Germany's Perilous Political Dance

Early Thursday afternoon, Martin Schulz, the head of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Germany’s second-largest party, strode onto the stage in Messe Berlin, the city’s trade fair center, as hundreds of delegates crowded in. It was the party’s national convention, and Schulz hoped to be re-elected as its leader. Equally important, however, was his proposal to begin talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives on possibly forming a coalition government together—the same coalition that has governed Germany over the last four years.

As Schulz implored delegates to back him, just outside the sprawling convention hall, the party’s youth wing had erected a white board plastered with multi-colored notes listing all the reasons why they virulently opposed another four years of sharing power with Merkel: and , read two of them; another stated—a reference to Merkel’s nickname, , or “Mommy