Campaign Issues and Themes

Abstract

The most important Italian political scientist, Giovanni Sartori (2008), wrote in the influential newspaper, Corriere della Sera, recently that the 2008 campaign had been ‘a strange election without a real fight’ (strane elezioni senza battaglia). The core of Sartori’s argument is that the leader of the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD), Walter Veltroni, adopted a style of campaigning expressive of a commitment to fair play – leading him to avoid directly attacking his adversary, Silvio Berlusconi,¹ or replying aggressively to the centre right’s attacks. Rather, by emphasising the novelty of the PD and its programmatic platform, he chose to focus on and encourage ‘prospective voting’. This, Sartori objects, is a curious strategy to adopt ‘when one is trailing in the polls by seven percentage points’.