Does This Vote Matter?(Germany)

One of Germany's favorite Internet sites, these days, is the Kanzlergenerator. Start with a grinning image of Der Kanzler, Gerhard Schroder. With a few clicks, mix in a couple of facial features from his challenger in next week's national election, Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber. Depending on how you blend nose, mouth, eyes and hair, you get an Edhard Schoiber, a Germund Stroder--or a Schoider, a Schrober, a Stoider. "To lower CO2 emissions, we have to protect women from violence and reduce the tax on small business," one of these political polymorphs tells us.

For many Germans, such gobbledygook too closely resembles the real campaign. With 4 million unemployed, near-zero growth and the astonishing transformation of Germany from Europe's juggernaut to economic laggard, the Sept. 22 election should by rights be a juicy dogfight over who's to blame for the mess--and how to fix it. But no. The latest ZDF Politbarometer poll puts both candidates at 38 percent, with a big chunk of unenthusiastic undecideds. As the Kanzlergenerator suggests, neither candidate has inspired voters, charted a distinctive vision of the future--or convinced Germans that he's the man to rescue the country from its troubles.

By any measure, Germany is at a political and economic watershed. The latest economic data shows no stop to the downward spiral. Joblessness has hit a three-year high. Consumer sales, already depressed, keep slipping. The public-health system reports a gaping funding shortfall, boding further bad news for the federal budget deficit--at 3.5 percent, well exceeding the limits allowed by the European Union. Campaigning for chancellor four years ago, Schroder famously declared that he didn't deserve to be re-elected if he failed to improve Germany's economic prospects, a slip of the lip Stoiber has played to the hilt. "Mr. Schroder, your economic record is a national catastrophe," he harrumphed at a recent campaign stop in Hamburg.

Abroad, Germany seems increasingly adrift, questioning its traditional relationship with the United States and unsure of its role in the world. Clearly playing for votes, Schroder has categorically ruled out any German military action on Iraq, even under the auspices of the United Nations. Furthermore, he recently pledged to withdraw German soldiers and tanks already stationed in Kuwait if the Americans attack. Schroder touts this as a new "German way." But skeptics sniff that it's little more than a German brand of international unilateralism, a charge its leaders usually reserve for George W. Bush. Stoiber has been more circumspect, but doubts remain, especially in Washington. Where is Germany heading?

What a change from a year ago, when Germany seemed a solid world partner and Schroder himself appeared unbeatable. The economy was doing better then. And the chancellor was also getting credit for putting Germany--and with it, Europe--on the right path on some important issues. He had cut sky-high income taxes, leading France and Italy to pass tax cuts themselves. He took the first steps toward reforming a pension system undermined by an aging population and threatened with bankruptcy. He also broke other taboos that had accumulated under the 16-year rule of his conservative predecessor, Helmut Kohl. Germany now has a more liberal citizenship law, a more rational immigration policy, even gay marriage.

What Schroder has failed to do is far more damning, especially at a time when people's chief concerns are preserving their jobs and livelihood. Instead of reforming laws that make German workers the world's most expensive--and inflexible--he cozied up to the unions, giving them new powers to comanage companies and making it tougher to ...