No-frills Merkel woos voters
WAGING AM SEE, Germany
There was no energy to the crowd who had gathered beside the lake at Waging am See. They sat at long tables in the autumn sun enjoying a beer and a Currywurst served by young women in Dirndl dresses.
It felt more like a giant cook-out than a political rally. When Angela Merkel arrived the applause was polite. A few posters with Angie printed on them were waved, but unconvincingly. She does not know how to work a crowd. Certainly not in the American way. She moved through the tables with a few waves and a shy, self-effacing smile. She did reach out to those waiting. There is often theatre to politics, but not here.
She stood on the stage impassively, in her trademark trouser suit, waiting for the introductions to pass. At one point she received a text message and put her hand in her left pocket to examine her phone. So many politicians would have fretted over how that gesture might have appeared. She read the text as if she was alone, away from the crowd.
The campaign has been attacked for its lack of ideas, for the absence of sharp political debate. Certainly the two main leaders have found it hard to attack each other, having been in government together in a coalition.
With Angela Merkel you sense her quiet managerial-style is also deliberate. She seem to want to suck the energy out of the campaign, to count down the clock. She is vastly more popular than her party. When her critics call her dull, you feel she is secretly pleased. Boring is OK too. Her advisers believe that in a time of recession the German people are drawn to serious, cautious politicians. They do not want grand plans but an efficient crisis manager.
I caught up with Thomas de Maiziere, her Chief of Staff in the Chancellery. "Her charisma is a special one," he told me. "It's quiet, persuasive, full of conscience... A dialogue with the people, not shouting to the people. This is the secret to her success."
There is more to Angela Merkel's appeal than the safe pair of hands, however. I listened closely to her speech. She had notes but never referred to them. Her arguments are simple and direct. For those other leaders who face an election in the near future this seemed to be the Merkel strategy.
1. Appeal to basic, sound, book-keeping virtues. She told the crowd the recession "was caused because the world didn't behave like we did in Germany". Although she didn't say it on this occasion, it reminded me that she had said elsewhere that "the crisis did not take place because we were spending too little but because we were spending too much". You don't hear much from other leaders about debt and savings.
2. Ride the anger towards the bankers. She got her biggest applause when she went after the banks. "Greed won," she told the crowd. "The banks gambled and when they'd thrown everything against the wall they ran to the state to bail them out." She promised to fight at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh to see bonuses capped and tough new rules.
3. Fight for German interests. At one point, in the face of some heckles from German milk producers, she seemed to urge the crowd to buy German food. Certainly, with the rescue of Opel, she is seen as having fought fiercely for German interests. One analyst said to me: "Whatever happened to Europe in this election?" In the past, she said, German politicians wanted to parade as good Europeans. Not this time.
4. Stay flexible. Her critics say she has been vague on unemployment, taxes. It is all deliberate. Her chief of staff told me: "Nobody knows how long the recession will last, how deep unemployment will go... we have to be cautious about what we are going to do."
5. And finally level with the voters. Be straight. As her team told me, "this election all comes down to trust".
So the campaign is built around Angela Merkel the person. Her latest TV commercial has her gazing down from her window at the Chancellery like the mother of the nation. There are a large number of undecided voters, but her strategy is to avoid mistakes in the final days. It helps that she will be at the G20 in Pittsburgh. The big unknown is who she will share power with - the Free Democrats or the Social Democrats?
On the campaign trail she draws large crowds. Not Obama-style audiences that I saw last year, but there may never again be a campaign like that. But 6,000 on a Sunday afternoon with a soft light on the lake. Not bad. I'm told that Gordon Brown said to her recently that he doubted whether in Britain you would ever again get large election crowds. Everything was decided on television.
As Angela Merkel left the stage in Bavaria the speakers belted out Angie by the Rolling Stones. "Angie, you're beautiful. Ain't it time we said goodbye. Angie I still love you. Remember all those nights we cried. All those dreams we held so close, seemed to all go up in smoke." Curious. Maybe it is true, after all, that few people are paying attention.
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