The Pirate 'Booty'

Several German news sources are carrying comments from the weekend over the German Pirate Party, and it's arrival at the national level.  The belief is....this political party....may pull anywhere from five to nine percent, which means means they will be getting representation at the Bundestag, when the next big election occurs.

There are several things to observe.  First, the FDP folks will be very lucky to pull at least five percent, and some folks speculate that they just won't get enough votes to get representation (you have to get five or more, to get into the Bundestag).

Second, if the Pirate Party pulls up eight or nine percent of the vote....where exactly are they taking votes away?  I would speculate that both of the major parties (the CDU and SPD) would lose two percent each.

Third, who votes for the Pirate Party?  Well....mostly people around the ages of eighteen to twenty-five.  I doubt that you'd find many voters over fifty years old, who would vote for the party.  Their big policy areas.....circle around ideas or problems that younger voters would gravitate to and support.

Fourth and final....there just might be this weird scenario where the CDU/CSU folks pull 39 percent of the national vote, the FDP pulls five percent, and then they decide to partner up with the Pirate Party.  I'm the one suggesting that....not any German analyst.  I suspect most of the big political analysts would never seen the CDU partnering up with the Pirate 'kids'.  You can't really call the Pirates a radical right or radical left group.  They are mostly an issue group.  And they've used the internet a great deal to get the youth vote out.

So, the Pirates have arrived, and have some booty finally.  They can appear on national political chat shows.  They will be forced to comment that they really don't have more than a dozen major topics that they care about.  I doubt if they have a Syria-policy, or a autobahn-speed-policy, or a position on relations with China.  But they will represent roughly seven percent of the folks who vote, and that counts for something.  And for the folks over seventy?  They are likely standing there and shaking their heads....thinking these punk kids never voted before, and now?  They have to contend with a bunch of "Pirates"?