Political Elections 2008

Hi everybody!

The second semester has begun and I’m ready to start reflecting on my personal learning process and keep track of my progress again. In this second part of the course the aim is to develop our own intercultural competence in particular. Let’s start!

As the political elections both in the United States and in Italy are just around the corner this week we’ve been supposed to analyse and compare American and Italian campaigns. I particularly focused on the main candidates on the right: John McCain and Silvio Berlusconi. I took a close look at their personal official websites by carefully watching and listening to some of their speeches.

What I noticed at first sight is that both candidates have great appeal on their audience. In order to make their messages stick in people’s mind both ot them use clear and simple words that everybody can easily understand and remember. In their speeches their ideas are ordered into a logical sequence and supported by a lot of numeric data. Both candidates speak in a strong and clear voice which seems to be quite convincing. Moreover, I noticed that they often use the word responsibility; this way they might want to enhance their role and gain credibility.

I tried to identify key words and expressions that the candidates use in their campaigns and I noticed that they have some values in common.

The role of the family seems to be a very important value.

The word family is one of the most frequently used expressions in Berlusconi’s speeches. To help the family is actually one of his goals. He wants to keep taxes low, give each family a house, provide better social services and give a future to young people. In this context the word children is frequently used in particular. Not only does he mention the family as one explicit point of his campaign, but he also cites his family in the examples he uses to support his statements.

As regards McCain, family is neither one of the most frequent expressions he uses nor one of the issues he focuses on in his campaign explicitly. Nevertheless, there are some signals that prove family is one of McCain’s most important values. During his speeches he often appears together with his wife and always thanks his wife and his children for their support. Furthermore, some of his goals such as improving education and medical care are closely linked to family’s welfare.

taken from New York Times

Even if it is not a specific point of their political schedule, religion seems to be another fundamental value in both right-wing candidates’ campaigns.

Berlusconi uses the expression Christian tradition’s values in his speeches and makes use of symbols and meaningful expressions of such tradition to show his faith. When he was interviewed by Emilio Fede, a famous Italian journalist and director of a popular newscast, he was in his house and I immediately noticed that on the walls behind him there were two pictures that represented religious characters. Moreover, the motto of his campaign Italy, stand up! may have religious connotation because the same words are used in the Bible. What is more, Berlusconi refers to his goals by using the term missions which is a typical religious expression.

McCain shows his faith in God as well. In his speeches he uses expressions such as God bless you and God-given rights.

Not only have Berlusconi and McCain these two values in common, but they also have similar goals in their projects. In addition to those I alrealdy mentioned, both candidates focus on important issues concerning employment, business, alternative sources of energy and security.

Nevertheless, Berlusconi and McCain differ from each other about the main idea of their campaign.

The most frequent word in Berlusconi’s campaign is the word freedom. As far as Berlusconi is concerned, freedom is the most important right everybody should have and the key solution for Italy’s problems. The Italian right-wing candidate believes in all kinds of freedom: freedom of thinking, opinion, expression, worship, association, business and market. The name of his party and most of his slogans actually include the word freedom.

taken from Panorama

The most important goal in McCain’s campaign is the defence. The American right-wing candidate focuses on the fight against terrorism. Instead of promoting a common value as Berlusconi does, he points out his own abilities and his own values. Since he has military experience he wants to convince Americans that he is the most appropriate candidate for combatting Islamic extremism. McCain uses words such as courage, experience, strength and leadership.

Why differences exist?

The Italian candidate might want to focus audience attention on values that are shared by the whole society instead of enhancing his own reputation because Italian people have not much confidence in Italian politicians anymore. As in Italy left-wing candidates and right-wing candidates have sometimes completely different points of view they might want to give more prominence to what should be done. On the contrary, American candidates’ goals might be more similar and the issue is to understand who is the best prepared to lead and defend the nation.

See you in class!

Selena