In all the US election hubbub, one of the least educated analyses has been with regard to Germany and it's upcoming 9/2006 elections. The SPD, led by Gerhard Schroeder, is disintegrating before our very eyes. Only by reaching deep into nascant german jingoism and anti-american emotion was he able to pull out a narrow victory the last election and it's all been downhill since then for his party. The SPD has lately been racking up a number of important firsts and mosts, most seats lost, first time to lose certain seats in the modern era, the SPD looks like nothing we've seen in the modern era unless you cast your US educated eye back to the disintegration of the Whig party.
Currently, trans-atlantic relations are dominated by odd couples. The center-right President Bush's closes ally is the center-left Tony Blair. France is our greatest antagonist inside the EU, calling most loudly for our humbling (and long before President Bush came on the scene) and center-right President Chirac has his own political odd couple going with center-left Gerhard Schroeder. But it is highly likely that Schroeder will be out in 2006, leaving France without a vital partner in its US bashing and thus largely impotent. So in the final two years of the next term, the US president will have a good opportunity to restart relations with a new FRG government dominated by the center-right CDU/CSU who wants to steer clear of the reflexive anti-americanism of its SPD predecessor. Have you heard anything about this likely change? I haven't.
Posted by TMLutas at October 26, 2004 09:26 AM