Jacob Christensen

Gayl Murphy watches the candidates’ debate (without understanding a word of German) on behalf of Die Zeit:

Verstehen Sie es nun also bitte nicht als Ausdruck meiner Geringschätzung, aber die Debatte, die ich da gestern von den USA aus im Internet verfolgt habe, sah eher so aus, als würden zwei Autoren auf einer Bibliothekars-Tagung um einen Literaturpreis wetteifern, als dass zwei altgediente Politiker um das wichtigste politische Amt im Land kämpfen.

More on campaign styles in Germany.

Just to finish off the weekend’s party conferences: The Conservatives are as unhappy as the Social Liberals and if we look at the development in electoral support since 1973 (it is always a question when you should start such series, cf. the one for the Social Liberals which I decided to start at their historical low point in 1977), it is obvious that the party is stuck in 1970s territory:

The real fun begins when we consider the combined strength of the Liberals (V) and the Conservatives (KF). For much of the 1980s and early 1990s, the two parties managed to form the nucleus of centre-right governments with only 30 to 35 per cent of the vote combined. In the 2000s, they have been hovering between 35 and 40 per cent. And maybe the Conservatives can take some comfort from looking at the Liberal performance during the 1980s. At their best, the Liberals made 12,5 per cent, at their lowest 10,5. It took some time before Uffe Ellemann-Jensen started selling tickets to the Liberal show.