THEY JUST WANT TO DIE IN PEACE:

Can Merkel Make It?: Germany's likely next chancellor is the prisoner of her own party. Reform? Shush. Don't even think about it. (Stefan Theil, 8/29/05, Newsweek International)

Gerhard Schröder was at it again. "Take the military options off the table," he roared at a campaign rally in Hannover. "We've all seen they're no good!"

Bashing George W. Bush worked the last time the German chancellor was locked in an uphill election battle, in 2002 on the eve of the Iraq war. So he was understandably tempted to try it again, this time hoping to ride to victory in next month's ballot by denouncing possible U.S. military action in Iran. And like last time, the salvo appeared to catch his opponent, now Angela Merkel, off guard. More than 80 percent of Germans support Schröder's antiwar stance, she knew, and reject her own pro-U.S. foreign policy. What to do? Waffle, obviously. A spokesman lashed out at Schröder and called for unity with Washington, while Merkel herself said she agreed with Schröder.

This election should have been a slam dunk for Merkel. Her opponent, after all, presides over record 12 percent unemployment, five straight years of close-to-zero economic growth and an epidemic of angst over Germany's prospects. Even some of his own cabinet ministers treat the chancellor like a lame duck, openly speculating about political alliances in a post-Schröder era. By rights, these should be ideal circumstances for any opposition. Why, then, are Merkel and her Christian Democrats in such disarray?

Amid intramural bickering, the party has seen its once resounding majority in the polls continue to melt away, down from a 20-point margin in June to just 12 today (42 percent for the CDU to the SPD's 30 percent). Meanwhile, in Germany's depressed east, the CDU is running neck and neck with the Linkspartei, a new anti-establishment protest group that's grown out of the old East German communists and now speaks for 10 percent of the nation's voters. That arithmetic makes it practically impossible for Schröder to come out on top. But it also puts the odds near even that Merkel will fail to get her own majority and be forced to rule in a paralyzing "grand coalition" with Schröder's dysfunctional SPD.

She's not a prisoner of her party but of her people. Why would a dying Germany vote for interventionism abroad and welfare reform at home? Meanwhile, cute the way they refer to the new National Socialists as anti-establisment, huh?

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 23, 2005 12:24 PM