Here’s another one from the international public opinion files:
Support for the governing Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Bavarian Christian-Social Party (CSU) is slightly slipping in Germany, according to a poll by Forsa released by Stern and RTL. 29 per cent of respondents would vote for either party in the next election to the Federal Diet, down one point since mid-July.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is second with 28 per cent, followed by the Green Party (Grune) with 19 per cent, the Left Party (Linke) with 11 per cent, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) — junior partner in the governing coalition — with five per cent.
This would be a disastrous result for the German center-right, and a huge win for the left. And as I’ve been saying anyone who wants to explain the political problems facing Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid in the United States needs to take into account the fact that incumbent administrations in Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Denmark, etc. are all in the same boat. It’s not that Obama is too far left or Merkel too far right, it’s that the major developed economies are all stuck in grow-slow mode. By contrast, the Brazilian economy has been growing smartly and people love Lula.