In 2002, the FDP started the federal election campaign with a slanted campaign. The party had been kicked out of government four years earlier and has been in a slump ever since. In order to stop the downward spiral, the party strategists came up with a concept that should draw as much attention as possible to the FDP: the so-called Project 18. Party leader Guido Westerwelle called himself a “chancellor candidate” and appeared on the reality show “Big Brother”. and toured the country with a yellow camping bus, the “Guidomobil”. The self-proclaimed goal: 18 percent of the vote.
He even had the number engraved on the sole of his leather shoes, in yellow, of course. At every opportunity he held her up to the cameras. The funny election campaign attracted attention (often in the form of mockery), but in the end the FDP ended up with only 7.4 percent.
Maybe the liberals are still dreaming of a Westerwelle moment today. As then, the FDP is in crisis and could use a nudge. The last five state elections ended badly, most recently the Liberals were kicked out of the Berlin Senate. And in autumn there will also be elections in Bavaria, polls see them below the five percent hurdle. So this message from Upper Franconia can already appear as a pointer from heaven: The Hof sustainability initiative “Next Giving Org” wants to give away around one million shoe soles.
The organization usually arranges furniture donations for clubs and social institutions, but recently they received an extraordinary gift: 100 tons of shoe soles – “brand new, but a few decades old”. As spokesman Harald Prokscha explains, the soles of various brands were forgotten in a hall, some were already porous. They belonged to a company that bought and sold surplus production, but has long since ceased operations. “Now the hall is to be cleared,” says Prokscha. “We want to save the soles.” Buyers must be found in the next five weeks, otherwise there is a risk of waste incineration.
Prokscha has shoemakers or artists in mind, but wouldn’t that be something for the FDP – as a giveaway at the campaign stand, for example? She could save the world from a nasty waste of resources and summarily revive an old campaign. Only this time there should be a 5 on the sole.