ON SEPTEMBER 18, THE Germans will go to the polls. The extraordinary elections are being held a year before the end of the Bundestag's regular four-year legislative term, thanks to an elaborate and, to many Germans, distasteful charade. That price would be well worth paying if it produced a government with the will and mandate for much-needed political and economic reforms. Germany "confronts monumental tasks," President Horst Köhler observed in a televised address on the need for fresh elections. "Millions of people are unemployed, many for years. Federal and state budgets are in an unprecedented, critical condition. The existing federal...