The Morning After the Election

The smoke now clears over the Bavarian state election.  Journalists probably spent eight hours last night between the two public TV outlets (ARD and ZDF) trying to hype the story and tell their emphasis of results.

There are four basic themes in the discussion by the journalists:

1.  There is some suggestion that the 'grand' coalition (the phrase used to describe the leadership deal between Merkel's CDU-CSU Party and the SPD Party) might be dying off.  I have doubts about that suggestion...mainly because if you broke up this coalition, then a new national election would be required.  This would be a very bad thing for the SPD folks because of dismal numbers.

2.  The journalists want to hype the Green Party platform and success from this election.  Well....what you can say is that some SPD-voters walked away from their party and this was more or less to send a message.  The SPD Party is in trouble but it's a long-term problem which they haven't been able to correct.  New leadership in the party did nothing....the lack of position on the diesel crisis is obvious....disjointed team play within the party is showing two entirely different factions existing....and the list goes on. 

3.  Dumping of blame on Seehofer and Soder (CSU bigwigs)?  For ten months....you could stand there and note various journalists on some agenda to dump on both guys.  Last night, they simply went into turbo mood and continued the dumping procedure.

4.  The success of the AfD.  Basically, they came from zero (five years ago) to 10-percent yesterday, in the voting.  This is another case of voters sending a message. 

So does the Hessen election in two weeks really matter a great deal?  For the SPD, I would suggest that the 30-percent that the SPD Party took in 2013's Hessen election won't be repeated, and they might be lucky if they can make the 20-percent point.  Those lost votes (if this occurs)?  It'll be likely Green Party gains.  That type of loss of votes would be enough to convince a new leadership scheme for the SPD.  Nahles gone?  She'd just be pushed into the background.

The real question to ask here....is the SPD under a transformation where they are just a marginal 12-percent type party, and the Greens end up being the number two party of the republic?  Then you can ask if Merkel's theme for the past decade has created a sort of Frankenstein-government landscape.