Monti as candidate?

I'm back home after my extended stay in Italy.  I enjoyed Bergamo a lot and I think I made progress in the language.  On the plane coming home yesterday, I had time to read a little on Italian politics.  Italy's Partito democratico (Democratic Party) is holding its primary election next Sunday, the 25th.  Five candidates are competing for the party’s nomination as party leader for the national elections now set for March 10 of next year.  Meanwhile a different kind of nominating process is at work.

A good many Italians would like to see Mario Monti continue as prime minister.  And they’d like to see him do it openly and explicitly as a candidate competing with the others.  Massimo Cacciari makes the case for a Monti candidacy in the current issue of Expresso.  In an open letter to Monti he argues:

- The prime minister isn’t the simple technocrat he often portrayed as; he has long experience working in political settings and, by implication, can been an effective politician.
- He has made a good beginning at putting the country on a new course, but it’s only a beginning.  He shouldn’t want to be know only as la premessa, the prelude to what comes after.
- None of the Italian political parties is ready to continue his work.  If anything, the parties are in worse shape now than when Monti took over a year ago.
- An open Monti candidacy would bring people to the polls, avoiding the widespread abstention seen in the recent Sicilian elections.
- Becoming prime minister only after the elections fail to produce a clear majority for one party or coalition (a possibility suggested by Ilvo Diamanti) would mean operating in a political setting worse than the current one.  No program for a new Monti government would have been articulated and he would face a more coherent opposition.

Is Monti listening?  He’s probably heard these, or similar, arguments already.  And he seems a serious man ready to consider serious arguments, which I think these are, especially the last one.  But I wonder how ready he is to become a full-fledged politician?  I don’t really know, but I’d guess he’ll decide against it.