Shooting for the Chancellorship: Round 1

Chancellor Schröder expected to win Germany's first televised debate hands down. His challenger took him - and millions of viewers - by surprise

It was widely promoted as the "TV Duel", the first of its kind in German history. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the Social Democrat (SPD), vs Edmund Stoiber, candidate of the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and prime minister of the state of Bavaria, face to face, mano a mano, American style. And an estimated 8 million Germans tuned in on Sunday evening.

The debate could only have been Schröder's to lose. Commonly referred to as "the media chancellor" because of his on-screen charm and self-confidence, he was expected to wipe the floor with Stoiber. The conservative challenger (see Lederhosen and Laptops) spent the early days of the campaign clumsily hemming and hawing through interviews as he tried to rein in the fiery rhetoric and jabbing forefinger he was famous for. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate the voter in the middle of the political spectrum, the voter Schröder had so successfully courted in 1998. But during those painful first few months as a national figure, Stoiber found that without the fire and the finger, he was at a loss for words.

The SPD, on the other hand, was trailing in the polls when the idea of a televised debate came up in the first place. Surely, setting the telegenic Schröder against the stuttering Stoiber was nothing but a win-win proposition? There were a few things the SPD didn't count on, though.

The format that limited the candidates' answers to 90 seconds stifled Schröder's jovial conversational style but focused Stoiber's meandering sentences to clipped, sharp points. Which he'd been working on. Stoiber was clearly well-rehearsed, wearing a smile that seemed either confident or ghoulish, depending on who you asked, and worse for Schröder, nearly all the "uh's" and "er's" had been ironed out.

Stoiber got his main point across mercilessly. Spiel mir das Liedchen vom Teletod Summed up by Goedart Palm: "Lots promised, nothing accomplished." In 1998, Schröder boldly stated that if his SPD-Green coalition didn't bring the number of unemployed below 3.5 million by the end of its first term, it wouldn't score a second one - nor deserve to. As things stand, there are over 4 million unemployed Germans.

Schröder, of course, blames the worldwide economic slump and is placing his bets on a set of proposals drawn up by a commission led by Volkswagen exec Peter Hartz. He focused instead on the issue that gave him a bump in the polls a few weeks ago: US saber-rattling over Iraq. Since well over 80 percent of Germans disapprove, Schröder's loud promise that Germany will refrain from "military adventures" has played well.

Both candidates, of course, emphasized the scope of the flooding disaster that has swept through parts of Bavaria and the eastern states over the last several weeks. The SPD has actually been creeping up on the CDU/CSU in the polls primarily because Schröder's response to the catastrophe has been rapid and reasonable: He's postponed tax cuts to retain billions of euros to be spent on rebuilding and applied for aide from the EU.

Despite the absurdity of the absence of other parties (particularly the Greens and the Free Democrats, the current and potential coalition partners) and the fact that Germans don't vote directly for personalities to fill the chancellor's chair, the debate was supposed to have helped push the SPD over the top. But simply by not flubbing it, Stoiber proved himself to be a more formidable challenger than Schröder was counting on. Both will get a second shot at the other on September 8 before the final shoot-out, the actual election, on September 22.

Elsewhere

The Economist adds up the costs of the floods.

On Thursday, Leni Riefenstahl turned 100. And she was everywhere. Every German publication ran something and Telepolis was no exception (see Leni Riefenstahls 100jähriges Vermächtnis für Hollywood). In English, the best and most concise wrap-up of her life and the artistic and political conundrum Riefenstahl embodies came from Jeff Chu in Time.

"European social democracy depends on Schröder," argues New Statesman political editor John Kampfner in the Guardian.

"What the Austro-Hungarian empire and then the Nazis failed to win by force of arms in the first and second world wars -supremacy in the Balkans- Germany is now about to achieve by money and stealth." Eve-Ann Prentice in The Spectator.