A Change in Direction?

The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote that incumbent Premier Roland Koch has no one to blame but himself for the result in Hesse. "Koch chose the wrong topic to champion and led the wrong election campaign," it stated. "He set himself up by making strong announcements which contradicted his own actions. The public noticed that calls for swift justice from the state with the slowest judicial system in the country were implausible, and they have punished Koch for this." The paper continued by saying that Koch's losses were also Angela Merkel's losses. "The chancellor supported this tough election campaign," it wrote, "and now the conservatives must ask whether her governance endangers the future of the [Christian Democratic] Union."

The Bremer Nachrichten pondered the consequences of the state elections for the chancellor and the CDU's coming parliamentary election campaign. "Which way now for Angela Merkel?" the paper asked. "Not only is it that Social Democrats [SPD] must find their direction but also the conservatives. Should she take the careful approach or come out fighting like Roland Koch? Reading the results from Lower Saxony and Hesse, the decision should be clear."

"Rambo Koch loses, cuddly Wulff wins," stated the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. "Koch's campaign failed because it focused on his weaknesses not his strengths. There was no policy substance to his rhetoric and such a thing costs credibility, especially when policy is so important and at a time when the voters look for strong policies not just words."

The Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung also focused on Koch's performance. "Koch has abandoned his instincts and abandoned the voters," it wrote. "That the electorate reacted against this is a good thing. It would be an ominous sign for the political culture in Germany if the people had allowed themselves to have been manipulated by such a campaign. The majority of people in Hesse recognized that sloganeering is not the right approach to the multi-layered subject of juvenile delinquency. This is why Christian Wulff, with his low-key election campaign, ran to a clear victory."

The Stuttgarter Zeitung also picked up on the differences in the conservative candidates' approaches and results. "The one winner in the state elections this Sunday is Christian Wulff, which is not so surprising given the weakness of his Social Democratic SPD opponent Wolfgang Jüttner," the paper wrote. The paper acknowledged, however, that despite the SPD's ineptitude, Wulff led a winning campaign without the need to resort to the strong-arm tactics and verbal failures of his Hessian colleague Roland Koch. The paper suggested that Wulff should be considered the heir apparent to Chancellor Merkel and that his victory should signal a rise in his profile within the CDU.

The SPD's inability to force home a clear advantage in the state elections was also picked up on by the Rhein-Neckar Zeitung. "The state elections were less about regional politics and more about the performances of the candidates," it wrote. "The most significant signal was the fact that SPD leader Kurt Beck could not lead a socialist election campaign which was better than that fought by the Left party." The paper also wrote that Roland Koch's performance and the chancellor's support of his campaign should be a wake-up call to Merkel, who the paper suggested should follow Christian Wulff's approach, and not Koch's, in the future.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also lamented the state of German politics highlighted by the inability of the Social Democrats to capitalize on weakened and disliked conservative candidates. The paper complained that a weak and directionless SPD made the conservatives look good, despite their own poor showing. "We now know the weaknesses of the SPD," it wrote, "poor in candidates and poor in profile… One wonders how the CDU would have responded to a stronger opponent."