I rarely link to (Murdoch-owned) The Weekly Standard, unless there is a need to illustrate the delusional thinking of the neoconservative gang in Washington, but Christopher Caldwell's article on the German election is worth reading. In particualar, he captures the essence of Schröder's ("a campaigning genius")and Merkel's ("the rationalist") campaign styles. Here he discusses Schröder's last minute strategy to use foreign policy to catch up with the opposition:
That is why Schröder brought foreign policy--almost totally absent from public consideration all summer--roaring into the campaign in its final days. When he referred to Nazism and Stalinism as a means of passing off his largely economic relationship with Putin's Russia as a peace initiative, Schröder was being cynical. But about America he was direct, and clearly speaking from the bottom of his heart. Schröder sought to stoke anti-Americanism in any way he could. The city most often mentioned in the course of the campaign was not Berlin or Hannover but New Orleans, which Schröder and his Green running mates called an example of what would happen to Germany if the CDU were elected. The spectacular scandals at Volkswagen were all over the German press just a few weeks ago, but in addressing the problem of corporate corruption it was Enron to which Schröder referred. He tried to pick a new fight with George W. Bush over the latter's statement that no options were off the table in dealing with Iran's nuclear program. He dusted off his nationalistic applause line from the 2002 race about how Germany's foreign policy decisions would be made "in Berlin and in no other capital."
And on Angela Merkel's status as a relative outsider in her own party:
...this would become her biggest problem. She was a childless, divorced, Eastern, Protestant woman in a party that was familial, Western, and largely Catholic and male. The powerful governors who had risen in the shadow of Helmut Kohl had all expected to be in the position that she had won through canniness and competence. One got the impression they wished her ill.
I don't agree with Caldwell's conclusions, but there is no denying that he is a perceptive observer of German politics.
Irritating that a conservative magazine would have the most insightful commentary on a foreign election--part of the strategic myopia afflicting American liberalism, methinks.
Posted by: ludwig | October 11, 2005 at 12:58 AM