Ex-Premier in Italy Launches Campaign Tour

phillyburbs.comEx-Premier in Italy Launches Campaign Tour

Five years ago Silvio Berlusconi went campaigning on board a luxury liner. On Wednesday, the man who hopes to challenge the billionaire premier at next year's election launched a more modest campaign aboard a truck. Romano Prodi began his campaign Wednesday for the country's first national primaries, a vote that will select a center-left candidate for premiership that he is widely expected to win. "The primaries are a great chance to discuss politics in depth, to get ready for an electoral campaign that will be very difficult, and one in which money and media won't be on our side," Prodi told supporters in a downtown Rome piazza at the kickoff of the campaign, referring to Berlusconi's personal wealth and media empire.