energy indipendence
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strengthening the middle class (e.g. lowering taxes for middle class families, making college accessible and affordable, bolstering retirement security)
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improving school system (e.g. recruiting new teachers also in the rural areas, having competitive people in an increasing global economy, pre-kindergarden for all four-year-old children)
McCain's platform focuses on:
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winning the war against islamic extremists (sending more troops to Iraq, dismantling al Qaeda)
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strenghtening national defence security
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reforming health care (e.g access to health car for all Americans, controlling health care costs, promoting competition throughout the health care system between providers and among alternative treatments)
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reforming Government (e.g. increasing transparency, lowering taxes, enforcing fiscal discipline)
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ensuring cleaner air, safer and healthier water, finding alternative sources of energy
Veltroni concentrates on these basic points:
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reducing public debt
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reforming electoral system
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strengthening security (e.g. more police on the streets)
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deleting precarious work
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right to vote to immigrants in order to avoid criminality and illegacy
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strengthening the health care system (e.g. reducing waiting lists and more specialised personnel)
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more importance to Italy and its companies in Europe
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helping South Italy and solving the "monnezza" (rubbish) problem
Berlusconi's platform focuses on:
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refloating the economic development (e.g. new Inland Revenue for businesses, advantages for the world of work, support for "made in Italy" goods)
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sustaining families and giving to young people the possibility of a secure future
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strengthening security and justice
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improving services (e.g. school system, health care system)
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helping South Italy (e.g. advantageous Inland Revenue, infrastructures)
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promoting federalism
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creating a special programme of public finance (to lower taxes and costs of Politics)
6. Electoral System
What follows is a description of the main differences between American and Italian electoral systems.
a. A comparison between Primaries in Italy and America
In Italy the candidates for the Parliament are chosen directly by the main party representatives. This, in accordance to the latest electoral law. It is just like this. People do not like this system because the possibility to express their opinion about candidates is completely precluded. As a matter of facts, only a party has his candidates chosen through the primaries. In the USA, apart from the independent candidates, the electoral system is based on primaries. Each party’s candidates are chosen through primaries or the so called caucus. On primaries, people go to the polls and just vote for the candidate they like. On caucus, voters attend political meetings where the candidates are promoted by their supporters. After these speeches, people should have decided who to vote for. There is an important distinction between closed primaries and open primaries. The former is a type of direct primary limited to registered party members and serves to encourage party unity and prevent members of other parties from infiltrating and voting to nominate weak candidates. The open primary is open to voters regardless of their party affiliation and status.
b. How things work in America
As regards the elections, in the USA people's vote is called popular vote. But, although one candidate gets the majority of the people's votes, they need another majority: the electoral vote. "It is a mechanism for the indirect election of public officials. For the purpose of electing the President and Vice President of the United States a 538-member Electoral College is created with each state having as many 'electors' as it has representatives and senators in the national legislature, plus 3 for the District of Columbia". Indeed, if you vote for the Democratic candidate, you are actually voting for an elector who will be asked to vote for the Democratic candidate. The candidate who wins the popular vote in a state wins all the pledged votes of the state's electors. That is why political campaigns are held in the "Big States" (those states with more assigned electors such as Texas and California). To be elected, a candidate must obtain an absolute majority in the Electoral College, currently 270. If no candidate gains an absolute majority the US House of Representatives makes the choice, with the delegation from each state having one vote. Most of these arrangements were devised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as a compromise between those who proposed a direct popular election of the President and those who preferred to make him subject to election.
c. Calculating the ‘electors number’
As regards the number of the ‘electors’ for each state, it is proportional to the number of inhabitants of the state itself. More precisely, the number of ‘electors’ is equal to the number of each state’s representatives in the House. Under the Constitution, each state is entitled to at least one Representative, serving a two-year term. Additional seats are apportioned on the basis of the state's population.
The first video shows a supporter of the electoral college system. The second one is about those who advocate a stronger popular vote.
7. Party funding
A very important issue in politics is represented by party funding, especially in campaigns when many expenditures are required.
As it is a very complex issue, this short paragraph wants to be only an overview with no claim to be exhaustive.
Basically, there are three type of financing: private, public and a combination of the two.
a. Italy
· Party finance in Italy was totally unregulated until 1974 when the discovery of extensive corruption produced the first act concerning political party funding, approved by a vote of the Parliament in May 1974 (law n° 195)
With this law, a combination of public financing and private financing (for campaigns and ordinary activities of the parties) was officially admitted (M. Siclari).
This law established that: all parties receiving more than 2% of valid votes in general elections were entitled to annual state subsidies and contributions to general, local and European campaigns; contributions to parties from public sector companies were banned; private contributions had no limits in size (only those exceeding an amount of money set by law has to be declared); sanctions against illegal funding and against violations of the rules on the publicity of annual party balance sheets were introduced (M. P. Ferretti).
- On April 18th, 1993 with a Referendum promoted by Radical Party, 90.3% of voters abrogated that part of the law concerning annual public funding for political activities.
With law 515/1993 campaign subsidies were replaced by campaign reimbursement parcelled out according to the percentage of the voters that each party obtained. As a result, state contributions to party finance were drastically reduced, and the need for private contributions increased (M. P. Ferretti).
- Law 2/1997, which gave voters the opportunity to give a voluntary contribution of 4‰ of their own taxes to political parties, was a complete failure and so, was abolished with law 157/1999 which reintroduced public financing to parties in proportion to their electoral results under the label “electoral reimbursement” (Global Integrity Report).
- Law 156/2002 has granted political parties hundreds million Euros per year as reimbursement for campaigns expenditures. The contribution is calculated as 1€ per voter, in each year of the legislation. Now all parties with over 1 per cent of votes are entitled to claim reimbursement. “There are limitations on expenditures for elections, but not general limitations. In fact, most of the parties have serious deficit . Both the donor and the beneficiary have the duty to send a joint declaration to the President of the Deputy Chamber when the donation is over 50.000 Euros. There are no limits to donations, and this poses a threat because rich actors can finance and influence political parties” (Global Integrity Report).
- With law 51/2006, passed during the second Berlusconi’s Government, electoral reimbursement is disbursed even if the Government goes to the country in advanced just as it is happening in this historical moment. This means that State has to pay for 300 million Euros to parties for the unfinished Legislature plus the reimbursement for the elections 2008.
Unfortunatly, when poltical issues concern Italy, it is necessary to distinguish between the legal structures and what actually happens in the country, that is the actual informal
rules. During about the last forty years, curraption scandals "confirm Italy's as one of the western most currapted policies" (M. P. Ferretti). So far, Italian poltics has been too
expensive and has caused grave economic and political problems to the Nation.
b. U.s.a.
The campaign finance in the U.S. develops in federal, state and local levels. Political parties are funded by contributions from their memberships and by individuals and organizations which share the same political ideas or who want to benefit from their activities. The primary source are individuals and political action committees, who are supposed to contribute in a limited way. Here we are speaking of the so called “hard money”, in comparison with the other way to contribute that is “soft money”, as the contribution 527 groups, that don’t contribute directly to candidate campaign, can donate without any sort of limit. Coorporations and trade unions are prohibited from contributing directly. Political action committees (PACs) are the best-known organizations that support ,economically speaking, candidates and political parties, though others such as 527 groups also have an important impact.
Public financing is available for Democratic or Republican candidates for President of the United States during the election campaigns during both the primaries and the general election.
Throughout the American political history we can find many attempts to regulate campaign finance by legislation. The big ones post-Watergate scandal are:
- Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, that is the first successful attempt to regulate and enforce campaign finance. It proposes a system of regulation and enforcement in order to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditure. Legal limits on contributions were introduced and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was created to restrict the influence of wealthy individuals by limiting individual donations to $1000 and donations by Political Action Committees (PACs) to $5000. These specific election donations are known as ‘Hard money’.
- The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold bill", because of the name of its chiefs, is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance. It revises some of the legal limits of expenditure set in 1974, doubling from 1000 dollars to 2000 dollars per election cycle, and prohibited unregulated contributions (called "soft money") to national parties commitees.
Nowadays the campaign finance situation is still in change. There are several proposals waiting for being accepted, such as voting with dollars, that is all voters would be given a $50 funded voucher (Patriot dollars) to donate to federal political campaigns.
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