Angela Merkel officially got sworn in today for a second term as Chancellor. Instead of the hapless Frank Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrats at her side as Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor (as is traditional for the smaller coalition partner), she now has Free Democrat Guido Westerwelle (or, WesterWave as fans of his English skills would like him to be known as).

Yay Guido, right? I don’t think so. Despite a record share of the vote last month, I think Westerwelle and the Free Democrats played their hand terribly in the coalition negotiations. They probably could have gotten the Finance Ministry if they had been stubborn, but Westerwelle followed tradition and took the Foreign Ministry, even though he has little background or interest in foreign affairs (favorite WesterWave word so far: the “outland”). Not that I necessarily think their program of massive tax cuts and slashing social services would have been particularly sound policy, but I think that if you’re as fanatically devoted to these things as the FDP is, you might have fought a bit harder to make sure you control all the levers of government that will allow you to attain your goals instead of handing them off to another political party. Plus, the Chancellor traditionally sets the foreign policy agenda enough as it already is, so if Westerwelle turns into a weak foreign minister, as I believe he will, the important parts of the portfolio simply become assimilated into Merkel’s office.

Going back to the Finance Ministry (the building itself being the single biggest point of continuity between the sweet, soft lovey-duddy Germany of today and the Nazis), Wolfgang Schaeuble, elder spokesman, dark knight and illegal campaign contribution bagman extraordinaire of the Christian Democrats is Finance Minister instead of Westerwelle or another FDP member. Why this matters is that even though the CDU signed onto tax cuts, Schaeuble’s the kind of guy who’s likely to lock up the national credit card and sic the dogs on anyone who tries to spend more than Schaeuble thinks is possible.

The FDP’s weakness shows elsewhere too. Philip Rösler, the new FDP Health Minister may be a photogenic 36 year-old but he’s barely been in politics and now he holds what’s likely to be one of the more contentious ministries in government (though the health care system is way better here than in the US, there are big financing holes right now that are going to have to be fixed). It’s not clear to me that Rösler is going to be able to unite the FDP and CDU on some kind of common health policy that’s going to make anyone happy. In which case the status quo will hold, which Merkel by temperament probably prefers.

In other words, even though Merkel’s CDU (and their Bavarian CSU allies) holds the smallest share of seats ever in the Bundestag, she seems to have managed to concentrate power even further in her hands and rather than assert themselves, the FDP simply rolled over and asked to have its tummy scratched with some tax cuts that may not even happen. Nice work, Angie.

Germany's election is as interesting as East German architecture, informed sources say. (Photo: Brett Neely, 2008)

Germany’s election is officially boring, the NYT has spoken. The headline says it all:

In Dull German Race, ’08 Dinner Is an Issue

I’ll grant the Timesfolk the dullness, but no one should be that surprised. Having gotten over the idea that political leaders should inspire fevered passion about 64 years ago, German politicians often play it safe and gray. But yeah, given that the economy just went through the worst recession in 60 years, the state’s finances are shot and no one really knows what to do with the banks, I guess you’d expect a bit more passion out on the stump.

Today, cycling through the Tiergarten, I finally saw the first big collection of election posters I’ve seen all season. Given that we’re at T-minus 31 days until the election, that’s sort of wild by American standards. Then again, I’m sure 80 percent of the electorate will vote, so maybe it doesn’t matter that it’s boring.

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.