Germans To Tune in for First Candidate Debate

This Sunday, millions of Germans will gather around their TV sets for the first time for an event that has long become old hat in the United States: the candidates' debates.

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is more popular than his Social Democratic Party (SPD), will go up against his conservative challenger for the chancellor’s seat, Edmund Stoiber, the successful premier of the state of Bavaria.

For Stoiber, the debate offers an opportunity to rebuild the lead he has held in the polls over Schröder for the past nine months but lost this week. For Schröder, Sunday’s televised duel, the first of two, will offer the opportunity to display his superior media charm in order to scrap together badly needed votes that will win him a second four-year term in the Chancellery.

Analysts had been predicting that the debate would be the last chance for Schröder and his Social Democrats, who have suffered in polls as a result of a Germany’s slumping economy and high unemployment rate.

But a poll released Friday put Schröder’s SPD ahead of Stoiber’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union bloc for the first time in months, something analysts attribute to Schröder’s leadership during the floods that savaged Germany last week.

Now, Schröder advisors want the chancellor to have the last say and scrap an agreed-on coin flip before the debate to decide who would answer first and second. The proposal is opposed by Stoiber's camp and both sides are still working on a solution.

A chance for the media chancellor to shine

Schröder, whose governing style awakens memories of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is widely considered the more popular of the two candidates. Polls consistently put him ahead of both Stoiber and his own SPD party comrades.

His sharp suits, charm and ability to enjoy a good beer and mix it up with his citizens have earned him the nickname, the “media chancellor”.

It is that image Stoiber and his advisors have been trying to use against Schröder since campaigning began in late winter. The advertising billboards of the Christian Democratic Union and Stoiber’s Christian Social Union present a candidate who is “exact and squared,” the total opposite of the slick, too-fast image Stoiber advisers say Schröder exudes.

Psychologists and media experts say this Sunday’s appearance will be crucial for both candidates in reaching the roughly 30 percent of the population still undecided on how they will vote on Sept. 22.

”The first impression is decisive,” said media psychologist Siegfried Frey in a recent interview with the magazine "Psychologie Heute". “We immediately have an opinion of a person and evaluate such complex characteristics as competence, underhanded-ness, tolerance and ambition.”

Gathering for the candidates' debates

Those are crucial factors campaign strategists in the United States have long known about. The first TV debate took place between incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon and democratic challenger John F. Kennedy in 1960. Kennedy, tanned and confident, shut down the favored, but haggard-looking Nixon and went on to win the election.

Since then, seven pairs of U.S. presidential hopefuls have duelled before massive national television audiences. The 2000 campaign featured three televised debates, with Texas Governor George W. Bush winning the upper hand in the final two.

The format is entirely new to Germany. Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl ruled Western Germany and the reunified Germany from 1982 until 1998 and never felt the need to do much campaigning, much less live debating when re-election time came around.

But the emergence of the media-savvy Schröder, who went on to unseat Kohl changed all that.

Both candidates have outfitted themselves with experienced media advisors who to a large extent have shaped the image the two present to voters. The move has benefited Stoiber, who became the butt of many jokes following his stuttering, awkward first appearance on national TV talk show in January.

Analysts aren't expecting a repeat performance this Sunday. Stoiber has already become smoother in live appearances. But whether he can out-media the media chancellor remains to be seen.