Brett Neely

August is known as the Sommerloch in the German news business, the summer hole. Like in the US, it’s when the crazies (think of those who say health care reform will lead to toilet paper rationing) can get their 15 minutes without breaking a sweat. Here, Vera Lengsfeld, a Berlin candidate from a marginal district who belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats has put up a poster that has both her and the chancellor displaying a little decolletage with the slogan “We have more to offer.”

(Lengsfeld, incidentally has a fascinating personal history. She was a Communist Party member in East Germany who was expelled for protesting the stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles. She was later arrested by the Stasi, the East German secret police and sent into exile. Upon returning to Germany after the Wall fell, she found out her husband had been spying on her for the Stasi, which led to their divorce. She was active in environmental politics and was a member of the Green Party before moving to the much more conservative CDU.)

The only two reasons this story is zinging around the German press are 1) great pictures and 2) despite the fact that the election is only seven weeks ago, the conclusion seems so foregone (another Merkel-led CDU coalition) that most pundits here seem to have given up. The Social Democrat’s, the CDU’s rivals and current coalition partners, seem out of steam and out of ideas. The polling data says that even if the German public doesn’t believe the CDU’s promises to cut taxes after the election, they’d rather vote for another round of Merkel than the SDP’s hapless candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has all the charisma of a dead fish.

It’s weird to watch as an outsider because there are many legitimate questions to raise about how Merkel has governed (or punted, as in the case of rescuing the banks) but instead, the election seems destined to be fought with empty slogans and saucy posters.