2013 Elections in Germany

[Kitteh]

Wow.  FDP now is part of "other" in Berlin.

And Left and Greens are up and Pirates are almost out. I'm liking this election (as opposed to the federal one which sucks).

[Kitteh]

Hmm, I didn't know the Greens won a FPTP seat. Is there any chance they'll take more than 1 this time? Maybe another in Berlin or Baden-Wurrtemburg?

[Kitteh]

I'm late to this, but I just looked back over this thread and I'm surprised at the high level of support for gay equality among Linke voters. I thought a lot of their support was from rather socially conservative folks, but I guess not.

[Kitteh]

Going for a RRG coalition would probably be the good thing for the SPD in the long run, even if it'd get wiped out in the next election, by virtue of shifting the Overton Window and making Die Linke an acceptable coalition partner for future elections. These cordon sanitaire policies usually last exactly as long as all the major parties are willing to maintain them and then die out once the line is broken even slightly-see the similar cases of far-right parties across Europe. I agree though that now is not the time for that; given the narrow result here that might even give the CDU a majority on SPD defections. Sometime like 2005 would have been much better.

ofc that ignores the question of whether the SPD leadership even would want that; I think at this point they've moved so far to the right that they're closer to the CDU than Linke.