Despite all the hardships that oppressed the Free State these weeks – Corona, dirty weather, traffic light government in Berlin without Bavaria – Prime Minister Markus Söder is preparing to spread some confidence. At the last parliamentary session before Christmas he said: “Is our country really walking on a cane, as you sometimes hear in the debates? – I don’t think so.” Bavaria is “a great country, it is so nice to live here”, in a “land of hope” with a special attitude towards life. “It’s the right mix of tradition and modernity, of high-tech and home, of Leberkäs and lasers.” Leberkäs and lasers? This or similar slogans could be heard from the mouth of the CSU boss more often in the future.
It is no secret in political Munich that the CSU has been thinking for a long time to reissue the old slogan of “laptop and leather pants” and is looking for a clever remake. It was brought into the world in 1998 by Federal President Roman Herzog, who paid tribute to Bavaria’s development from an agricultural country to a high-tech state at the opening of the New Munich Trade Fair Center. As a result, the saying was cited so excessively by the CSU and above all by Edmund Stoiber that some believed that the then Prime Minister himself had invented it. In addition, the CSU was in sole government, basically only the transfer of a laptop and a pair of lederhosen to the party logo would have been missing.
A new image of Bavaria is now needed, including a new CSU image. It was not just since the 31.7 percent debacle in the federal elections that the party knew that it had to be more powerful for the state elections in 2023; ideally as a symbiosis of traditional and new beginnings. So, on the one hand, your home identity as symbolically through the lederhosen, without repeating the mistake of the 2018 election: to imitate the AfD. “You can’t stink over a skunk,” said CSU General Secretary Markus Blume as a lesson. And on the other hand, to neatly bundle issues of the future, as the state government with its high-tech agenda or the digital ministry is already more or less stringently occupied. Allegedly there was even a kind of ideas competition in the parliamentary group – without a brilliant idea. Now the CSU boss apparently had to do it himself.
300 kilos of meat loaf to a NATO task force
Söders “Leberkäs und Lasern” has good approaches. The Leberkäs is typically Bavarian, as maximally nutritious without booing, the Straubing local poet Marzell Oberneder described it as an object of longing: “Those who like to eat Leberkäse, don’t forget beer and bread completely, smile happily in the sky, as the happiest in the world!” Stoiber coined the term “Leberkäs-Etage”, for which the CSU is there, for the common people. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg once donated a snack, not a befitting amuse-bouche, when he made his debut as CSU general secretary in the state management. Even world politics was already done with Leberkäs in the CSU: Johannes Hintersberger, head of the military policy working group of the parliamentary group, had 300 kilograms sent to a multinational NATO task force in Lithuania.
In addition, there is now the laser: an exciting profession, suitable for the fan of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” Söder, who likes to pose with a glowing laser sword. In addition, the technology even makes eye patients see, for example for the beauty of Bavaria.
Is that the new slogan, the last word in wisdom? Or just a test balloon from Söder? The disadvantage of Leberkäs is, of course, that you don’t want to know exactly what’s in it. A party shouldn’t broadcast that. Linguistic aesthetes could also object that “Leberkäs and Lasern” sounds bumpy and, conversely, that “Lasern und Leberkäs” has more potential. It is also astonishing that Söder’s favorite dish was not used; however, “Rostbratwurst and Scanning Electron Microscope” would be a bit bulky. “Hashtag und Hax’n” was thrown into the race by the SZ at this point. Otherwise you can be curious.