Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Person of the week
Four reasons why Laschet is still Chancellor
By Wolfram Weimer
Armin Laschet starts the federal election campaign with gruesome poll numbers, while the Greens are already moving through the country in a victory pose. But Laschet’s resilience is legendary, and he still has trumps in his hand.
The polls aren’t bad, they’re miserable. The CSU is not just offended, it is downright bucking. The Chancellor is not only cold and neutral towards Armin Laschet, she also throws clubs between his legs on talk shows like with Anne Will. The government’s pandemic policy is not helping, it is a burden, and the Greens are not only serious competition, they are triumphing in the media. In short: Armin Laschet looks like a certain loser at the beginning of the federal election campaign. Even loyal CDU voters doubt his election victory. But they could be wrong. Because Laschet’s resilience is legendary and he still has four trump cards in hand that will ultimately bring him to the Chancellery.
First: Armin Laschet is the bulletproof glass of German politics. Almost indestructible. Again and again his career seemed to have cracked, splintered, everything even broken. In 2010, for example, when he first lost his ministerial office and then embarrassingly defeated Norbert Röttgen in a member survey about the chairmanship of the NRW CDU. Or in 2017 when he fought an almost hopeless election campaign for the Prime Minister’s office in North Rhine-Westphalia. Or six months ago, when he seemed to be far behind Friedrich Merz in the battle for the CDU chairmanship in all polls. Or in the great agonizing struggle with Markus Söder for the candidacy for chancellor, when he lost the base, the parliamentary group, the East Germans and, in the end, even the CDU prime minister.
In every hopeless situation, the supposed wimp Laschet managed a tough surprise victory in the end. It has almost become his specialty – also because, thanks to his council, Laschet has no real enemies and at the decisive moment his opponents step into the void when attempting to mobilize. Laschet doesn’t just have stamina, he has a shrewd resilience and the gift to hit the big punch at the crucial moment. Anyone who has defeated Norbert Röttgen, Hannelore Kraft, Friedrich Merz and, in the end, Markus Söder from a seemingly hopeless situation, should also be able to bring down Annalena Baerbock with a last-minute punch.
Secondly: The CDU gathers for elections. The party is not a programmatic or social movement, it knows no enemies, it feeds itself neither on emotions, ideologies nor longings for a world better. It is a politically sober get-together for the bourgeois sensible. This means that it gathers without the need for powerful impulses or charismatic heroes. Neither Helmut Kohl nor Angela Merkel initially fascinated their voters – they were as lame in mobilization as Armin Laschet is now.
Nevertheless, the CDU rallies when there is something sensible to defend or to gain: prosperity for everyone, freedom against communism, reunification, an upswing. This time, too, there is a strong motive from a bourgeois point of view to gather again behind the CDU: the prospect of a green-red-red government. The middle class does not want to tip the country to the left – red-red-green actually scares you. This motif will lead to widespread collection reflexes in the course of the summer, unless the Greens categorically exclude this coalition.
Third: The Greens are masters at losing big polling lead in election years. In 2014 and 2017, despite high popularity ratings in the run-up to the elections, they fell far below expectations at single-digit values. The phenomenon is not only due to randomly wrongly chosen, unpopular topics (Veggie Day, patio heater, criticism of your own home or car). The Greens have the structural problem that the toolkit of their policy still relies heavily on bans, regulations, tax increases and the educational state.
Although the fundamental goals of their policy have extensive support, the instrument box, if it is demonstratively opened for elections, scares off many voters. Especially when the leadership cannot restrain the left wing of the party and thus gamble away the trust of the middle class. When things get serious, for many the Greens are “the rock and not the shirt party,” warns Winfried Kretschmann.
That is, you would actually choose them out of sympathy, but in the end you don’t do it out of reason unless a person with strong experience is at the top. But Annalena Baerbock has a penalty here because of her blatant government inexperience. And so over the summer the impression could arise that, although she scores with sympathy, the majority do not yet trust her to run the Chancellery, so the high popularity ratings cannot be converted into votes.
Fourth: In terms of content, the election campaign in the summer will increasingly be shaped by economic issues. As the vaccination campaign progresses and the pandemic subsides, the focus is shifting to the question of how Germany can get out of the crisis and the massive short-time work and the debt vortex and how prosperity can be secured. The Union can traditionally benefit from its – at least presumed – economic competence. Especially when Friedrich Merz is passionate about the election campaign. He’s already doing just that.
Merz mobilizes frustrated Union voters, including fans of Markus Söder. The former competitor saved Laschet at the crucial moment of the power struggle with Söder and is now on the big stage as the herald of the CDU comeback. It could become ironic in CDU history that Friedrich Merz of all people helped Armin Laschet to become chancellor.
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