An openly gay candidate of Partito della Rifondazione Comunista wins in southern Italy, in regional elections that resulted in 11 victories for the center-left coalition, which now controls 16 of Italy’s 20 regions. Nichi Vendola's victory decisively refutes the American dogma that militants on the left, choosing radicals, can't attract votes at the center and lose to the right -- the dogma that the Democrats in America and the center-left in Italy promulgate, even though it has been often contradicted, as in the moderate John Kerry's loss -- as Vendola won 100,000 more votes than the center-left coalition.