DFriedrich Merz has three performances ahead of him when his chauffeur drives him towards Hamburg, but not into the city, but to towns outside the city, because it’s nice there too. First, Merz has to inspect an X-ray laser, then give a speech in a three-star hotel, then give a speech in a car dealership. It’s an election campaign here, in Schleswig Holstein, just as there is almost always an election campaign somewhere, especially in the life of Friedrich Merz, who first fought his way into the Bundestag and then, a few months later, to the head of the CDU.
Now he’s fighting for success, in Berlin, but also this Tuesday in mid-April in Schenefeld, Pinneberg and Norderstedt. Every CDU success is now also a Merz success, and every CDU defeat, such as the recent one in Saarland, is also a Merz defeat. It’s an afternoon like any other, day 72 with Merz as party leader looking for the way to the future.