In this August election campaign there is much talk of alliances and little of programs. In all of this, Carlo Calenda gains notoriety, Enrico Letta collects fools, the right thanks and the M5S seeks a compelling identity for Giuseppe Conte.
Let’s start with Carlo Calenda, the leader who in my opinion is doing better. He has already shown in Rome, during the administrative, that he knows the dynamics of communication and knows how to exploit them to his advantage. His push and pull with the Democratic Party is not seen as an attempt to grab as many seats as possible, but as the consistent defense of its own principles. In fact, Calenda was clear from the start: no to M5S, Di Maio, Fratoianni and Bonelli. In other words, those who think differently from him on the Draghi agenda, the waste-to-energy plants, the regasifiers, the Citizenship Income, the Nato and all the rest.
As a judo fighter, Calenda has been able to use the weight of the opponent (the Pd) to his advantage. He pulled out the negotiations with the dem, leading all the media to talk about him, until he dissolved the reserve a week ago. This way he has conquered the front pages of all the newspapers: “agreement signed between the Democratic Party and the Action”. Today he is again the protagonist in the press, after the tear. The loser, from all points of view – seats, credibility, voting intentions – is the Pd by Letta. He speaks only of alliances, he is carried around by small parties, he does not have a defined electoral program.
The center-right is the only one to have really started their electoral campaign. The agreement was quick: whoever takes one more vote expresses the name for the premiership. Giorgia Meloni e Matteo Salvini they continue their uninterrupted work, on social networks and on TV, on their themes: immigration, security, taxes.
The novelty worth talking about is the social turning point of Silvio Berlusconi. The president of Come on Italy throw one video column on social networks in which he illustrates the electoral program. “A pill a day keeps the doctor away. A pill a day in our program should keep the gentlemen of the left out of the way, ”explains Berlusconi. So far he has only talked about taxes: yes to flat tax, no to patrimonial. The turning point, however, is only halfway through. The videos are the usual ones, purely for television, with scenography and scripts. It is not possible to distinguish them from those relating to television interviews, published on the same accounts.
The difficulty that Berlusconi has always had in online communication is not dictated by age. The 70 year old Jean-Luc Melenchon he uses social media with ease, as we have seen from his column Hello Melenchon. It’s more of a cultural issue. It is quite understandable that the father of private TV in Italy is linked to that model of communication.
The 5-star Movement, after having faced a troubled departure, due to the tiring negotiation with the Democratic Party, began to talk about programs. We start from the letter a Mario Draghiin particular with the minimum wage, the defense of the Citizenship Income and the Superbonus, the no to the incinerator in Rome. Then the results of the Conte governments are claimed. So far everything perfect. The difficulty of the M5S lies in defining, or rather in trying to define, theidentity of Conte. It is the reassuring moderate of the pandemic or the uncompromising one who does negative campaigning old-fashioned M5S?
Both labels, in my opinion, they are wrong. But one is more. For a few days the president of the M5S recalls the image of himself at the time of the beginning of the pandemic: “I am a serious and responsible person, I am the same person who faced the hardest period of the pandemic, taking measures first in the Western world”. Concept launched on social media and repeated on television, demonstrating the fact that it is a communication strategy studied at the table. A message that is considered effective and that must be repeated.
This is a very serious mistake in my opinion. It is true that Conte, during his government in the pandemic, reached peaks in popularity. But times have changed today. The Italians remember the months of lockdown with distress. Emotional participation in the war against the invisible enemy has become anger or depression. We are nauseati from every Covid-related narrative. We want to leave that damn virus behind and forget it as soon as possible.
It is the lesson of Winston Churchill. The great British premier was the European hero of the Second World War. A brave leader who changed the course of history, leading to victory over Hitler’s Germany. Yet, immediately after, in the 1945 elections, fu beaten. Churchill lost the election to Clement Attlee’s Labor Party. The people, in times of peace, did not want the leader of the times of war. It was time for look ahead, while Churchill was now too tied to the war period. Conte is no longer tied to the dark times of the pandemic. Why go back, artificially, with this narrative? It can only hurt him.
Even the populist Count is not very credible. His attacks more successful than him, like the one in the Senate against Salvini, sitting next to him, after the Papeete crisis, are characterized by elegance, moderation and precise arguments. L’aggression that he wants to get out forcibly these days, against Letta and Meloni, does not belong to him. And this comes to the eyes of the beholder. Count be himself. Claim your achievements, attack your opponents on the merits – not at all costs and on anything -, show yourself as calm and smiling as you are and never talk about the nightmare years of the pandemic again. My opinion is that doing this can only catch up.
