TERMINAL PATIENTS DON'T REFORM THEIR WAYS:

Merkel camp jittery as polls shift (Judy Dempsey, 9/09/05, International Herald Tribune)

The shift of mood inside the Merkel camp reflects opinion polls that for the first time since the campaign started in July have shifted toward Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

A poll issued Thursday by Infratest dimap for ARD public television in which 1,000 people were selected at random showed support for the Christian Democrats and their sister party, the Christian Social Union, dipping from 43 percent to 41 percent. The Free Democrats would get 6.5 percent of the vote. Together these parties would not have enough seats in Parliament to form a government.

In contrast, Schröder's Social Democrats have jumped from 30 percent to 34 percent and his Green Party coalition partners have 7 percent.

Yet those figures, too, would make it impossible for the Social Democrats and Greens to govern, largely because of the influence of the new radical Left Party of former communists and former Social Democrats. It could win 8.5 percent of the votes, which in the past probably would have been destined for Schröder's party.

Even though the margin of error is between 1.4 and 3.1 percentage points, the leading pollsters are again beginning to speculate that Merkel might in fact have no choice but to share government with the Social Democrats as her junior partner in what is called "a grand coalition."

The idea horrifies Elmar Brok, a leading Christian Democrat and member of the European Parliament.

"It would be a disaster for the reforms and for the stability of the country," said Brok, who was campaigning in his constituency in Gütersloh, western Germany. "The left wing of the Social Democrats would block reforms. Stagnation would set in and then we would have to have fresh elections in two years or so."

If ever there was a political situation that cried out for a Front Porch Campaign this is it. To so much as speak of change is to alienate German voters who just want to be left to die away quietly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 9, 2005 12:00 AM