Some poll was accomplished by Der Tagesspiegel on the US election. For those who aren't familiar with Der Tagesspiegel.....it's a Berlin paper.....which is one of the top ten in Germany. To be kinda honest, it's the paper that most working-class Germans would NOT read (Bild being the normal choice). I'd probably rate Der Tagesspiegel as a more intellectual newspaper.
The on-line poll? It simply asked people who came to the site.....Hillary or Trump. The winner? Hillary, with 85-percent of Germans who hit the site.
A clear note by Germans on who they'd desire? Well....not entirely. First, you'd have to ask how many people read Tagesspiegel, what type of reader they are, and how many of those people went to the on-line poll to vote. So, it's not very scientific or accurate.
The general public view? Germans got a fairly good dose of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and liked the image of Bill Clinton. So, they envision Hillary as simply Bill number two. That can only be good.
If you are standing in a German group who are all hyped up over Hillary and want to put them back into the better prospective.....ask them what Senator Hillary accomplished in eight years in the Senate....like naming the three things that she wrote, drafted, and got passed as law. Yeah, it is only three things in eight years. You can also ask them about the State Department years, and suggest that just making speeches doesn't count for much. At that point, they will concede.....they just want Bill number two and that's the only basis of their desire.
Does any of this really matter to a German? That's the funny thing. Other than the Berlin Airlift, Reagan's speech at the Wall, and Bush's screwed-up war plan....there's not much effect on any working-class German. It is good theater and something for the state-run news people to hype up.....but deep down....there's not much for a German to feel enthusiasm about.
What happens if Trump wins? My belief is that some SPD folks will see another window of opportunity to blame Trump for something and hype their political gain for the national election in the fall of 2017. But things are a bit different today, and the SPD are at the deep end of politics today....with barely 20-percent of the public feeling some affection for them.
As you might have guessed....I'm not much of a fan of polls or surveys. They rarely explain the true feeling of the public. If you offered a simple poll of Germany possibly leaving the EU.....you might actually get 35-percent of the German public to vote for it. If you offered a poll on ending the monthly television tax in Germany.....I think roughly 70-percent of the public would support that idea. But these are questions that the news folks really don't want to suggest.
So, when someone brings up the Tagesspiegel survey and Hillary doing so well....well, that's the whole story. It's not much to really chat about but we are into summer vacation in Germany, and there's just not much news unless you invent the stuff out of thin air.
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