Elections in Schleswig-Holstein May Relate to Trend in US

Last year, it was taken for granted that regional elections in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein would be a rout favoring the Christian Democratic Union over Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. People were fed up with the weak German economy and would register their discontent by voting down Schröder's partisans on February 20.

Now though, it increasingly appears that the Social Democrats will win. If so, it bodes well for Schröder in upcoming national elections.

All of this defies the earlier conventional wisdom. But we've seen this before, haven't we?

In the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, President Bush was considered vulnerable and beatable. The economy was not as strong as members of either party would have liked.

But it appears that appreciation for Bush's foreign and military policies by Americans and appreciation for Schröder's policies in the same areas by Germans, trumps other concerns. Both Bush and Schröder, of course, are helped by opposition parties that simply seem unable to figure out what they stand for. But it appears that Schröder is going to be returned to office as comfortably as George W. Bush was. (Which further explains why the two leaders are making nice these days; they have no choice but to work with one another.)

Tony Blair in the United Kingdom appears blessed with analogous circumstances. He too seems unbeatable in upcoming elections. The difference in Blair's case is that while his support for the war in Iraq is unpopular, his domestic policies are popular.

Indeed, in many of the major democracies around the world, aging populations appear to be supporting incumbents and their parties, taking an "in spite of" attitude toward some policies with which they may disagree.

It's true that n the US, Democrat Bill Clinton was elected in two consecutive elections without achieving majorities in either one. But since Jimmy Carter won the White House following the Watergate scandal, Republican candidates have won with majorities in 1980, 1984, 1988, and 2004. George Bush won his first term with a minority of the popular vote, but a majority in the Electoral College. We now have had one or both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans since 1994, almost unimaginable in bygone days when Democratic ascendancy on Capitol Hill was seen as a given.

The only nation in which the incumbent leader and his party appear to be in trouble is France, where it's reported that voters can't wait to get rid of President Chirac. But even that could be a passing fancy. If there are any sure lessons to be learned about democratic politics in the early twenty-first century, it's this: If you bet on the incumbents, you'll be right more often than not.

UPDATE: German unemployment rose to the 5-million mark, highest since the end of World War Two. Only time will tell if this figure and the painful realities which underlay it, will cause the Germans, first in Schleswig-Holstein and then in the rest of the country, to throw Schröder and his party out of office, breaking with the pro-incumbent trend that seems to have taken hold in major democracies.