I think your timeline is a bit generous. She was supposed to be a co-crucifixee with Christ. She was as good as done a loooong time ago.
OK I put this in the cartoon thread. But it fits better here. You know she didn’t look at all well in the Biden meeting. Hope she’s alright. Unless she was just trying to control the eye roll.
Back in April the conservatives had a big lead, the SPD was in third place and it seemed that the only issue was what the coalition would look like. Now the SPD looks to win. Just wow. Also this is the first time the sitting chancellor is not in the ballot. Usually a retiring chancellor quits before the election to allow the new party head to fight the election as chancellor.
The New Statesman podcast has been really good as an english language resource There are a few curious dynamics at work First there is a bit of a structural shift to the left. So even though the SPD polling is still historically low due to fragmentation, overall the polling on the left is up. So the SPD is likely benefitting from the fact that "its time for a change" with older voters who shift between SPD and CDU going left. Younger voters won't vote SPD - they have been going green. The greens have done well in some state elections, but failed to achieve lift off when they had a big chance some months ago. Feels like they are not really ready for primetime, but look like the key coalition player German voters appear to want stability and incremental change, and Scholz best represents it. Seems like the SPD, Die Linke, and Greens won't be able to form a government, so if anything, it's going to be a centre left coalition with the liberals. Remember last time, they tried to blow up the coalition to cause another election, and so we got another GROKO The presence of the liberals is interesting as they are libertarian economically, but maybe the deal will be they more get their agenda on the social side.