[Michael81Dus]

A good thing that he´s gone. He would have been hard to beat as challenger of Chancellor Merkel. The number of 1st-class-personalities within the SPD is declining once again.

[globalheater]

So your happy that first class personalities in germany are declining by failing health ?

Gimme a break. I don't vote for them but we should burry them otherwise.

[cartan]

I was glad that he stepped down until I remembered that, this being the SPD, he'll invariably be replaced by someone just as insufferable.

I don't know what it is that makes those Social Democrats so absolutely disgusting. It's not just that they're leftists. Other leftists from the Green Party or the various communist parties are equally or even more insane, but for some reason many of them are not as awful and repulsive as the Social Democrats. So smug; so arrogant; so uneducated; so phony; so vulgar; so distasteful; so ignorant; so stupid; so plump; so greasy; so fat; so...uncouth! And that's just the women! It wasn't always this way, either. Willy Brandt and, of course, Helmut Schmidt were likeable guys. But today's generation of Sozis? *shudder*

[NZerFromHK]

At least Platzeck was a former democracy activist in the east, and he would be more cautious against Russian or (Communist) Chinese charm offensives. Beck is a western social democrat through and through: does he understand social welfare doesn't work in helping those in need?

This is bad news in the short term for Merkel. If this forces an early election then it may be the best news for the CDU since slice bread was invented.