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LA STAMPA

New Client For Obama Guru Axelrod: Italian PM Mario Monti, In Showdown With Berlusconi

From "street fighter" to gladiator?
From "street fighter" to gladiator?
Maurizio Molinari

Barack Obama's longtime campaign guru David Axelrod has a new client: Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

Axelrod slipped into Rome to meet privately with Monti, 69, a political centrist and longtime university professor and European Union Commissioner, who served one year as caretaker Prime Minister. Monti is now in his first campaign for higher office, facing both former three-time Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the right and center-left favorite Pierluigi Bersani in next month's national elections.

Axelrod confirmed in an email to La Stampa that he took a trip to the Italian capital 10 days ago to meet with Monti. “I was in Rome for a day at the request of my former consulting firm ... to offer my opinions and observations” to Monti “and, I did.”

The mustachioed Axelrod is perhaps Obama"s closest political advisor, having helped lead him to victory in his races for the U.S. Senate, and both campaigns for the White House.

Born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and a young fan of Robert Kennedy, Axelrod has a friendly air, but is considered a “street fighter,” having sharpened his craft in the tough world of Chicago politics. In the 2012 re-election campaign, he helped lead the attack against Mitt Romney's privileged background and past in private equity.

On a closer inspection, some signs of the "Axe" touch are already visible in Monti's approach. Monti has begun to stress his ideas for political reform, something of the Italian version of Obama's message of change. The normally mild-mannered Monti has also stepped up his verbal attacks on Berlusconi, against whom he is battling for center-right voters.

Although the relationship between Axelrod and Monti is a private consultancy, it is difficult to imagine that Obama would not know about the job. The two share a close bond, which continues to include a regular exchange of opinions, whether on foreign or domestic policy and anything of relevance to the administration.

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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