Mid-way through a meeting earlier this week, the would-be Italian prime minister, Mr Francesco Rutelli, was told by a German reporter, recently arrived in Italy: "I am finding Italian politics very hard to understand and, in particular, I find it hard to understand the politics of the Italian left . . "
Before the reporter could finish, Mr Rutelli flashed an impish grin at him and said: "Never mind. Even after you've been here for some years, you'll still find it hard to understand. Indeed some of your most esteemed colleagues still find it hard to understand. Sometimes, I find it hard to understand myself."
Mr Rutelli (46), one-time Radical, one-time Green Party member and currently coming to the end of an eight-year, double mandate as mayor of Rome, is nothing if not a charmer. When he arrived at the Foreign Press Bureau on Monday of this week, he took time to cruise the aisles of the waiting journalists, recalling names and shaking hands.
Just think, too, most of the foreign press hands he shook will not even have a vote in the general election next spring in which Mr Rutelli will lead the centre-left in a seemingly hopeless battle with the centre-right coalition led by the media tycoon Mr Silvio Berlusconi.
Cynics would argue that it was the apparent "hopelessness" of the centre-left's preelectoral standing that finally prompted the leftist coalition makers and shakers (and grass roots) to call on the current prime minister, Mr Giuliano Amato, to step aside in late September and hand over the electoral baton to Mr Rutelli.
Mr Amato, who succeeded Mr Massimo D'Alema as prime minister in April in the aftermath of a humiliating rout for the governing centre-left in regional elections, had made no secret of his desire to lead the left in the election.
In an age when politics, at least electoral politics, are certainly much more about form than content, the greasy eminences of the Italian left opted for Mr Rutelli's clean, youthful and all-so-telegenic good looks rather than the established government track record and international credibility of Mr Amato. (Remember, last March the latter was being touted as a potential managing director of the International Monetary Fund by prestigious British and US media sources.)
Watching Mr Rutelli "at work" the other day, you can understand the party beancounters' choice. Elegant and eloquent, he rambled gently through some of the many issues (employment, taxation, economic strategy, the environment, Italy's under-developed south, immigration, etc) that are likely to dominate the forthcoming general election.
He did so with a deal of charm and a liberal sprinkling of English expressions such as "exact figures", "life expectancy" and "no regrets". Nor did he appear much handicapped by the fact that he has yet to present a precise government programme.
To do that, however, he must first obtain the agreement of his disparate, sometimes implausible multi-party coalition which currently ranges from the exPCI (Democratic Left) to the exChristian Democrats (Popular Party), with a dash of hardline Communist and Green, as well as including own Democratic Party, founded by the current President of the European Commission, Mr Romano Prodi.
Missing from the coalition may well be the Radicals, the party with which Mr Rutelli once campaigned on issues such as cruise missile. Since those days, Mr Rutelli has moved ever more towards the centre.
The Green Deputy Rutelli who presented himself at government house on a moped to serve (for only 48 hours) as Minister for the Environment in the 1993 Ciampi government has, as mayor of Rome, gone on to form excellent relations with the Catholic Church, especially during the preparations for this year's Holy Year in Rome. Much has been made of the fact that he and his journalist wife, Barabaro Palombelli, remarried in a Catholic Church ceremony some five years ago.
Just when one was beginning to think him too bland, too much of a nice guy, Mr Rutelli did release a little spit of pre-electoral venom in the direction of his rival, Mr Berlusconi, the other day.
Making reference to the infamous "conflict of interest" between Mr Berlusconi's roles in politics and in his own Finninvest business empire, Mr Rutelli joked: "Oh, Berlusconi will be able to resolve the conflict of interest all right. He'll sell his party."
The electoral fight is only beginning.