The two general secretaries of the CSU and CDU, Markus Blume and Paul Zimiak, share the work. In the election campaign, they are the people for the rough. After Zimiak brought the Green Party Congress in connection with anti-Semitism through a deliberately falsified quote, it is now Markus Blume’s turn for the campaign against Annalena Baerbock. “Schummel-Baerbock” he called the top candidate of the competition. It is true that Blume himself has just presented an election manifesto that he did not write, even though the media claimed it, while all top politicians hold speeches all day or publish articles under their names that they could at best skim over. And, of course, quote all the journalists who point to the fingers from the Internet without naming the source. But who cares about the reality of everyday professional politics when it comes to running a campaign?
Actually, all democratic parties should be able to speak and form a coalition with one another, this is the opinion officially represented by the German conservatives. Attacking the top candidates of the opposing party is not a contradiction in terms. However, it depends on how this is done. Olaf Scholz z. B. has just accused Mr. Blume on Twitter of “inconsistencies in the Wirecard committee”.
On the other hand, he personally disdains Annalena Baerbock. If Baerbock became a minister or even a chancellor, Blume would have to work with her. Like Zimiak with the Green Party. If it came to a black-green or green-black coalition, their campaigning methods could prove to be a career obstacle. Apparently, both of them firmly believe that this will not happen.
There were many tough election campaigns in the Federal Republic of Germany, the legendary “red socks” campaigns of the CDU General Secretary Heiner Geißler against the SPD, which was accused of communist infiltration of the country, are badly remembered. Only: At that time it was about a camp election campaign, right versus left. It was extremely unlikely that one could then be forced to form a coalition with the opponent.
Today we are in the middle of a pandemic and we have the climate crisis in mind. In the face of such dangers, camp affiliations no longer provide orientation. In addition, because the Chancellor is no longer running, it looked for a moment as if the political majorities could fundamentally shift, as had happened in Baden-Württemberg. So the CDU / CSU also tried to create a climate profile and made offers to the green competition.
In the meantime they have struggled and strategically repositioned themselves. The result is a kind of double strategy. At the factual level, an election program was decided that will continue the coal-fired power generation for the next 17 years and contains no other information as to how the climate goals contained therein and most recently underlined by the Federal Constitutional Court could be achieved. On the other hand, it explicitly excludes all those measures that could fit into a climate coalition with the Greens. In terms of party tactics, the focus is meanwhile on an anti-election campaign in which any political determination is carefully avoided. Instead, the focus is on the personal delegitimization of the green top candidate.
The self-created impression that there will be a black-and-green collaboration after the election is now happily accepted. After all, the “Generation Climate” plays a major role in this election – it was their influence that ultimately made the situation so volatile. With their protests, the younger generation, which was not numerically very large, had succeeded in opening up the politically thoughtful part of society to climate policy, i.e. also to the green. Fridays for Future was a shock for many elderly people; their own responsibility for the catastrophic destruction of human chances in life could no longer be overlooked and pushed aside. The effect reached deep into the CDU-affine electorate. The balance of power in the polls could shift through this solidarity with the elderly.
The election campaign, however, is not about polls, but about power in the state. The chairmen Söder or Laschet therefore like to stick to the paternalistic narrative with which they want to pick up the Fridays for Future parents and grandparents where they think they are: We’re already doing that with climate protection, after all we have the experience, and We somehow let the Greens participate, as long as they don’t appear too self-confident.
However, there is very little to suggest that this will happen in the end. After the Greens have been successfully made small, why should one then bring the stress of change into everyday government? Going on a rocky path with a partner that large parts of your own clientele resolutely reject? And as far as the climate is concerned – can’t you just keep waiting?
While the chairmen are still flashing “green” there is a lot to suggest that the party has long since decided to turn “red” or “yellow-red”. Ultimately, this explains the way in which the Blumes and Zimiaks try to shoot the top figures away from the eco-bourgeois competition. Apparently they take the SPD’s vow not to let themselves be squeezed into a Groko any more seriously than do large parts of the SPD themselves – especially if Scholz succeeds in placing the party in front of the Greens again. For an anti-green “Groko” or, if necessary, a “Germany coalition” of the old parties of the old Federal Republic, it will be enough. And “Opposition is crap,” said a leading social democrat once.
So there is some evidence that we will continue to be governed by almost the same top staff after the elections, while humiliated Greens continue to protest and develop plans. That all open and future-interested citizens withdraw in resignation. And the republic moves to the right, while instead of a modern woman a right-wing Catholic Rhinelander takes over the moderation and society continues to fall apart in the multitude of crises.
Nothing has been decided yet. The election campaign is long and one should not underestimate the creativity of modern democracies. However, the illusions that a new government will automatically come after the election should be given up.