Across Europe, it's becoming 'politics as USual'

[Marcus Marulus]

Across Europe, it's becoming 'politics as USual'

By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 27, 10:32 AM ET

Bright red balloons bulge from overhead nets. Right on cue, the beaming politician strides onstage, dwarfed by two giant screens, and the crowd erupts into giddy cheers of "Vi kan hvis du vil!"

That's Danish for "We can if you want!" and if it sounds very much like Barack Obama's "Yes we can," it's just one more sign of American-style electoral politics taking root across Europe.

From this month's Social Democrat convention in northwestern Denmark to the slick imagery that has replaced the communist snoozefests of Cold War Eastern Europe, "Elements of the American way are seeping in," says Reginald Dale, a British expert.

They're evident in televised debates of unprecedented feistiness; in candidates' obsession with polls, focus groups and image control; and in mass media, embracing a bold new role as definers — not just moderators — of key election themes.

Experts say a watershed moment in the rise of image over substance came in 1997, when Britain's Conservative Party ran a poster that gave Tony Blair devil's eyes over the slogan "New Labour, New Danger."

It didn't stop the young, up-and-coming Blair from scoring a hefty election victory for his Labour Party, and he in turn went on to put a New World stamp on Old World politics by perfecting spin-doctoring skills that were later co-opted by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others.

"It spread through Europe, partly as a result of Blair's example. And he imported that from the United States," says Dale, who heads the Trans-Atlantic Media Network at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

It has even become part of Europe's political jargon: "spin docteur" in France, "spindoktor" in Denmark, and just plain "spin doctor" in Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.

Critics have been bemoaning a change of political style since the 1980s, and it was bound to accelerate in the globalized age, with TV offering Europeans a ringside seat at American political campaigns. But this year's U.S. election is being followed especially closely, and the Europeans' favorite is Obama.

Danish party officials won't confirm they had Obama in mind when they picked their slogan, but the party's leader, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has since expressed her preference for the U.S. Democrat.

Still, the election styles remain different in key respects. For one thing, apart from immigration, Europe generally doesn't wrestle with hot-button issues such as abortion and religion that tend to raise tempers in American politics. For another, European campaign seasons are much shorter, and strictly enforced cool-down periods outlaw campaigning, polls and candidate interviews within 24 hours of voting.

The limit on parties' campaign spending is low — $1.4 million for any given election cycle in Belgium, $5 million in Poland. "You don't have people raising $100 million in a month," says Dale.

But increasingly, the money is being spent on images rather than issues.

The contrast is especially stark in the former communist bloc. Czech politicians used to be gray, aloof apparatchiks. Today candidates sport tailored suits. "They're closing the gap" with the West, says Nina Smetanova, a fashion designer in Prague.

"Style and effects are becoming more important than substance," says Roman Joch, who heads the Civic Institute, a conservative think tank in the Czech Republic.

Not all voters like it. Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu was ridiculed by some for campaigning at a school on the first day of the fall term and kissing youngsters.

But while politics have become more personalized, private lives of candidates and their families have traditionally remained essentially off-limits in Europe, and even when they grab center stage they are much less likely to make a substantive difference.

Nicolas Sarkozy's marital troubles emerged in the midst of his 2006 campaign for the French presidency but didn't stop him winning handsomely. His divorce and swift remarriage to former supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni provided a media feast, but ultimately cost him little if any political capital.

Instead, it's the French conservative's unabashed pro-American stance that irks Jerome Segal, a French scholar.

"He deliberately displays his American way of life, be it eating burgers with George W. Bush or jogging in his NYPD T-shirt," Segal says. He accuses Sarkozy of introducing "patriotism, demagoguery and populism" to France's political landscape, and blames it on American influence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sees no reason to abandon Germany's staid tradition of campaigning squarely on the issues. In fact, she says, "I'm rather proud of how we conduct politics."

Yet even Merkel jokes about how she can't shop or vacation without her photograph winding up in tomorrow's newspapers. That, experts say, underscores how German politicians' private lives increasingly are coming under scrutiny.

"What is becoming more Americanized — but it never approaches the extreme of the Americans — is that one knows far more about the private lives of German politicians than ever before," says Irwin Collier, a professor of economics at the Free University of Berlin's John F. Kennedy Institute.

Some European politicians are throwing open their curtains and welcoming scrutiny.

Werner Faymann, who aspires to become Austria's next chancellor, offers voters a window on his world through photo albums posted on his Web site, http://www.das-ist-faymann.at.

Here's the dimpled Social Democrat as a boy, skiing in the Alps. There's Faymann the college student, wearing jeans and a goofy grin.

Faymann's party is neck-and-neck with the conservative People's Party ahead of Sunday's election. Will his attempts to capitalize on his boyish charms give him an edge?

Gabriele Melischek, senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, isn't sure.

"Things are changing," she said. "But we are Europeans. Private questions are not so important."

Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic, contributed to this report.

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Truly a sign of the idiotization of Europe...