Welt went out and did a poll for their weekend edition and it's an interesting question....if you could vote today (a new German election, with Merz now as the face of the CDU)....how different would things be?
The poll says that the CDU-CSU group is now three points ahead of the SPD. If you combined the SPD-Green-FDP coalition in this imaginary election....they'd only cross the 46-percent line....meaning they couldn't win.
What it says to some degree....the old CDU 'face' (being Laschet) just didn't impress people. Merz? Yes....he's picking public support.
Looking ahead for the rest of 2022? I'd suggest that Merz will continue to rebuild the party, and probably add five to eight more points by early January 2023. It doesn't change the government, but it does paint it weaker than they should be.
2 comments:
Pity Merz is just another tired old hack who's in the pocket of whoever holds the biggest chequebook.
There are two 'gangs' in the CDU (at least through 2021). There was the intellectual Merkel crowd who had control of the VIP-committee. They hated Merz with a passion. Then you had the anti-Merkel crowd who were fed up with the 'path' and wanted a fresh new conservative view on things.
2017-era, Merkel had the election won, and then brought in her carbon copy to be the next Chancellor-in-waiting....which members of the party were shaking their heads over how this was done. AKK would eventually open the backdoor and leave. Merz saw his chance and tried to advance, but this mess with Covid created various cancelled party meetings, and the VIP-committee were able to find a 'loser' within the party to be the candidate in the 2021 election. Frankly, they gave up ten to twelve points in this effort....gracefully losing, and irking the CDU-CSU group to a great extent.
There just aren't a lot of CDU-CSU candidates with a 'voice' or likeable character at the national level. Merz is pro-business and leans further to the right than Merkel was. If people aren't happy with him...there's always the SPD Party, the Green Party, or the FDP Party. At least there are options.
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