2020 CDU Leadership Contest

[brucejoel99]

They're gonna have to beg Merkel herself to run again, aren't they?

[brucejoel99]

Too bad. I have a lot of respect for Merkel. What she has accomplished & the crises she has sorted out over the last 15 years are nothing short of amazing. It's truly unfortunate that many people in Germany don't know how well they're doing, & thus choose to spew hatred against the government because "everything could be better," because I simply don't see any German politician able to fill her shoes.

[brucejoel99]

Nothing happening here anymore at the moment, mostly for "other reasons".

Jens Spahn is the federal minister of health, Armin Laschet is the minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia. Yesterday, Spahn urged the population to abstain from "unnecessary travels" to North Rhine-Westphalia. Nobody really cares what Friedrich Merz does at the moment, because he doesn't hold a political office.

Somewhat surprisingly, nobody has so far brought up the possibility of cancelling the CDU convention in late April. Maybe because these things are generally decided pretty short-notice, one or at best two weeks in advance. I guess the possibility does exist when Spahn urges people not to travel to NRW anymore and a lot of CDU politicians from NRW would travel to Berlin for the party convention....

If delegates can't get to Berlin, are spooked into not attending, &/or are being advised to avoid going entirely, then is remote voting allowed for delegates?

[brucejoel99]

Politico is speculating that Merkel herself could throw her hat in the ring given how her standing among Germans has hit new highs amid the pandemic. They stress that she's still admittedly unlikely to do so, but even then, the only rationale provided is merely that "she rarely reverses course." At this rate, she's gonna end up breaking Bismarck's record

In other news, I called this in this very thread's 3rd reply lol:

They're gonna have to beg Merkel herself to run again, aren't they?