As bad as ever, the social Democrats, are, according to polls. In Hesse, however, the SPD can still hope. Your candidate is even Prime Minister? A fate of choice – not only for the Comrades, also for Angela Merkel.
The day is not off to a good start to the campaign bus of Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, the top candidate of the SPD in Hesse. The purple 10-Meter-companions in the dawn method, and finds itself stuck between a railroad crossing and the front of the waiting cars. The driver wants to turn, but it goes neither forward nor back.
Just like in the German social democracy, one might say. The SPD seems to be blocked. You can’t make it, a credible way back to your core theme of social justice. You can’t make it to occupy new topics. And you can’t make the Jump from the Grand coalition in Berlin – although she loses, since the Alliance with Angela Merkel’s CDU and the CSU, becoming more and more popular in the people.
Relaxed in the last week
Schäfer-Gümbel, the Hessen-man of the SPD, but the power of the election campaign undeterred. The 49-Year-old wants to be Prime Minister in the state, which is dominated by the financial metropolis of Frankfurt. “Deeply relaxed” is his Mantra. If you watch, like Schäfer-Gümbel commuters pressed to the train station on the way into the City for a coffee and a Croissant in Hand, after his campaign team has reached the morning’s destination in the town of Dreieich just South of Frankfurt finally, you believe him, that he has reached this state. He does not impose himself on the people, the rush in dark suits and costumes in the direction of the office. He waits until someone of interest signals.
Keep banned: election campaign Bus by Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel
As Jens Tauber. Slows the step, by Schäfer-Gümbel to the date of the election on 28.10. remember, put a piece of paper with election advertising to the jacket. His choice had not yet fallen, he says, before he gets on the train. He could imagine but to select SPD. “You don’t have to run afterwards, only the winners.”
Merkel in dilemma
The party landscape in Germany is changing as rapidly as never before since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. The SPD is the biggest loser of this circulation. In the polls, the former people’s party comes on a nationwide basis, only about 15 percent. A Disaster for the Comrades who fought for the Kaiser in time for labor rights, in the course of history five Chancellor and three Federal Chancellor. With the Schäfer-Gümbel you hope to see a SPD Minister President in Hesse, Germany after almost 20 years of CDU-led government. At the time he is about on a par with the Green a good 20 percent. Incumbent Volker Bouffier, the CDU comes currently to around 26 percent.
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Schäfer-Gümbel to submit something, then he could as head of a coalition of SPD, Greens and Left or liberal governance. After two unsuccessful attempts, the shepherd-Gümbels the SPD would have a success experience. At the same time, this could mean the end of the Merkel-chancellorship. The CDU loses Hesse, Merkel’s opponent car, perhaps the coup and to vote their party Chairman. Slips of the SPD in Hesse, however, is even surpassed by the Greens around Tarek Al-Wazir, the Comrades could draw in Berlin, the ripcord and the Grand coalition in Berlin to denounce. Also, this could mean Merkel’s political end. And Andrea Nahles would have to give up the SPD presidency.
Pea soup and Rents
Of a fateful election, the SPD-candidate wants to know nothing. “From such Excesses, I think, in principle, nothing,” said Schäfer-Gümbel, the DW. Even if he suddenly receives requests from the “Washington Post” and other foreign media interview: He was trying to focus the election campaign on what the Hessian at heart. “This is especially the issue, the social issue of our time,” said Schäfer-Gümbel. He calls for a “Rent freeze” – for five years, the Rent should be allowed to rise only as strong as the Inflation-about two per cent in the year.
“With a bit of green stuff.” -Thorsten Schäfer Gümbel and his wife, Annette pots of the soup
With this idea, Schaefer wants to convince-Gümbel today, people in the Metropolitan area around Frankfurt. Offenbach, Mülheim am Main are the next stops on the roadmap of his campaign bus. And it is still in the grip of prohibition. A police officer threatens ticket. Quickly, the Team Schäfer-Gümbel is set in motion. The Alice square in the pedestrian area of Offenbach, which Enjoyed the election campaign helpers are already waiting for your top candidates. In 50-Liter pots of pea soup and goulash, red balloons swaying in the Wind between the residential blocks and a few old buildings that survived the bombing of the Second world war.
Labor party without workers
Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel and his wife Annette have soup aprons tied around it and draw. “With a bit of green stuff, just not too much of it,” jokes Schäfer-Gümbel and sprinkled parsley on the plastic plate. First of all, the access traveled journalists and some homeless people, then more and more passers-by dare to discuss with Schäfer-Gümbel about rising Rents, lack of teachers, poor bus services. Even on questions of detail to the building and the green roof Schaefer-Gümbel.
In Hesse, the SPD makes the lack of housing as the Top issue
For decades, cities such as Offenbach were firmly in the hands of the SPD. The numerous workers in metal, chemical and leather industry made their cross at the Enjoyed. But that was 40 years. Today has been invented in Offenbach as a service site, while the SPD is in the structural change. Most of the passers-by, who pulls it to the Soup, allow to the party.
Upright in the wind
“This is a tired bunch, each Sparkle is missing, where new thoughts are missing,” says Wolfgang Meller. He was a staunch SPD voters. The computer scientist in retirement has been averted, however, by the Enjoyed, such as more than ten million eligible Germans in the last 20 years. He miss politicians with Charisma, as it had once aired, the SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt, he says. Would Schäfer-Gümbel occur to him to simply nothing.
No more love: Wolfgang Meller was the SPD-trailers
Tries, meanwhile, to go despite the headwind from Berlin upright in the election. “We need to make the issues that people deal with in everyday life,” says Schäfer-Gümbel. The could learn, the whole party of the Comrades in the state of Hesse. “Only the existence of a party like the SPD,” he says in a DW interview. For today’s election day, Schäfer-Gümbel is still a Kiosk-Tour, a Meeting with entrepreneurs, and a discussion has made to the equality of man and woman. A lot of search for a Parking space for his bus driver. And a lot of Persuasion for the man who wants to show the SPD that it is not yet lost.
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Why wins the SPD this time, the Hesse-choice?