“The outcome of this vote is laconic” – Corriere.it
The frost in the center-right closes the lawyer’s adventure between sentences on the Shoah and nostalgia for the Roman Empire
Come on, Enrico, don’t do that.
The tantrums at your age? (a few minutes after 16: exit polls already with definitive numbers, terrible defeat, impossible to replace a gap of 20%).
But Enrico Michetti’s is not a whim. At the martyrdom of the press conference he does not want to be alone. Threatens to stay home. Shiny and forastic eyes, he who has always had them full of brutal goodness, what’s up, what’s wrong, we need to tell the porter to water the flower beds better, huh?
But in the end they convince him, they put him in the car and then pale and tense he arrives here, at the headquarters of his committee, in a gray sunset between high rises and barren lawns, two blocks behind the Cesaroni bar, Giorgia’s Garbatella, with the driver who takes the ramp and unloads him in front of the garage. Sanitary cordon. No questions from reporters. The order is: he must speak for a minute, two frasi (the first, amazing, is: “Elections with laconic outcome”), gets up and you take him away.
A small group of cold glances welcomes him. All of Brothers of Italy. The absence of Lega and Forza Italia says, more or less, this: you have chosen it, the defeat is yours (Matteo Salvini, on Rome, has no entrances, except those of Claudio Durigon: and so prudently will of the allies; the Cavaliere had instead strongly sponsored Guido Bertolaso: but Bertolaso, five years ago, during the last election campaign, had a stroke of genius e she told Meloni, a candidate, to think about breastfeeding and becoming a mother; an episode that she herself, bitterly, also remembers in her latest book).
Weeks of total uncertainty. Then, one morning in June, the deputy Paolo Trancassini came out enthusiastic: «Don’t worry, I have the right candidate“. He, hypnotized, Michetti does it every day, one sermon after another, between unscrupulous common sense and blunt meekness, on the frequencies of a local broadcaster, Radio Radio. Trancassini then talked about it with Arianna, Giorgia’s sister.
Arianna, now, is closed in a verse.
Trancassini, while he sees Michetti’s body parading in front of the press conference, is closed in on himself. A rag (try to imagine what the almighty might have said to him when she realized the kind of candidate he had served her up).
Unforgettable pages remain: the Professor, in the first speeches, immediately attacks with the mantra of competence, with the Romans who are meravijosi, and then continues to speak of chariots and aqueducts, of invincible legions, has a sticky fascination for Rome Caput Mundi and for the great popes (“When you place yourself in front of the cuppolone, what does it appear? That colonnade that looks like two open arms”). Then they sit him down and say to him: Professor dear, we ran you for mayor of a city in rubble, infected and infested by wild boars, porcupines and maddened bulls, strangled by the, with the flames that devour buses and historic bridges and you owe the pleasure to stop with Cicero and propose ideas and feasible solutions instead.
He, mortified, accepts the advice. But, in bursts, start splashing out the furry contents of his radio sermons. Tragic phrases about the Shoah (the Jewish community skips the visit to the Ghetto della Meloni), or on the rescuers of Rigopiano (“There were people of color, they needed competent people”). At the last comparison on Sky with Roberto Gualtieri, I heard him: on civil rights, how does Rome appear to you? Him: «A wonderful city. Nineteen of my friends arriving from Barcelona have just had a great holiday. In the end they left, saying to me enthusiastic: we have always traveled for free on the buses! ” (in fact, they hadn’t paid for the ticket).
Very complicated election campaign.
Those of the press office, escorting him with a cemetery air towards the microphones. “Let’s hope he doesn’t make any more trouble” (Meloni is about to start speaking at the headquarters in via della Scrofa).
Trancassini – former party talent scout – leans against the wall, exhausted. Fabio Rampelli, vice president of the Chamber and former swimming champion, remains distant but with legs apart, muscular arms folded, jaw vibrating and disgusted. Chiara Colosimo, regional councilor, wanting to make a career, remains in a side corridor.
The Professor is forced to sit alone.
(A guy from the staff approaches. Photo on his cell phone, Mulino Bianco advertisement: “Michetti, the golden baked biscuit”).
October 18, 2021 (change October 18, 2021 | 23:38)
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