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If you missed the coverage of the appearance of Markus Söder at the CDU party congress in Leipzig, here's a short summary: That's where the mood came. It was a feast for the senses. There was no eye dry. The Söder can do it easily. If there had been a vote, the CDU delegates would have chosen the CSU leader and Bavarian prime minister from the spot not only to the common chancellor candidate of the Union, but possibly even married and / or adopted. For in Leipzig, to quote a particularly daring reporter, it was not just any sister party chairman who had come along, but Barack Obama's incarnate reincarnation.
What, one asks oneself as one who has been watching Söder for several years, is it going on? How could the CDU even suspect latently, because half-baked Franconian Haudrauf become a hope for highest office? Where does this sudden Söbama enthusiasm come from?
Emotional blackmail as with nuts
Obvious answer: Out of desperation. The day before Söder's appearance at the CDU party congress, the audience had to torture by a far too long meandering speech of party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, which probably caused only enthusiasm, because that's how it should be when the chairman speaks. For AKK the mutti comparison mulled over for years to its predecessor would actually be true once. Kramp-Karrenbauer urged the party convention to solidarity with a miserably presented offer of separation. What else was left for the delegates, just before Christmas? Such methods of emotional emotional blackmail have recently been seen publicly in Loriot's "Oedipussi" (1988).
But not only the chairman, her so-called adversary is a disappointment. Friedrich Merz, who has been doing practically nothing for a year as a mood against Kramp-Karrenbauer, pleaded in an otherwise unremarkable speech pithily to the party leader and even endeavored even the vocabulary "loyalty", which presumably shortly before someone in phonetic transcript on his manuscript must have painted. He mastered the pronunciation of this exotic foreign word then quite mannerly.
In many cases, his verbal submission was interpreted as a strategically clever preparation for the next party congress, when it will be decided on the chancellor's candidature. Merz will then seize power with power. However, that may be doubted. Merz is a master pilot, who draws wide loops in his propeller plane and unerringly throws stink bombs at the party headquarters from a great height. A decent landing maneuver, he seems to have never learned.
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No wonder then that in the face of these sad protagonists only one has to appear at the CDU, which radiates a little joie de vivre, and already they are all excited. So far, Söder has avoided all questions about a chancellor candidate, he is adoring himself, he still has time, but he would not be Markus Söder if he were not completely convinced that nobody could do better than him. Söder has government experience. He is at the head of a party that actually stands behind him. He has all eight seasons "Game of Thrones" intus, so is strategically well trained. His ethics are built on the solid foundation of Star Trek television series. He knows what people are afraid of in the Nuremberg subway and that things are going bad at the Kottbusser Tor in Berlin, which is what one hears. The foreign policy and geostrategic concerns of the Federal Republic of Germany would have to be confided to him without further ado, he would operate them consistently from the perspective of his native Nuremberg Schweinau, just as his voters imagine and wish.
He is right where you want him
Yes and the contents? Where are the contents? What is Markus Söder's opinion on climate protection, the US, pensions, the healthcare system and the black zero? Do not worry, it's right where you want it. He then stands there. Fully convinced. Markus Söder does not hide that he hardly ponders over principles.
In one of many applauded passages of his Leipzig speech, the guest spurred the delegates to more self-confidence. One should imagine a representative who rings the bell with his product and then says: So personally I would not buy that. The sales figures would be manageable. This is how Markus Söder evidently sees himself: as an enthusiastic political salesman, as a traveling salesman. As with any good seller, the product is secondary. He can sell everything.
In the column Agitation and Propaganda Stefan Kuzmany writes about the current developments in politics and society. Subscribe to the newsletter directly and for free here:
Normally, when the two words "Chancellor" and "Söder" are closely related, one would either laugh out loud or clench their fists in defense of a last vestige of seriousness in politics. But unfortunately we do not live in normal times. Democracy does not seem to be a commodity that is in great demand. Honest, certainly highly competent politicians such as Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer or Armin Laschet (to be mentioned here), who must be mentioned in every CDU text as a potentially laughing third party, may control the details of public administration - they do not exude enthusiasm for democracy.
Politics is, however, to a good extent and possibly above all communication, especially now that the enemies of democracy are blaring louder and louder. You do not have to like Markus Söder and you do not like him much. One thing, however, he wants to believe him absolutely: At the CDU party congress Söder has clear as almost no Union politician next to him sharply demarcated from the AfD, these, said Söder, was "the enemy".
So, if there is one who can talk that people like to listen to him, one who would never be a coalition with old and new Nazis, one who obviously enjoys the political business and myself, and then himself - then he would not be the worst choice of the Union. So far so it has already come: There would be worse than Markus Söder in the Chancellery.