Yeah, apparently the notion of a Grand Moonbat Coalition (der großenlunarschenfledermauskoalition, in German) between the Social Democrats, Greens, and Commies is considered less likely than one might think, since apparently the Commies were formed explicitly as a "we hate Social Democrats" party or something. At least by the Conventional Wisdom, which is by definition always wrong, as just shown by the election results themselves....

Once again, Germany threatens the stability of Europe.

Both Merkel and Schroeder's parties did slightly worse than last election, which is even worse news for Germany.. The public frustration about their economy grows, so they vote for even more Greens and commies than last time.

This is what we call "unclear on the concept".

And (silver lining) more for the free-market good guys, the Free Democrats. It sounds like a lot of German voters are fed up with "politics as usual," and thus, because of their votes, they're likely to get... more politics as usual.

Probably a "grand coalition" between the SDP and CDU, where the answer to everything will be "kick the can down the road" instead of making a decision. Parliamentary systems suck....

I haven't seen this anywhere - does anybody know what the turnout was like? Is the unexpected result in any way due to turnout being much higher or lower than expected?

Turnout was 77.7%, about 1% down from last time.

This is what we call "unclear on the concept".

*snicker*

Later,
bbeck

apparently the Commies were formed explicitly as a "we hate Social Democrats" party or something.

Undoubtedly they hate the SPD, but I imagine they hate the CDU more.

What's truly pathetic is that left got a solid majority of voters. You've got the entitlement, unionized left of the Social Democrats. There's the environmentalist, unwashed, bonghead Greens. Then there's the "bring back Stalinism!" types of Die Linke , the holdout commies of Eastern Germany. The only true capitalists are the Free Democrats and they got slightly less than 10%!

The only saving grace is that they hate each other as much as they hate the Christian Democrats, who aren't really that conservative. They're kinda like very moderate republicans. Frau Merkel began to fade in the polls when she specified the austerity program that would be required to fix Germany's stagnant economy. Putting a cap on unemployment payouts, cutting back on guaranteed vacation time, and proposing a flat tax really killed her. The Krauts just refuse to take their medicine.

The sad truth is that Germany has reached that tipping point where a majority of people receive some type of benefit from keeping the status quo, yet paying for it all is killing them. Everyone wants to fix things, but no one wants to lose their goodies.

I fear we may be very close to that point here, especially since the GOP is spending our money like a drunken sailor with a hardon and the Dems in power would be even worse.