TW: I love stories comparing and contrasting how different countries go about conducting similar activities. Some things could be swapped seamlessly, others not so much. Btw, the Germans are having their big federal elections which will encompass the chancellorship in two weeks. A Merkel re-election would be a good thing for the U.S. relative to her opposition, who would take Germany pretty strongly left especially in foreign policy.
From Economist:
"...I watched Angela Merkel campaign in Bavaria. She spoke at a country fair just outside Munich. The setting was a beer tent heated from outside by a last burst of summer and from within by a crowd of solid Bavarian pensioners sitting at trestle tables, diligently working through mountains of roast chicken, fresh pretzels and flower-vase sized steins of beer.
Bavarian country fairs do not stint on tradition, it turns out. There were not just lots of heterosexual men in leather shorts. Their lederhosen were well-worn, with a shine and patina that spoke of years of loving use, in non-ironic contexts. The warm-up act to Germany’s Chancellor involved four men in lederhosen, waistcoats and plumed hats, who mounted the tables and cracked whips in noisy unison to the accompaniment of an accordion. I think they also whooped (my scribbled notes are unclear). There was a brass oom-pah band, of course, and at the end the crowd stood to attention and sang the anthems of Bavaria and of Germany...
I was strongly reminded of my favourite moments from covering the 2004 American presidential election...Back in 2004, I always liked seeing the two leading candidates in tiny places, where you could get amazingly close to Senator Kerry and President Bush and watch them work a small crowd. A lot about the Bavarian event was naggingly familiar. The Bavarian farmers and pensioners watching Mrs Merkel must be about as strongly conservative and traditional a crowd as you will find in western Europe: which is to say, they could have been a mainstream American election crowd. The rural setting I had also seen before: I have stood many times in small-town school gymnasiums or roped off fields in places like Pennsylvania, Iowa or Ohio, watching a presidential candidate speak in front of flag-draped hay bales, perhaps with an old tractor artfully visible to one side, or mounds of corn or pumpkins (in season).
...The Bavarian event was genuine, in a way that stage-managed American politics cannot match. There is a lot that is creepy about an American campaign event. Arriving early at Bush rallies, I would watch aggressive and chilly young Republican aides in smart suits kneeling on gymnasium floors with fistfuls of different felt tip marker pens, and large rectangles of white card. Frowning with concentration, they would then write things like “South Dakota Loves W” in deliberately babyish writing, or pick out the words “Hello Mr President” in red, white and blue lettering. The styles and slogans would be carefully varied, and the end results were impressive: a stack of signs that looked as though supporters of all ages had lovingly written them out on homely kitchen tables. Then, when the crowd arrived (all of them invited and vetted as bona fide Bush supporters) any of them who had forgotten instructions not to bring signs of their own would have them politely confiscated. Then they would be handed one of the ersatz home-made signs by one of the chilly, bossy young munchkins from campaign HQ. On television, it all looked very sweet.
It is not quite fair to blame the mad security that accompanies an American president on America: lots of people have tried to kill American presidents over the years, after all. But the security is mad and maddening, nonetheless. The Merkel rally was delightfully unobtrusive. A German chancellor travels in a two limousine convoy, more or less, with a couple of marked police cars to hold up the traffic. There was precisely no security for the crowd.
But what I really liked was that the audience were not that impressed by a visit from their Chancellor. Mrs Merkel is not very popular, several voters told me, though the area is a hotbed of support for her allies, the Christian Social Union. “She’s from the north, and she’s an easterner,” people explained to me. “We don’t like that in Bavaria...”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2009/09/campaigning_in_germany_and_ame.cfm
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