Today Joschka Fischer, our foreign minister and most important person in the Green party, visited Ingolstadt on his election campaign tour. I was expecting
a truly polemic and demagogic speech, and I haven't been proved completely wrong. Badmouting the opponents and blandishing his own policies is the first lesson to learn for every politician. Avoiding factual arguments is the second.
Joschka did learn the lessons well. And he slagged the conservatives around Stoiber down for more than 15 minutes. But then, to my delight, he changed his style and summarized his major policies, telling his goals in reforming the tax system, in phasing out of nuclear energy, in reforming the agricultural sector and so on. Well, he didn't stop dealing side blows at times. But at least this wasn't the major part of his speech.
The audience here in Bavaria was quite enthusiastic. Just when he spoke of the need of integration and the Eastern enlargement of the EU nobody applauded. The market place stayed deadly silent. He tried to explain it more and more, shifting the focus not to economic but security gains, but that didn't help much. It seems that Bavarians care a shit about the EU. It even seems that they don't care a shit about Germany. They are Bavarians. Anyway, I was satisfied with what I saw. And for me Fischer is the most charismatic person in German politics at the moment.
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