Germans will generally 'know' regional politicians, or at least they will hint that. If you bring up mayor so-and-so, a local 50-year-old resident will tell you three or four lines about the guy and how he rose to be mayor.
Over the past couple of decades, with politics in full swing....there is a trend where political figures appear, and folks will say that something to the effect that the guy just 'appeared out of thin air'. Local newspapers will often walk into a situation where they have review some guy and tell his story.
So this came up in the German news today....a candidate for the SPD Party, for the EU election in May. This guy (Vaut is the last name) seems to have gotten himself on the list as a potential representative for the Brandenburg region. He gave some introduction phase of himself, and talked over his lifestyle in Brandenburg and at some point, even introduced his girlfriend.
Things were fine with this story, and his speeches. Then, someone started to really ask more questions. So it came out....the girlfriend is just a 'friend'....not a real girlfriend (per say). Now, I can't really suggest any reason why you'd go and hustle up some female friend to just pretend to be your 'girlfriend', unless you just wanted the image thing to be better. These days, if you were gay....no one would really care one way or another. Maybe in this particular region, being 'family-connected' matters to the typical SPD-voter.
But the fake story doesn't end there. Eventually, it was determined that he's never lived in Brandenburg in his life....that he's been a Berliner for his entire life (the mileage between the two cities is 70 kilometers).
His campaign? Mostly stopped. It appears that he'll still be on the ballot, and he says he'll resign if elected. He seems to have been fairly nice about the situation, after the whole story came out in the public.
More people like this in existence? Well, you just don't know.
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