Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Scholz As The Carbon Copy Of Merkel?

 I've sat and looked over four journalist's copy today....covering Chancellor Scholz, and the current view of lacking 'leadership'.  All are national-news levels of the current situation with the gov't unable to really get agreement between the SPD, Greens and FDP.

When you go back to the summer of 2021, and the election campaign leading up to the September federal election.....there's one general view going on.  No one really wanted to lead the CDU candidate (Laschet) to a win.  For each weakness that you saw in Scholz....there was more inept views of Laschet than in Scholz.  

The general view in 2021 over Scholz?  He'd been a big player in Hamburg city politics for a decade, and generally regarded as having a weak resume on achievements.  However....when you line up both Scholz and Laschet....you basically had two weaker copies of Merkel, and they were more of the college professor type leader....than what you'd had with Schmidt or Kohl.  It's just that Scholz was slightly ahead of Laschet.

I would compare this to a choice of two cars....both having a marginal 40-horsepower engines.   

So we are at 18 months into this situation, and the coalition is mostly just in a standby-mode.  Voters from the Green Party?  Mostly dissatisfied over marginal achievements.  I would suggest that it's possible that one out of three would be willing to exit the door and find a more far-left pro-environmental party to put their votes behind.

Any improvement to come?  No.  In some ways....the fall 2025 federal election....may seem like a relief to some people.  Scholz likely to run again?  I'm not that convinced.  

No comments: