You would think Merkel would lose BIG time for what has happened over there.
Some things to note about this “theme”.
1. Over the past month, while Merkel keeps hinting that she is considering another run....you find more and more CDU Party members (her party) from outside of the Berlin beltway, who absolutely want someone else to run.
2. Why is Merkel pressing on this idea? The gut feeling by Berlin players is that the CDU has no one groomed or ready...that can win. Of the top five possible replacements....two are retiring by the end of 2017 from politics. Two are identical in behavior to Merkel, and one just doesn’t hype up crowds with speeches. One distant but possible player is a Rheinland Pfalz CDU member (outside of the Berlin crowd) but thought not ready.
3. The general public? Last night (via WDR’s public live forum on TV), a hundred regular Germans got into commentary. There’s a lot of feeling that both the CDU and the SPD have merged their platforms into one gimmick. You can’t tell the difference between the two. For some voters...why vote for either?
4. Finally, you come to the odd repeat of the US election. Anger and frustration by the German public over the politics they see in Berlin. The public doesn’t believe that the politicians know the people or their issues. Crime, asylum issues, taxation, and integration are all on the public’s mind.
If you count only CDU votes (minus out the Bavarian CSU party results)...Merkel’s crowd has around 24-percent of the national vote at this point (it cannot go any higher). You have three state elections by May in Germany, of which the CDU will not do that great. Toss on the French presidential election in the spring, and the Austrian Presidential election in three weeks....and you have a Merkel crowd of maybe 20-percent max. It won’t be enough to win unless the Bavarians help them out.