🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Lord Halifax]

I think, you are totally wrong

Friedrich Merz is economically right wing, socially conservative, globalist/transatlanticist/pro-EU/free trade with strong ties to the financial sector

AKK is centrist, politically catholic, and probably a tad more conservative then Merkel, but she's probably the closest you can get to Merkel in style and policies

Jens Spahn is a very ambitious loudmouth, but it's actually not to clear, what he really stands for, he's quite socially conservative - whatever that means in Germany in 2018, but gay. As health secretary his bilance seems mixed at the moment, but at least he tries to work on the issues.

Where do they stand on immigration?

[Lord Halifax]

^^awful, frustrating poll, the German establishment need to start to making the positive case for immigration and challenge the narrative being set by the AfD,
The AfD might not be winning the battle but they are winning the war unfortunately :/

Alternatively they could do as the voters want and stop Muslim immigration. Just a thought.

[Lord Halifax]

^^ it's basically unlawful, morally wrong and will never happen,
but let pretend it does happen and Muslim immigration is stopped, it won't change the narrative, in fact I think it will embolden the AfD and other far right parties even more.

You can't win the argument by imitating far right policies, particularly when it comes to immigration and integration,

You need to counterattack, change the narrative and talk about all the teachers, engineers, doctors, nurses, skilled workers and all the benefits migrants add to the society,

It's not about winning an argument, but doing what the people want, which is after all what politicians are supposed to do in a democracy.

Whether it's unlawful depends on the law, which is made by the politicians, or agreed to if we are talking international obligations, so that is a strange argument. It being morally wrong is a subjective evaluation, no group has an inherent right to immigrate to another country.

[Lord Halifax]

Why should anyone go from Greens to CDU for Friedrich Merz, of all people?

I think he meant that "new" Green voters that have returned to CDU (because they are ex-CDU) will come back to the Greens if Merz wins.

[Lord Halifax]

A "behemoth" that polls below 30 percent?

For a centrist party that is impressive. It means no one can govern without you.

[Lord Halifax]

If the Union drops below 30% in September, it's actually possible another government is able to gain a political and mathematical majority. Six months of course is a long time and politics, but the CDU/CSU corruption scandals keep popping up and people get increasingly frustrated with the pandemic missmanagement. And latter especially with the leadership from Union politicans both federal and at the state level.

The SPD just needs a few more points to overtake the Greens to make Olaf Scholz chancellor and either form a red-red-green or (preferably in my opinion) trafficlight coalition. Scholz can make a real case that he's a pragmatic and experienced leader while neither Habeck nor Baerbock come close to his resume as former Labor Minister, First Mayor of Hamburg and now Finance Minister.

I think CDU/CSU desperately need to go back into opposition. They have no new ideas for the future, especially in areas in which we're lagging behind. Not to mention their corruption issues that have revealed deep seated structural problems. A traffic light coalition, despite the differences between SPD/Greens and FDP, could set new impulses in securing social safety in the era of globalization and bringing together environmental protection and sound economic policies paired with a pro-EU, reliable foreign policy.

Well, 16 years is a long time, indeed, but I think that if the Union, in 3 months time, continues bellow 30%, they will deploy Markus Söder as Chancellor candidate and dump Laschet's dream of being the main candidate. But, I would be fine with Olaf Scholz being Chancellor, he seems moderate and has also been in government for a while so he could continue many of Merkel's positions in Germany and the EU.

They've said they're going to agree on a Chancellor candidate between Easter and Pentecost, and Pentecost is in two months.

[Lord Halifax]

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1375933047166615558?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ct...

When will we see the first poll with the Greens ahead?

[Lord Halifax]

When will we see the first poll with the Greens ahead?

Probably/hopefully never. The CSU is soon going to announce their chancellor candidate, and once the media constantly mention Söder's name in their news coverage ad nauseam, it will give him and his party a boost.

So you expect them to officially announce him as their candidate regardless of whether he's invited by the CDU? That goes against the consensus in the press.

What do you make of Strobl's public support for Laschet saying it's his impression all the state parties agree Laschet is the right candidate? BaWü, along with the East and Hamburg, were supposed to be the state parties favorable to Söder.

[Lord Halifax]

When will we see the first poll with the Greens ahead?

Probably/hopefully never. The CSU is soon going to announce their chancellor candidate, and once the media constantly mention Söder's name in their news coverage ad nauseam, it will give him and his party a boost.

The "first polls" with the Greens ahead already happened in Summer of 2019:

I meant in the run-up to the election. Everything pre-Covid is irrelevant now.

[Lord Halifax]

BaWü, along with the East and Hamburg, were supposed to be the state parties favorable to Söder.

What gives you that idea? Why should they want somebody to run who is viewed as even less electable than one of the most incompetent politicians of Germany?

As (mostly) pro-Merz areas they were expected to be skeptical of Laschet and most likely to prefer Söder.

Did you misread what I wrote? Söder is not viewed as "less electable" than Baerbock and the poll you posted compares her to Laschet.

[Lord Halifax]

Black-Green would give them more power and minimize the risk of the SPD recovering at their expense.

Could you elaborate on that? Black-Green would make SPD the main opposition party, in most countries that would be a much better position for recovering than being the junior partner in a coalition.

[Lord Halifax]

Did you misread what I wrote? Söder is not viewed as "less electable" than Baerbock and the poll you posted compares her to Laschet.

I cut your quote at the wrong part. Sorry!
I meant to say what makes you think that Strobl is right with his estimation in regard to Laschet's favorability within the CDU.

No idea. I'm just trying to follow what German pundits and political journalists write about the situation and they seem to emphasize that most of the CDU are backing Laschet due to a mix of loyalty, fear and uncertainty about whether Söder wants to run in the current situation.

As an outsider I expected Söder to have this in the bag due to the big difference in polling numbers, but it's clear that's not the way it's viewed by a lot of ppl who are following German politics professionally. For what it's worth the betting markets are also moving towards Laschet (or at least away from Söder) atm.

You claimed that CSU would soon present a chancellor candidate, was that an error (did you mean CDU/CSU?) or do you expect them to formally present Söder as their candidate?

[Lord Halifax]

Of course, you're right that main opposition parties recover from time to time but this is not a given. Think about the Republicans in France and Labour in the UK. Or think about the (awful) CDU-FDP coalition that governed Germany from 2009 to 2013. Did the SPD benefit from it? Not really. They gained 2.7% compared to the CDU's 7.7%.

As a general rule being the main opposition party is a strong position, unless the party system is hegemonic or quasi-hegemonic like the Japanese, and usually a lot better than being the junior partner in a coalition.

It makes sense that German political culture has a strong pro-incumbency bias which changes the relative value of different options.

I don't want to derail the thread, but the UK is a bad example since it clearly hurt the LibDems to go into coalition with the Tories and it was vital for Labour to retain their status as the main opposition party post-Brexit (being able to squeeze the LibDem and Green vote), something that briefly seemed under threat. In a FPTP system being the main opposition party is even more valuable than in a more proportional system (e.g. if the NDP ever became the main opposition party in Canada the Liberals might conceivably implode, and if the rump-Liberals then joined a Tory government as a junior partner they'd likely sign their own death warrant).

[Lord Halifax]

Looking at the poll with Laschet, is it just me or is "Traffic light" an underrated possibility for coalition? I realize red-red-green isn't necessarily that likely but replacing Linke with the FDP seems like an easy way to finally bring back the CDU into opposition.

It's hardly "underrated" since everyone keeps talking about it, but it's more complicated on the federal level than the state level. FDP is to the right of CDU on a number of economic issues.

[Lord Halifax]

Conflicting polls about the events of the last few days and hours:

No, the INSA poll was conducted before the CDU board "anointed" Laschet, so no point in comparing the two polls.

[Lord Halifax]

Conflicting polls about the events of the last few days and hours:

No, the INSA poll was conducted before the CDU board "anointed" Laschet, so no point in comparing the two polls.

True, but it still covers the trainwreck nomination process by CDU.

Yes, but ignoring who a clear majority of voters, and almost certainly also party members and MPs, wanted is a far more decisive event. I doubt the nomination process itself would have influenced the polls much if they had allowed their parliamentary group to elect Söder. The result of the nomination process (the candidate) matters far more than the process, only media types and political junkies really care about the procedure, most ordinary people don't.

[Lord Halifax]

Laschet's numbers are beyond pathetic at this point. His insistence to become the candidate over Söder really comes back to haunt them big time and it's no longer guaranteed they'll keep the chancellorship. Maybe Laschet is aiming his own Project 18?

If Social Democrats keep this up and the Scholzomat has a strong debate performance, we can actually win this thing.

Is there any chance he may give up and let Söder replace him?

Would the Greens insist on getting the chancellorship in a coalition even if the SDP were slightly bigger?

[Lord Halifax]

It would just be not stable enough and you can't run a country like Germany with that much uncertainty.

Doesn't the states do most of the actual governing? And unlike the US you got a professional and non-political central administration, and you got the ECB to take care of monetary policy and no foreign wars to deal with. I'd have thought Germany could do without a federal government for years without much damage, so why is a couple of years with an inefficient government such a problem? Just let the French run the EU for a while and let the bureaucrats and the länder take care of business at home.

[Lord Halifax]

Elect a left wing government, get the same absurd attitude to fiscal policy.

RIP Europe. You were too conservative, too intellectually impotent and too risk averse to ever have much chance of adapting to the 21st century

If you add up the FDP+CDU/CSU + AFD + Free Voters, that's 51.1% of the vote. It seems like a majority of the populace actually wants conservative policies and it's only because the AFD is too toxic to work with you have a left-wing goverment.

FDP is a party of classical liberalism not conservative.

tomayto, tomahto