ABLE IS HE

Napoleon's His Name and He Has Conquest in Mind (ELAINE SCIOLINO, July 25, 2003, NY Times)

It is hard not to succeed in politics here when your name is Napoleon.

The sun-baked city of Ajaccio is the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is also the place from where his great-great-grandnephew, Charles Napoleon, has decided to begin his political career.

Two years ago, Mr. Napoleon, a 52-year-old political economist, set out from Paris, where he was born, raised and educated, to run in Ajaccio's municipal elections, giving up a career in planning and finance that had taken him to Asia and Africa .

But Mr. Napoleon did not join the Parti Bonapartiste, the right-wing party dedicated to preserving the emperor's name and legacy that had controlled the city for a century and whose ideas had dominated the political landscape for 50 years before that.

Instead, Mr. Napoleon teamed up with a left-wing coalition that included Socialists and even Communists and ran on a platform of lowering taxes, improving public services and developing local projects.

The coalition won a stunning upset victory, and Mr. Napoleon now serves as second deputy mayor, a post that puts him in charge of the city's tourism industry. The position is a jumping-off point for his next political contest: running for the European Parliament next year.

"I wanted to build something by myself," he said, adding: "I am very free about my political views. I don't feel constrained to reproduce Napoleon in the 21st century."

Why can't our Left run on lowering taxes? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 25, 2003 1:53 PM