The Icing On My Cannoli

I love most everything Italian, starting with (but not limited to) the food and wine, the captivating history, the culturally-rich cities, the breathtaking landscapes, and of course the shoes. Having never been to the actual country, it’s primarily through books, photographs, documentaries, Giada and Lidia on Food Network, and the sale racks at Macy’s that this steamy love affair has blossomed. Now Italy has offered me a new and exciting enticement – one I hope will last until we can finally meet.

Silvio Berlusconi and his conservative party “People of Freedom” have won a surprising and decisive victory in Italy’s recent general election. Hated by the left-leaning European elite, Berlusconi waged a campaign that by all accounts was the hardest fought since Italy’s liberation from Fascist rule in 1944. He spoke often of family values, personal responsibility, hard work, discipline, individual generosity, market-based capitalism, and a foreign policy based on a strategy of peace-through-strength. (Anyone else think he sounds like an Italian version of Ronald Reagan…?) In contrast, his rival, the former mayor of Rome and leader of the New Democratic Party, pounded the podium for a social-democratic system with the State as Supreme Distributor of wealth and welfare. Not surprisingly, on international issues, the Demotalian party platform proposed a policy of "dialogue and accommodation." (Translation: more fruitless Talks and continued Tolerance for international atrocities.) Berlusconi's message was pro-American; his opponent called for greater European solidarity. Berlusconi promised to strengthen transatlantic relations; his challenger clucked away with the usual anti-American and anti-hawk squawking.

So what did the voters think? In the biggest win Ever for an Italian political coalition, Berlusconi's party won 47 percent of the votes (340 seats in the national assembly) and finished with a parliamentary majority of 101 seats, an Italian record. On the proverbial heel of wins by the French conservatives in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, the Italian right's decisive win may be part of a new and growing European trend. Of course, it’s much too soon to say whether the Berlusconi-Sarovsky victories are really the beginning of change. But for now, it’s spring, the birds are singing, and Italy’s whispering sweet nothings in my ear.