Election Day

Today was election day here in Germany (yes, polls are one of the few things that ARE open on Sundays here!).  Angela Merkel has already been declared the winner for those who are curious.

No need to go running for the hills, I am not going to expound on my political views and who I think should be running Germany.  For one thing, I do not pretend to have nearly enough understanding of the issues to truly form a realistic opinion.

I just want to comment on the campaign posters.  I doubt they would have jumped out at me, had we not just returned from a month in the US.  But we did, so the difference popped right out.  In the US, we would have very slick campaign posters.  No hair out of place, the expression perfect (either very strong, or very friendly, or very intelligent), backgrounds carefully chosen, etc.  The American public seems much more about electing an "image" than I gather the Germans are.

Here are the campaign posters Marika and I passed on a recent walk.  None of them are BAD photos at all, but they just don't seem as slick as what I would expect in the US:

(this one is the "slickest" we have seen around town.  And we do notice the big smile, something we were NOT seeing in political ads 4 years ago--the Germans are loosening up a bit).  

Again, there is nothing terribly wrong with this, but a national election candidate in the USA is not likely to have their main poster image showing hair blowing in the wind and a busy background that doesn't show something like flags or another major national symbol.  

And then we have the winner's two main ads.  This one, which we see mostly in smaller form when out on walks.  It looks like an outtake more than a final product.  A bunch of random people in the background and Merkel looks like she was caught in the middle of  talking:

Ffianly, the poster that we constantly see from the car or tram, but never passed when walking with the camera--so I have pulled this photo from CNN.com.  It almost looks as if Merkel was told to smile, but is so unused to doing so that the best she could manage was a smirk.

In all honesty, I find it a bit refreshing to have the focus be more on what the candidates say and what their track records are, than on how glamours or patriotic their photos come out.  None the less, it is different enough that it makes me giggle as I pass sign after sign.  

--Hadley