I have been so wrapped up in the Hurrican Katrina disaster that I did not get a chance to watch the debate on German television between Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel. From the news reports, it appears that Merkel scored some points in attacking the Chancellor for the dismal economic performance and the unacceptably high levels of unemployment in Germany. Schröder meanwhile went on the offensive in attacking the CDU’s plan to raise the VAT (Mehrwertsteuer) and for the flat-tax proposal of Paul Kirchhof, who Merkel has tapped as her finance minister.
"Man kann ja nicht ein ganzes Volk zum Versuchskaninchen machen." Es sei unsozial, von Millionären und Krankenschwestern den gleichen Steuersatz zu verlangen.
Merkel, on the other hand scored with her remark:" Just sitting back and waiting for reforms is unacceptable." Schröder patted himself on the back for keeping Germany out the Iraq War disaster, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be much debate about the future of Germany’s foreign policy.
According to several polls conducted immediately following the debate, Schröder was the clear winner. Sat.1. had Schröder winning according to 57% of the viewers compared to 34% for Merkel. Still, according to the blog Lautgeben, the debate did little damage to Merkel’s chances to win the vote in two weeks:
Dennoch, an diesem Abend von einer “Verliererin Merkel” zu reden, wäre verfehlt. Die Kanzlerkandidatin der Union hat sich – für viele Beobachter – überraschend gut geschlagen, der “Medienkanzler” konnte nur selten direkt punkten. Kurz: Schröder hat beim Duell kaum etwas gewonnen, Merkel fast nichts verloren.
Remember, John Kerry was the decisive winner in all three debates against George W. Bush, but in the end that didn’t seem to matter much to the voters. Here, I would tend to agree with the assessment of the LinksZeitung that the voters were the loser, since there was no debate about the eastern Germany, education and foreign policy:
Antworten auf die Fragen, die für die Wähler wichtig sind, gaben sie nicht. So wurden etwa das Thema Ostdeutschland oder die Außenpolitik komplett ausgeblendet. Zu kurz kamen auch Themen wie Arbeitslosigkeit, Bildung oder Renten.
