A tale of two campaigns

It’s not yet over for Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate for the German chancellorship.

He could still succeed outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, but the most their Christian Democrats (CDU) are hoping for, with just days to go, is a knifeedge win over their main rivals, the Social Democrats (SPD) — and this would still likely represent their worst election ever.

The story of this campaign has not been about Laschet’s disappointing performance as the CDU standardbearer, however. Without Merkel’s star power, it was always going to be a more difficult campaign for the conservatives that have ruled Germany for 16 years.

The campaign has been about two other parties: the centre-left SPD, which was largely written off but rose relentlessly to the top of the polls. And the mirror image fortunes of the Greens, which briefly sensed an extraordinary victory only to see it vanish almost immediately from sight.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the SPD candidate for chancellor, has been a solid pair of hands as the frontman of the party’s campaign. The former Hamburg mayor appears to have enjoyed the attention he’s getting as a possible next chancellor.

Stepping off the stage in Soltau in the state of Lower Saxony on Tuesday, he approached the gathered supporters straight away.

“Well, how are you?” he asked, posing for selfies and signing autographs especially if they went inside the red SPD party books.

Throughout the election campaign, the SPD relied entirely on its candidate: Scholz on the posters, Scholz on the podiums, Scholz in debates, Scholz’s political programme.

Unlike Laschet, there have been no ‘future teams’ of advisors, no shadow cabinet indications, no repackaged initiatives, no distractions.

That gamble has paid off: Scholz has hardly put a foot wrong, and since the start of July his party’s poll numbers and his personal popularity rose steadily.

He produced no fireworks during the televised debates, but voters seemed to welcome his steady, unruffled delivery in the face of persistent attacks from Laschet: Would he raise taxes? (Scholz: yes, up to 45 per cent for the very top earners) Why had he not prevented a series of financial scandals? (Scholz: some happened before his time) Would he consider a coalition with the far-left? (Scholz: no comment).

But he hasn’t reached the top on his own. In fact, he isn’t even leader of his own party. Just last December, he lost out to Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-borjans in the race for the party leadership.

They, and the former SPD youth leader Kevin Kuehnert are the puppetmasters, say the critics.

Unlike the current finance minister, the Greens have had no national government experience to lean on during the campaign.

The last time the Greens were in power at a federal level was before Merkel — so 16 years ago, in coalition with Gerhard Schroeder’s SPD.

Political inexperience was a big hurdle to Annalena Baerbock, who attracted most of the attention during the campaign as the Greens’ first ever official candidate for chancellor.

But their campaign has really been a double-act: party co-leader Robert Habeck was until the last year the most well-known face of the Greens, and has done almost as many campaign appearances as Baerbock herself.

THE LACK OF SHOCKS AND SURPRISES FROM THE GERMAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN HIDES WHAT HAS BEEN AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY FOR TWO PARTIES THAT COULD WELL CONTINUE AFTER SUNDAY’S POLL