Today it's about Annalena Baerbock's election campaign, about an election date in Thuringia, about a hunger strike against climate policy, about Jens Spahn's secret thoughts and about a sad face.
Too tense to convince
Three days until the federal election
.
You can't stand it anymore, there was seldom so much tension.
Every morning you will find a quick look at one of the chancellor candidates here, an assessment of the respective election campaign.
It starts with
Annalena Baerbock
.
She
screwed
it up
early
: unreported extra income, plagiarized passages in her book.
She didn't withstand the pressure well, looked insecure, sometimes almost lost.
After an important speech she shouted "shit" audibly to everyone in the exit.
That stuck.
What speaks for Baerbock is that she didn't break in, that she caught herself.
There is no harder test in politics than an election campaign as a candidate for chancellor.
Baerbock showed himself to be able to cope with this without really convincing.
She often seemed too tense for that.
Her best moments
: When she attacked her two competitors in the TV trials.
It
has gotten too little out of
the most important topic of our time,
climate change
, even though it is an ingredient in the primordial green soup.
Baerbock also gave the impression that things could more or less go on as before.
A really big difference to the other parties was not evident.
After this election campaign, one cannot say that Annalena Baerbock would not have lost anything in the Chancellery.
But you can't say why she had to go in there.
Today Baerbock is campaigning in Brandenburg, in the evening you can see them on television during the big debate between the top candidates of all parties (ARD and ZDF).
This is how the Greens missed their chance at the Chancellery: The fatal mistakes of Annalena Baerbock
Raw bourgeoisie
There is a
summit of shabby conservatism
today in Meiningen, Thuringia.
There, the former
President of the Office
for the
Protection of the Constitution,
Hans-Georg Maaßen
, is running
for a direct mandate.
His guest during the election campaign is
Thilo Sarrazin in
the early evening
.
Maaßen is a member of the CDU, Sarrazin was a member of the SPD until the party kicked him out last year.
What connects them is their
intellectual arrogance
.
What they also have in common is a strong aversion to immigration, with a racist undertone.
They are both conservative, but so shabby conservative that the AfD could also be their political home.
Appropriate headlines for this meeting would also be: »Raw middle-class«, a term coined by the sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer.
And »Radicalized Conservatism«, the title of an interesting new book by Natascha Strobl.
Controversial CDU candidate in Thuringia: The wondrous election campaign of Hans-Georg Maaßen
The desperate
In
Berlin you can currently see
what
could
happen
to societies
in the
fight against climate change
.
There is an ultimatum expired tonight by
activists
who have been on
hunger strike
for three weeks
.
You want to talk to the candidate for chancellor about climate policy.
Because they did not get an appointment, they want to force one with this action.
Two activists have announced that they will not drink any more if the candidates do not show up with them today.
This speeds up the journey towards death.
Nevertheless, politicians must not allow themselves to be blackmailed,
and so far Baerbock, Laschet and Scholz have not intended to give in.
The hunger strike shows the potential that lies in this issue.
This is a means of desperate people, often prisoners, who defend themselves against inhumane conditions;
often workers facing dismissal.
There is already a lot of despair among the younger generations at the prospect of being cheated of a bright future by climate change.
Hunger strikes, i.e. violence against oneself, will probably not stop there.
Hunger strikers in Berlin: they don't want to eat anymore.
Until Laschet, Scholz and Baerbock talk to them
The delights of defeat
After election campaigns, there are also winners on the part of the losers.
That's why I would like to
be able to look
into the head of
Health Minister Jens Spahn at the
moment.
Should Armin Laschet become Chancellor, there is only one way for him to rise: Chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
But then he would have to move incumbent Ralph Brinkhaus aside, which should not be so easy.
And if Laschet should prove himself as Federal Chancellor, this office would be blocked for the ambitious Spahn, possibly for 16 years.
If Laschet were to lose, however, Spahn could reach
for the party chairmanship
, which would give him the best chance of becoming the parliamentary group chairman.
He
could become the new number 1 in the Union
and, after four years, maybe Federal Chancellor.
So it could be that there is a small room in Spahn's head in which an indecent thought is hiding: a defeat of the Union would not be that bad.
Spahn appears today at the German Pharmacists' Day.
SPIEGEL interview with Jens Spahn: “Sometimes I get pure hatred.
That is new."
Winner of the day ...
... is the social democrat
Ralf Stegner
, who is
giving
his last speech in the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein today, after 16 years as a member of parliament in Kiel.
He is drawn to Berlin, to the Bundestag.
Stegner has his merits as a politician, but he got the most attention nationwide for his face.
His facial expressions were often treated with malice and ridicule.
Curmudgeon and grief are inscribed there, as if Stegner were constantly talking at funerals.
However, such a face also has advantages.
Armin Laschet would give a lot for it if he had had Stegner's sad face for a few seconds during this election campaign.
Because nothing has hurt him as badly as his laughter at an appointment in the region that was hit particularly badly by the heavy rain.
The latest news from the night
Heiko Maas makes four demands on the new Taliban government:
The G20 foreign ministers have exchanged views on Afghanistan.
Heiko Maas is demanding four specific commitments from the Taliban.
He rejects a speaking time of the radical Islamists at the UN as a "show performance"
Federal government abolishes funding for palm oil in fuels:
In order to meet a prescribed climate quota, energy companies are allowed to add palm oil to fuels.
However, its production is so environmentally harmful that the federal government is now putting a stop to it
Polish region abolishes the status of an »LGBT-free zone«:
Around one hundred municipalities in Poland describe themselves as an »LGBT-free zone«.
In response, the EU froze funds from the Corona reconstruction fund.
The measure apparently had an effect
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
Balance sheet in interactive graphics: This is how the average German changed in the Merkel era
»Chancellor photographer« about the candidates and their campaigns: »I've never seen such bad election posters in my life«
Berlin referendum: What an expropriation of housing groups would bring
Help from the robot: do computers invest your money better than humans?
I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours Dirk Kurbjuweit