Kampa 02. Strategy of Culture Difference

The author offers an insight into the strategies of the SPD campaign headquarters. The goal was to make the federal election of 2002 a politically defining moment. It was important to overcome the economic & labor market crises by establishing a positive evaluation of government activities & reform perspectives, putting social-political topics on the agenda, & emphasizing one's own competencies (as well as the red-green ones). Finally, the campaign should remind the voters of the negative results of the conservative government before 1998. The focus on the person of Gerhard Schroder was crucial to winning the elections. He portrays the cultural opposite of Edmund Stoiber, who gives the impression of being a representative "of a closed, elitist, & somehow also backward-oriented circle.". Adapted from the source document.