By Erik Olsen
Merkel's Moment in Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is running for a third and perhaps final term.
RECKLINGHAUSEN, Germany — Angela Merkel shows up right on time outside the sun-splashed old town hall here. The 59-year-old chancellor works the crowd of 5,000, gives three or four waves from the stage, then settles in for local small talk and — despite hecklers — a 30-minute stump speech. She mixes folksy expressions with statistics and worldly observations, and assures listeners that their affairs, at home and farther afield, are safe in her hands.
"Successful together," proclaim posters of her center-right Christian Democratic Union. "Germany is strong, and should remain so," says another. "Stay cool and vote for the chancellor!" urge T-shirts, emblazoned, like the outsize campaign poster at Berlin's main railway station, with her trademark diamond-shape hand gesture.
Europe and the world may scour Germany's election campaign in vain for clues about what the troubled Continent's greatest power intends for its future. But the euro crisis, and Germany's role in leading Europe out of it, are hardly mentioned. Ms. Merkel, who is widely expected to win a third four-year term, has given no hint of major changes for the euro or the European Union, or any change in course from policies seen as harsh by Southern Europeans and overly cautious by the financial markets.
Instead, all politics being local, the rest of Europe gets about five minutes in her stump speech, which stays closer to home. There are sly digs at the Greens for trying to institute a "Veggie Day" once a week in public cafeterias; barely a mention by name of her Social Democratic rival, Peer Steinbrück; and an awkward dance around a populist demand from Bavaria's leading conservative to levy fees on foreigners using German autobahns.
As election day next Sunday nears, Ms. Merkel is warning her supporters against complacency, invoking a "rude awakening" if the votes do not suffice, despite her personal popularity, to build a desirable coalition in Germany's complex parliamentary system.
Mr. Steinbrück, a skilled finance minister in Ms. Merkel's first government, from 2005 to 2009, has slipped up repeatedly after declaring his candidacy last fall. But he has done better since their only televised debate, on Sept. 1, and became the talk of the country on Friday after the cover of a newspaper's magazine showed him gesturing with his middle finger.
Opinion was split on whether the 66-year-old Social Democrat was teasing and being bold, or simply not behaving like someone seeking to become the leader of more than 80 million Germans and Europe's strongest economy.
Ms. Merkel — ever cautious, ever concerned with keeping her options open, ever imperious to her critics — would not be caught in such a pose. She is more like a patient aunt, alternately stern or smiling, able to wait until quarrelsome charges, be they rival politicians at home or European leaders haggling in Brussels, calm down and agree on how to proceed.
When she does talk of Europe, her overwhelming concern is that it stay competitive, and Germany strong. Sparpolitik, or austerity, has virtually vanished from her public speeches. Referring to helping weaker European partners, she speaks of "solidarity" and "taking responsibility for oneself" as "two sides of the same coin."
Even when her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, briefly caused a campaign stir in August by saying that Greece would need a third rescue package sometime in the next two years, she refused to be more specific or to say whether Mr. Schäuble had cleared his comments with her first.
At her rallies, the euro is praised as the foundation of Germany's prosperity, while it is emphasized that a united Europe has had almost 70 years of peace — and, she says, "the older ones here know what that means." When she glimpses anti-Merkel protesters, she tells her fans, "I know they won't be locked up" for speaking out against austerity that Greeks, Portuguese or Spaniards see as imposed by Berlin.
"Freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, all that is Europe," Ms. Merkel said in Düsseldorf last weekend as she fired up 7,000 supporters for the final days of campaigning. "When you look around the world, you know what we have."
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