The German Chancellor's plan is not to fire up her own supporters, but to lull the other side, writes Die Zeit editor Joffe for the FT.
Ms Merkel, a woman whose soft demeanour conceals a razor-sharp mind, is the ultimate survivor. She smells threats before they materialise; if she can’t deflect them, she will ride them – never mind her previous convictions. Ms Merkel is deliciously diffuse in her rhetoric, loath to commit, ready to ditch inopportune policies. Lest this sound like rank opportunism, there is strategy behind the tactics. The technical term is "asymmetric demobilisation"– the very opposite of what politicos normally do in the battle of the ballots.
She, and the CDU, have been shifting to the left. An apostle of free markets and low taxes 10 years ago, Merkel simply outflanked the left on the left by showering the populace with social welfare goodies and cutting defence spending more rapidly than France and Britain. She is the best Social Democrat the SPD could have asked for. For them, the only downside is that she is in the wrong party.
What her enemies call "opportunism" is precisely her biggest advantage. People need not fear her. She will follow or ride the mood of the electorate, never surprising them with ideas that would trigger resentment. She will hold steady. But only so long as resistance does not turn into anger. If that happens, she will yield before displeasure turns into hostility.
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