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Schroeder just has to avoid looking so Clintonesque when it comes to his approach to policy. Words like "wobbly" and "zig-zag" too often crop up. "The motto of the mambo chancellor is two steps forward, one step back -- or vice-versa," cracked the rightist Die Welt this month.

That sort of lacerating, on-target criticism has taken a toll on Schroeder, who will need time to grow into the role of chancellor. He has clearly been shaken by a series of stinging rebukes to the SPD and its coalition partner, the Greens, and stronger-than-expected showings for Kohl's party, the Christian Democrats. Even normally fringe right-wing parties leaning hard on xenophobic slogans like "German Jobs for Germans" and "Get Out Foreigners" have made electoral gains, as did the former communists, whose somewhat bizarre electoral strategy featured campaign ads in cinemas (before the trailers) showing a variety of naked people happily swimming under water. Germans have a reputation for making even the uncomplicated complicated, and their political hurly-burly shows its a much deserved reputation.

Splits in the German left are fascinating, all the more so because of the German impulse toward analysis and theorizing. Schroeder has been reeling ever since LaFontaine left the government in disgust, and this autumn LaFontaine has become the talk of Berlin with his book blasting Schroeder for turning his back on the bedrock principles of the party and jumping on the globalization bandwagon. "The German left still has an unsolved conflict between two groups," explained Jochen Buchsteiner, a political writer for the high-profile intellectual weekly Die Zeit. "The one group is the traditional left group which is oriented toward LaFontaine, saying that globalization is something you have to fight against and you have to preserve the German model; and on the other hand you have the so-called modernizers, Schroeder and other people on the left, saying, 'No, we have to adopt our system to globalization.'"

Schroeder took a step toward asserting his leadership qualities last week by stepping on the toes of his popular foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, the most prominent member of the Green Party. The Greens joined the SPD a year ago to form the current government in a "red-green" coalition that no one saw coming. Fischer opposed delivering a tank to Turkey as part of a possible arms deal, because of the Turkish record on human rights. The German yellow press reported that Fischer complained of "harassment," but a spokesman described the meeting they held lat last week to clear the air as "an open and good talk," which is apparently the local version of what in Washington they call a "frank and cordial exchange of views."

The Greens are in even worse shape than the Social Democrats, sending signals that political extinction is not altogether out of the question. The Greens were created as an opposition party, grew toward prominence as an opposition party, and seem incapable of shedding this legacy; one telltale sign of their institutional weakness comes in the rules, hotly contested by Fischer, prohibiting anyone holding high office from being a party leader.

The Christian Democrats are licking their chops, even though their 16 years in power make it a little hard for them to play the opposition game too vigorously. Even the CDU acknowledges that it's unlikely the current coalition government will fall in the next couple of years. They can afford to be patient, since Schroeder's mixed signals make the CDU look good by comparison.

"Schroeder cannot take this big step from the left to the middle, or to the right of the middle," said Norbert Barthle, one of a new wave of younger CDU representatives trying to plan the party's future. "That's good for us, because we are the party situated in the middle. Schroeder has no choice. He must go to the left, otherwise his own party will not support him."

But Barthle and others may be forgetting the lessons Schroeder has gained from Bill Clinton's political act. As much as apparent rudderlessness drives political professionals and media types crazy, it can also translate into a bizarre staying power. People might in the end rather like politicians who can reinvent themselves constantly, a fact attested to by Clinton's current 56 percent approval rating (according to Gallup). There is something modern and television-age about ignoring even the recent past, and that's just what Schroeder does.

"At the beginning, before he was voted chancellor, I think he was very good on TV," said German television actress Iris Boehm. "But at the moment it's different. He's not sure about his image any more. He seems to have lost his sense of humor. He feels attacked now very quickly if people are asking questions he doesn't want." In the process of changing his public image from lighthearted to serious, she predicts he might loose some of his media-genic appeal. "I think Clinton does have charisma, and I think most German women think the same about Schroeder, but somewhere along the line he has lost some of this charisma, around the time LaFontaine left. He doesn't know any more who he wants to be."

It's an axiom in those two great American spectacles, politics and sports, that you make your own luck. Clinton may have been very lucky to scrape through his various harrowing episodes and still have relatively high poll numbers. Or he may have learned some lessons from Ronald Reagan about the importance in a television age of playing a part. Politicians like Blair and Schroeder who take that lesson and run with it may be the ones laughing last

Short-term trouble can add up to long-term disaster, but smart politicians ignore the carping of their critics and concentrate on doing what they have to do. As publicly as he wrestles with himself, Schroeder has learned from a good enough teacher to remember that in the end.
salon.com | Oct. 29, 1999

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