The Politics of Success

By Stephen Smith

Cool and steady, Schmidt parries Strauss's brawny assault

With his bulldog shape and brawling style, Franz Josef Strauss was not about to win the West German national election on looks and charisma. Throughout, he had searched for an issue to stir the electorate, something to pinprick the lofty image of his telegenic opponent, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. But every time Strauss attacked, Schmidt parried, mostly by reminding voters that West had never been so prosperous or so world affairs. "I sympathize with Strauss," said a Duesseldorf banker. "He has been in the impossible position of trying to find fault with success."

With 70% of the votes counted in Sunday's election, Schmidt and his coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats (SPD-F.D.P.) were returned with a majority in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, which elects the Chancellor. His supporters won 53.1% of the vote -- 42.6% for the SPD and 10.5% for the F.D.P. -- compared with 44.8% for Strauss's conservative Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union. Said the victorious Schmidt: "I am very satisfied with the results."

Since 1949 the tiny F.D.P., whose members are mostly middle class and professional, has been in the crucial swing role. By siding again with the Social Democrats instead of the conservatives, the Free Democrats aimed not only to block the election of Strauss, whom they regard as an extremist, but also to help Schmidt neutralize the left wing of his SPD. Said F.D.P. Chairman Hans-Dietrich Genscher: "Our mission is to ensure government from the center, not from the fringes, left or right."

Running ahead of his party as usual, Schmidt, 61, had a personal approval rating of 60% going into the election. His image was that of effective head of government, perhaps without peer, and renowned world statesman. No matter that he is reserved, even chilly. West German voters like some distance in their leaders, along with stability, firmness and caution. His government, both at home and abroad, Schmidt pledged, would stay "calculable, predictable and balanced."

Strauss, 65, a highly intelligent career politician who served with distinction as Defense and Finance Minister, had trouble building a constituency outside his native Bavaria, the heartland of German conservatism. He campaigned enthusiastically, wading into crowds and sparring with hecklers. But his colorful rhetoric tended to reinforce his image as an emotional and erratic right-winger. "There is a lack of stability in his makeup," said Lawyer Wolfgang Wilde, 40, an independent voter in West Berlin. "Moderate Germans feel that he could lead us back to cold war confrontation."

Desperate for an issue, Strauss zeroed in on Schmidt's Ostpolitik of intense dialogue with Moscow, chiding the Chancellor for reacting cautiously to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He branded him "Moscow's Chancellor," and charged that his policy amounted to "capitulation by installments." When strikes swept Poland in August, Strauss challenged Schmidt to support the workers openly and to make future bank credits conditional on Warsaw's honoring the Gdansk agreements. Worst of all, Strauss charged, the Chancellor was pursuing detente at the expense of close ties with the U.S. Schmidt responded that he and President Carter agreed that the West should not interfere in Poland. He also announced that he would visit Washington in November. Said he: "We are reliable allies. We are firmly in the West, but we also must protect German interests."

Playing on ever present German fears of inflation, Strauss tried to make an issue of the rising national debt--now $231.8 billion, triple what it was a decade ago. Schmidt defended the increase as moderate and necessary for the construction of much needed hospitals, schools and low-cost housing. Otherwise, Schmidt's economic defense was ironclad: inflation is running at a modest 5.1% and unemployment is a mere 3.5%. West Germany relies on oil imports to meet half its energy needs, but stockpiles are at a record high and the government has launched a $4 billion program to spur domestic coal production. Said a petroleum executive in Hamburg: "Strauss can't lay a glove on him."

Growing ever more desperate, Strauss attempted to seize on West Germany's latest terrorist outrage: a bomb blast that had killed 13 persons and injured 215 at the Oktoberfest in Munich. The bomb, according to police, had been set by a 21-year-old neo-Nazi student who was killed in the explosion. Strauss recklessly suggested that Interior Minister Gerhart Baum, long a whipping boy of conservatives, had been lax in pursuing terrorists and thus bore "heavy responsibility" for the tragedy.

With so little in the the way of genuine debate, the candidates used their speaking skills to sling mud at one another. Strauss be littled Schmidt as "Moscow's tool," "a high-ranking megalomaniac" and "fit for a mental institution." Schmidt retaliated by labeling his opponent "unstable," "dishonest" and "dangerous." His invective may have been blander, but the Chancellor seemed to get the better of the insult-fest too. Somehow he managed to convey an aura of outraged statesmanship while Strauss left an impression of crassness. Groused Strauss: "What it amounts to is that Schmidt is a better actor and I am a better politician."

Schmidt did not formally unveil any new policy blueprint for the election, cautiously choosing to run mostly on his record. But he made clear that he wants the superpowers to stay out of the Iran-Iraq war, an early agreement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. on limiting medium-range nuclear weapons, more pressure on Israel to accept the P.L.O. in Middle East negotiations, and increased political and economic cooperation within the European Community. At home, he recognizes some cracks that need caulking: disaffection among youth, drug abuse, growing resentment of immigrant workers. But first of all, he has repeatedly indicated, he wants to rein in welfare spending and improve military preparedness. -- By Stephen Smith. Reported by Lee Griggs and B. William Mader/Bonn

With reporting by Lee Griggs, B. William Mader/Bonn

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