When your tag line goes global, you know you’re on to something. “Just do it” for Nike works around the world, and apparently, Obama’s “Yes we can” is getting the Italian treatment by a reformer who believes true leadership isn’t built on compromise:

NPR: ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ Shakes Up Italian Elections
‘Mr. Nice Guy’ Takes a Page from Obama

While Berlusconi is flashy, with tinted hair and face-lifts, his new rival on the left is just the opposite. Clean-cut 52-year-old Veltroni is nicknamed “Mr. Nice Guy.”

A former communist who openly adores American culture, Veltroni just stepped down as the popular two-term mayor of Rome. As leader of the new Democratic Party, he has modeled his campaign after Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in the United States.

“Yes we can, yes we can,” Veltroni says. “Barack Obama first said this when the road seemed closed, and now it’s open wide,” he adds.

The slogan has been translated as “si puo fare” and put to music.

In a major break with the past, Veltroni has vowed his party will run alone, not in coalition with little parties that analysts say are in great part responsible for Italy’s unstable governments and legislative paralysis.

Trying to bring Americans together, not just Democrats or Republicans, requires someone with the ability to remind us that “We Can” as opposed to “I Will” – and it shows one of the primary differences between the Obama movement and the Clinton establishment. If we “Hope” to see “Change” we need to be able to communicate that America has made a change. The fact that an Italian is willing to associate his campaign with an American presidential candidate, in a world that is full of anti-Americanism thanks to our current Commander in Chief, further reinforces my belief that Obama has demonstrated his ability to become the Statesman President that we are so desperately missing.