Does the outcome of last month's election in Italy have any relevance to the U.S.? A youngish center-left candidate who claimed to represent a new politics of hope, "Si puo fare," ("It can be done") lost decisively to a 71-year-old figure of the center-right who is nothing if not a familiar fixture of Italian politics. The loser's resemblance to Barack Obama is not coincidental. Walter Veltroni was the first European politician to promote Obama after the two met in 2005. V ...

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