German Social Democratic challenger Peer Steinbrueck took to the Bavarian hills with about 150 party sherpas, SPD members and media in tow, seeking to burnish his profile as poll ratings slump.
Trailing by as many as 19 percentage points in surveys during a campaign for Sept. 22 elections that has been strewn with gaffes, Steinbrueck, wearing a straw hat and beige hiking gear, shrugged off any comparison between his 90-minute walk and his attempt to unseat the chancellor.
Polls show that even SPD voters prefer Merkel to Steinbrueck, 66.“I don’t give a damn what happened in the last nine months,” Steinbrueck, unencumbered by a backpack, said yesterday during a pause from negotiating the path up the Lusen, a peak of 1,373 meters (4,500 feet) in the Bavarian Forest national park of southeastern Germany on the Czech border.
“I’m looking ahead, I’m not looking at the polls.” Little more than seven weeks before elections that will determine whether Merkel secures a third term, Steinbrueck is taking advantage of the chancellor’s absence on vacation to try and shine more public light on his campaign than on his persona.
The former finance minister said Jan. 30 that he might have to refrain from irony after German news magazine Focus called him “the chaos candidate” and Der Spiegel questioned why he was making “so many mistakes.”
The SPD has since dropped further behind Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc, from 15 points then to 19 points in a weekly Forsa poll this week.
‘Very Relaxed’
“He’s very relaxed even though the polls are so bad for him,” said Inge Slowik, an SPD official from nearby Deggendorf who accompanied Steinbrueck on the hike.
“He’s so relaxed that sometimes he even gives the impression he doesn’t want to run.” Slowik said that it’s good for people to see that “he’s easy to approach and he likes talking to people.”
That didn’t extend to a representative of a solar-energy company, whom Steinbrueck berated.
“What kind of garbage are you telling me?” Steinbrueck yelled into the forest. “It doesn’t lower energy bills, it puts them up!”
The hike was one of the first stops on a get-out-the-vote operation “from Bavaria to the coast” running through Aug. 10, to be followed by about 100 appearances by Steinbrueck and fellow SPD leaders between now and election day.
The SPD, which fell to its worst result of the post-World War II era at the last election in 2009, “still has huge potential,” with the key being persuading past voters to return to the party, Steinbrueck said.
Contrasting his approach to Merkel’s “sleeping pill over the whole country,” he said he aims to reach out directly and engage voters by addressing their “daily problems” such as housing or nursing care.
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After a campaign focused on social-justice issues such as rent controls and raising taxes on high earners, the SPD trails the CDU/CSU by 22 percent to 41 percent in the latest Forsa poll. Merkel’s Free Democratic coalition partner has 5 percent and the SPD’s Green allies 13 percent.
If repeated on Sept. 22, that would allow Merkel to rerun her current coalition. On reaching the summit, Steinbrueck, who this week unveiled his party’s poster campaign, was confronted by a red banner left by youth members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc.
“From now on, it’s all downhill for the SPD,” it said. Wrong-footed once more, Steinbrueck marched past. “What are they doing here?” he said.
bloomberg.com
Trailing by as many as 19 percentage points in surveys during a campaign for Sept. 22 elections that has been strewn with gaffes, Steinbrueck, wearing a straw hat and beige hiking gear, shrugged off any comparison between his 90-minute walk and his attempt to unseat the chancellor.
Polls show that even SPD voters prefer Merkel to Steinbrueck, 66.“I don’t give a damn what happened in the last nine months,” Steinbrueck, unencumbered by a backpack, said yesterday during a pause from negotiating the path up the Lusen, a peak of 1,373 meters (4,500 feet) in the Bavarian Forest national park of southeastern Germany on the Czech border.
“I’m looking ahead, I’m not looking at the polls.” Little more than seven weeks before elections that will determine whether Merkel secures a third term, Steinbrueck is taking advantage of the chancellor’s absence on vacation to try and shine more public light on his campaign than on his persona.
The former finance minister said Jan. 30 that he might have to refrain from irony after German news magazine Focus called him “the chaos candidate” and Der Spiegel questioned why he was making “so many mistakes.”
The SPD has since dropped further behind Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc, from 15 points then to 19 points in a weekly Forsa poll this week.
‘Very Relaxed’
“He’s very relaxed even though the polls are so bad for him,” said Inge Slowik, an SPD official from nearby Deggendorf who accompanied Steinbrueck on the hike.
“He’s so relaxed that sometimes he even gives the impression he doesn’t want to run.” Slowik said that it’s good for people to see that “he’s easy to approach and he likes talking to people.”
That didn’t extend to a representative of a solar-energy company, whom Steinbrueck berated.
“What kind of garbage are you telling me?” Steinbrueck yelled into the forest. “It doesn’t lower energy bills, it puts them up!”
The hike was one of the first stops on a get-out-the-vote operation “from Bavaria to the coast” running through Aug. 10, to be followed by about 100 appearances by Steinbrueck and fellow SPD leaders between now and election day.
The SPD, which fell to its worst result of the post-World War II era at the last election in 2009, “still has huge potential,” with the key being persuading past voters to return to the party, Steinbrueck said.
Contrasting his approach to Merkel’s “sleeping pill over the whole country,” he said he aims to reach out directly and engage voters by addressing their “daily problems” such as housing or nursing care.
Campaign Banner
After a campaign focused on social-justice issues such as rent controls and raising taxes on high earners, the SPD trails the CDU/CSU by 22 percent to 41 percent in the latest Forsa poll. Merkel’s Free Democratic coalition partner has 5 percent and the SPD’s Green allies 13 percent.
If repeated on Sept. 22, that would allow Merkel to rerun her current coalition. On reaching the summit, Steinbrueck, who this week unveiled his party’s poster campaign, was confronted by a red banner left by youth members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc.
“From now on, it’s all downhill for the SPD,” it said. Wrong-footed once more, Steinbrueck marched past. “What are they doing here?” he said.
bloomberg.com
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