Baerbock in the ARD summer interview: No mistakes, please

After an election campaign with failures, Green Chancellor candidate Baerbock wants to turn things around. in the ARD summer interview she admitted mistakes and was combative – but the spark didn’t seem to jump over properly.

Annalena Baerbock is sitting straight as a candle on her armchair. For the entire twenty-five minutes of the interview, you can see the tension and concentration. The momentum is pointing straight down for the Greens. There are only five weeks left to turn the trend.

The Greens’ candidate for Chancellor knows that here she also has the chance to convince many people to put her cross with the Greens on September 26th and at the same time there is a risk that she might make a mistake that will further her image damaged.

“We can renew this land”

Your strategy quickly becomes clear: The Chancellor candidate Baerbock takes a step back, puts the party forward, the content, the team spirit and emphasizes the mood of change in society. This becomes particularly clear when asked whether she is still the right person for the Chancellery after the setbacks of recent months. The point is to make it clear:

We can renew this country, and not as one person, not only as a candidate for chancellor, as chancellor alone, but with the many people who want to advance this country together. And above all with many, many green people in our team. So it’s also about making a different kind of policy in the Chancellor’s office.

Baerbock seeks trust

When asked about the mistakes of the past, Baerbock doesn’t downplay them. “Yes, there were setbacks, including in the candidacy.” The next book she wants to write? A new edition of the first book because she made too many mistakes in it. Which mistake doesn’t happen to you a second time? Do too many things at the same time.

Baerbock aggressively solicits trust, she even speaks directly to the audience, especially when it comes to her core topic of climate protection. Here she makes it clear that there is only a chance of change with the Greens: “We are five weeks before a federal election. You, dear viewers, can decide if we want to continue as before. Pretend we’re doing the climate crisis has nothing to do with? ”

Baerbock also wants to appear approachable. She advertises trust, not only as a candidate for Chancellor, but also as a woman, as a mother, “who is in the midst of life, but to make it clear that I know where it is urgent. I know where the problem is, especially when you go to the Example does not get a daycare place. ”

No calls for resignation, but a few swipes

Baerbock was aggressive when it came to Afghanistan. She called for a committee of inquiry into Afghanistan for the next legislative period, “regardless of who then heads the government. We cannot simply keep silent about the disasters that have happened, because the point is to learn from these mistakes,” said Baerbock . At the same time, she tries not to overshoot the mark. She holds back with demands for resignation.

She gave the CDU and SPD chancellor candidates, Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz, swipes in tax policy and, above all, in climate protection. With Scholz and Laschet there is only one “keep it up”. But a climate-friendly restructuring of society is needed.

When it comes to the core issue of the Greens, Baerbock goes into detail and is fact-oriented. The message is somehow lost. Perhaps that is also the basic problem of the Greens: Although the climate issue is currently booming, they do not manage to get out of their polls low. How climate protection can be designed in a socially just way is difficult to put into short election campaign slogans. In the end, Baerbock didn’t make any mistakes. However, there was no clear new impetus to initiate a U-turn in the polls.