NPR stands for National Public Radio and is respected news service in America that leans slightly to the left. It covers national and international news and also special interest reports. I knew I could count on them for decent reports on the 2009 German Election and found both before and after articles. The first, “Germany’s Election-Season Consensus: Yawn” was published on their website September 12. The title is consistent with all other reports from the campaign trail. We get it, Germany’s elections are boring…but NPR is the first article I have found that goes into the root of why there is no excitement. Of course as we talked about in class, America and Germany have a different political culture and the American campaigns are filled with more fan-fare then Germany’s. However I felt that political culture alone could not be the reason for such apathy towards a national election. “There are no real issues” said ARD anchor Joerg Schoenenborn, he even admitted that he gets bored covering the race. There seems to be a disenchantment with the two leading parties SPD and CDU/CSU. It seems Germans are frustrated with a lack of new ideas and that with the Grand Coalition government each party has lost themselves a bit and there was little to differentiate one from the other. (On a side note: I feel similarly about the American Republican and Democrat parties…google Ralph Nader for real facts about the broken two party system, or just ask me about it)
The second article, “Merkel Claims Victory in German Election” after the results were in confirms this idea. Not only did the SPD lose its membership in the ruling coalition for the first time in 11 years, but its 23 percent was a post war low. Voters were tired of “Political bickering” between the two and gave FDP the votes it needed to complete Merkel’s government. SPD voters felt that their party was lost in the Grand Coalition and its policy was changing to the right, but now many are more optimistic that they will be able to regroup themselves and get back to basics. With the new coalition with the FDP, NPR reports that Merkel is now more likely to get a better chance to implement her party’s moderate conservative policies and prove that they can pull Germany further out of the economic crisis.
As I said, I trust NPR for solid, consistent reports and find this coverage to be evidence of this. The coverage goes further in depth with what the election results mean for Germans and for the world (largely on the economic stage) and can be taken seriously. Unlike the CNN “in depth coverage” that I posted earlier…
German and American Election Coverage 
“One newspaper editorialized that the only way incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel would fail to be re-elected would be “if she were filmed robbing a supermarket.” ”
This gave me laughs. Indeed, it would have been the worst scenario.