German Parties: Looking to Obama for Clever Campaigning
Call to Vote in the German Federal Elections for Germans in the US
German politicians look to Barack Obama when it comes to how to run a successful election campaign. Obama’s use of social media and the internet to mobilize voters in his 2008 campaign for the US presidency was unprecedented. German parties currently campaigning for this year’s federal elections in Germany, which will take place on September 27, want to follow Obama’s footsteps. And while some of them seem to be struggling with the new medium, others look like they have managed to get a head start: like the German Green Party Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen (Alliance ’90/The Greens), for example.
Germany’s Green Party: A Head Start in the U.S.
I was surprised when I received an email from my German high school friend, Thomas Müller, a few days ago who told me about the local Washington D.C. chapter of the German Green Party that he helped founding in April 2008. It is, in fact, the first ever chapter of a German party in the United States of America, and the timing couldn’t be better. Just one year in existence, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen managed to organize a number of high-profile events in Washington, increase their number of active members, and attract followers on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
“Our main goal is to provide a platform for politically active and green-oriented German citizens in and beyond Washington D.C. for discussing and actively participating in German Green politics,” says Thomas Müller.
- Germany’s Green Party on Facebook
Mobilizing 200,000 Potential German Voters in the U.S.
And the Green Party is doing even more: the local D.C. chapter is taking the chance to advance green politics in Germany with the help of roughly 200,000 German citizens currently living in the US who are eligible to vote. As the Financial Times Germany wrote in an article on June 24: “In 2005, only 5,000 Germans in the U.S. cast a ballot. A potential of 195,000 votes presents a big opportunity.”
“With our nonpartisan U.S. campaign, we are mobilizing all these potential German voters,” says Thomas Müller. Naturally, it’s a bipartisan effort. I can’t help thinking, however, that the clever Greens have gotten themselves a head start in that they’re channeling the political discussion towards their party favor.
In any event, I definitely support the campaign and would ask my dear German readers in the U.S. to cast their vote – for their preferred party – in this year’s federal election. Let’s support our German democracy! Let’s go and vote!
