Take your pick…or…how can a TV duell influence the voter’s perspective?!

I don’t know if you’re uptodate when it comes to german politics, but it’s been decided that there will be a new vote on September 18th 2005 (the next normal vote would have been in late 2006), because the current chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder (SPD), felt that he didn’t have total support anymore.

Short overview: Gerhard Schroeder (social democrat) is the current chancellor and leading the government (SPD + Gruene – “Red, Green”). Angela Merkel is the candidate of the CDU (christian democrat) and is trying everything to get elected and run the new government (which would be CDU + FDP – “Black, Yellow”). Not only is she a woman, but she’s from the old German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR in german) so a woman out of “the east”. Current polls suggest that CDU is currently around 40+ % so it could be possible that they’re the new government.

So the election campaign has started and is now in full gear…and so today is the first (and last) TV duell of the candidates (current chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and challenger Angela Merkel) which is currently on every major tv station.

My assessment after roughly one hour:

Gerhard Schroeder (SPD): Presenting himself in good shape and has really warded off every attack and tbh is looking like the total winner so far.

Angela Merkel (CDU): Presenting herself (she would be the first woman chancellor ever) as here old own self and although she’s trying, she’s not really able to threaten the chancellor IMO.

Final assessment: Whether you’re a fan of him or not (if you like Tennis I would say “Game, Set and Match” if Boxing is more for you it would be “K.O.”), the winner is: Gerhard Schroeder.

After 90 minutes of seesaw and a little jabbing and stabbing in both directions, it’s more than clear, at least to me, that most of the promises of the challenger are simply smoke screens which can’t be implemented or aren’t all that different to the current approaches taken by the government.

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