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SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz before the second candidate triumph, September 12, 2021
Photo: CLEMENS BILAN / EPA
Last week I asked myself whether someone would win this strange election campaign because he never laughs.
And the other loses because he laughed in the wrong place once.
But then it seemed to me as if Olaf Scholz would begin to take off very gently and also grin at the wrong moment, badly "smurfy" especially.
It's a cross with a giggle, and yesterday came the second candidate triall on top.
In a small group, Olaf Scholz can be a cheerful and charming host and giggle like a fish.
I experienced that myself years ago, it was a really nice evening in Hamburg.
In the federal election campaign, he radically tied all of this back, because his strategy should be to appear as a candidate like a chancellor and not like a candidate from day one.
And yes, this performance suits his person much better than the program suits him.
To have seen this strategically and to have persevered through the long survey valley - Chapöchen.
Now the big success is near ', it is only a few meters.
But how does Olaf Scholz do it?
Pushing in small steps, just as Angela Merkel moves forward politically and physically?
Or a springy step towards the red sunrise?
In judo, in any case, it is one of the dangerous moments when you give up your steadfast stance and move lightly on the mat.
If the "old" leg no longer has full pressure, the body weight is already on the way to the other, advancing leg, but which is not yet fixed - if the opponent's foot-sweep comes in this split second, you lie flat and possibly have a federal election lost.
Because I would like to bet: The bourgeois instinct, whether SPD or Union voters, is beginning to perceive that Olaf Scholz is now too confident of victory.
Connecting the dots, and you can see the image of the Lucky Smurf going on the ice.
Even the Merkel diamond some time ago on the cover of the "SZ-Magazin" was a highly risky cheek, which nonetheless exposed above all the lumbering condition of the CDU, which initially did not defend itself against this humiliation. It took the Chancellor personally to name heir and legacy sneakers. As misunderstood as the relationship between the bourgeoisie and its decades-long guarantee of success is, you don't even want to admit that it is the silverware that is being stolen. So Scholz was lucky.
With barely perceptible irony, he then took an abuse word from the lateral thinker scene, that of the millions of German "guinea pigs" in the vaccination campaign. When he was criticized for this in line with the election campaign, he did not - as I would have expected - go into the practiced defensive defensive à la Merkel, but mocked all those in the Bundestag who did not want to laugh at the word because they laughed at their own polls has passed. In fact, the blacks have nothing to laugh about these days, but that doesn't make the number with the "guinea pigs" a joke and certainly not a good one. Imagine if Laschet had risked expressing himself like that. The fact that Olaf Scholz, the controlled and concentrated, is doing it now shows how certain he is of victory. But as I said, watch out for the foot sweep.
And finally: Hardly any reader, including myself, can already form a complete picture of what went wrong at the anti-money laundering unit FIU in the Federal Ministry of Finance or why. One thing, however, is instantly consumable for everyone: how snootily and condescendingly Olaf Scholz handled the matter. How he accused the investigating public prosecutor of being instrumentalized by the CDU. This cannot be ruled out ad hoc, but the chancellor candidate should be able to underpin such hints with more than a smug smile, brand: "Catch me, if you can". Me! Can! None!
The political fall for Armin Laschet's misplaced grin in the flood area resulted from the question: Would that have happened to Angela Merkel too? And since the answer (not only in the bourgeois camp) is so clearly no, it quickly became clear what damage the image of his candidacy for chancellor could do. The same question can also be directed to Scholz's medium-sized replica of the ministry raid. Would Angela Merkel have also expressed in words and attitudes: The full posts from Osnabrück, which were remotely controlled by the political opponent, could have "also put their investigation questions in writing"? No, she wouldn't have done that. Never.
Even in yesterday's triumph on ARD and ZDF, Olaf Scholz initially didn't want the Merkel copy to be as successful as in the first triathlon.
When it came to the raid and other failures in his house, the chancellor candidate got a pulse and red ears.
I have never seen the latter with Angela Merkel in all these years.
It's just like this: A diamond doesn't make Merkel.
But neither is a CDU party book.
