Merkel running for 4th term

[palandio]

That's only natural. The people you are describing can be reached by both parties and are similar to US Green party voters for example. The thing is that the urban alternative milieu is a stronghold for both parties, but both parties extend far beyond that milieu, differently from the situation in the US.

The Greens get vote shares in upper middle class suburban regions that the US Greens would never get. Many of these voters care about things like "fiscal responsibility", security, of course also ecology and sustainability, but are culturally far away from the CDU/CSU.
The Left Party (compared to 2009) has lost some of its appeal to the group of white working-class males which is so popular here on the forum, but still gets voted by people that would never consider voting for the Green Party.

[palandio]

In this thread: Non-Germans enthusiastically lecturing Germans about how their political system works, or at least ought to work.

Despite being a German myself and despite thinking that Greens and Left are ideologically different, I find that question worth a discussion. Because there is an overlap between the parties ideologically (at least between parts of them) and from an outside perspective both might look like "to the left of mainstream SDs on all relevant issues". But the Left normally deemphasizes "social issues" (American meaning) and the Greens partially fill the gap of a Dutch/Danish style social-liberal party (admittedly some Greens like Ströbele, Giegold, Zion and probably also Trittin are clearly more on the left).