Where the Green Party of Germany Lost Their Way

Presently, most polls put the Green Party at 7-percent.....a hefty fall from the 2009 results of 9.2-percent.  If you went back to the 2002 election, they were limited to 5.6 percent, and in the 2005 election, they were at 5.4-percent.  Some folks aren't even sure that they can stay above the 6-percent point and that it might be another marginal vote in September around 5-percent.  Where did the enthusiasm go?

Part of the big bump-up in the 2009 period came from the Stuttgart-21 position of the Green Party.  It was a fair shocker in the spring 2011 local state election in Baden-Wurttemberg....when the Greens suddenly found themselves with 24-percent of the state vote....mostly coming from the SPD, FDP and CDU votes.

The Stuttgart-21 talk hyped up the Green theme gave enthusiasts of the party a reason to feel good at times ahead.  Presently, we are seven years into the Stuttgart mass-transit project and the negativity has been met now with more questions.  Green hype is gone.

Added to the public feeling across Germany.....by Merkel killing off nuke-power, this whole agenda item which was one of the top three issues of the German Green Party.....is pretty much zeroed-out now.  The carbon-issue and climate-talk?  Merkel and the CDU adapted to it and own most of the agenda.

If you wrote the top ten platforms of the Green Party in 2007.....you'd find full ownership of those platforms today to be a joke.

Then you come to this odd topic of migration, asylum and immigration.  No one cites polls or numbers, but you sense that of every ten people who were solid Green votes back in 2009 period....at least a quarter of them today have some kind of issue with the Green Party position on migration and immigration.

There are roughly 800,000 Green votes missing at present, and it might go closer to one-million votes (2009 comparison).

At least once or twice a week now.....there's some Green political chat on German public TV where they talk about connecting to voters (meaning....they need voters to come back).  The general theme of these chats?  The party bosses perceive that the 'message' is not getting to these 800,000 missing voters.  From the 800,000?  One might perceive that they are wondering if the party bosses are not getting the message from the general public.

The big worry here?  For you to be in the Bundestag after an election.....you must get 5.0-percent of the national vote.  If you miss it....even with 4.99-percent....you don't get representation or seats.  You go home for four years and rebuild your party.  Presently, I don't think the Greens are in this category.....but you get the sense that they will marginally clear around 6.5-percent and have to rebuild their theme or voter platform.