Vice Chancellor Steinmeier goes on the offensive against Chancellor Angela Merkel

Germany's Social Democrats - coalition partners of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU for the past four years - had long felt marginalized. Discouraging approval ratings in opinion polls weighed on the party's morale. Merkel's conservatives enjoyed far better ratings than the long-established SPD, which had produced the respected chancellors Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder.

Yet after the regional elections of Aug. 30, the SPD felt back in the hunt. One day later, with shouts of "The SPD is back, The SPD wants to win! And the SPD can win!" the party's chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier said as much in a speech in Hanover, giving voice to the SPD's newfound spirit. Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister and vice-chancellor, made a far more pugnacious impression than in earlier appearances. And he strove to radiate the sense of momentum that the party rank and file need in their grass-roots campaign to get out the vote. "Now we're fighting with the wind at our backs!" Steinmeier said. 

In fact, in the Aug. 30 elections, the SPD hardly fared well across the board. However, the CDU share of the vote caved in, sometimes in double-digits. Also, cities including Cologne and Essen elected Social Democrats as city leaders.

That kind of news is heartening. It heartened Steinmeier sufficiently enough to launch fresh broadsides against Chancellor Merkel: "At every climate summit, (Chancellor) Merkel stands in front on the red carpet. But at home, where it matters, she prefers yesterday's energy policies." Or, "saying one thing one day, then the opposite the next - that is no policy, no sense of direction! That's no way to govern a country!"

Taking aim at Merkel's preferred coalition partner, the pro-business FDP, Steinmeier was even more outspoken: "How many minds still seriously consider what got us into this crisis in the first place! The idea is the worst of all. This greed and this chasing after a quick buck. These are people for whom reason and responsibility are foreign words, for whom the common good and solidarity are political folklore. These people's philosophy is 'when everyone thinks of themselves, everyone's been thought of.' It's the elbow generation, the bonus generation. That's what the CDU and FDP stand for. And this thinking that led us into the crisis cannot be the answer to the crisis!"

Before the regional elections, no one had ever seen the foreign minister this direct and fiery - not even Steinmeier himself. He is now hoping that the fire in his belly will light the spark in as many allies as possible. And with 58 major appearances in 27 days, he will do his utmost to light that fire among voters himself - especially by slamming the CDU's campaign strategy of avoiding clear policy statements. A "cotton campaign" is what he calls the CDU's approach. "Whoever tries to pull the wool over people's eyes will get what he deserves," Steinmeier said.

Hanover and its Opernplatz square, where Steinmeier's audience numbered into the thousands, has a special importance for the SPD: Four years ago, this was where the party's election campaign began in earnest and this was the starting shot for a furious final push. When it was over, the SPD had come very close to winning.