Lars Klingbeil: The enigmatic both-as-schede man

Lars Klingbeil is a more affirmative. He likes to say “indeed” or “I have of course”. One of his favorite formulations is: “I’m saying very clearly now”. Or: “It is clear to us”. The SPD boss always tries to uniqueness. But if someone emphasizes it all the way, I will be skeptical.

Perhaps you also noticed if you recently listened to him at Caren Miosga. In any case, I returned to the middle of the show to count: Klingbeil said “clear” or “clarity” in the first 20 minutes ten times. He left quite a few answers in the unclear.

This ambivalence goes well with my picture of Lars Klingbeil. I often don’t get smart from the SPD leader. He always looks a bit as well. Klingbeil is 47, compared to Friedrich Merz and me a really young guy, but sometimes talks as phrase -like as if it were one of the old ones. He struggles to give his words meaning, and sometimes sounds so boring. It is the future of the SPD and is subject to the danger of a rhetorical early arrangement.

The both-and-a-nuclear-soundbeil also has something unpredictable politically. He always looks calm and prudent, also sympathetically with his gentle smile, is the opposite of Markus Söder in every respect, and recently a colleague even called him a sofie. But how he secured party and parliamentary group chair in the hours after the SPD debacle in the Bundestag election, that was more of the power-conscious, the hard tour.

The question of the candidacy of chancellor between Olaf Scholz and Boris Pistorius has poorly managed to harm both and the party. And if he is not careful, this will happen to him again in dealing with the SPD with his co-chair Saskia Esken. Nevertheless, there is little to stick to him, the climb of the Teflon party leader continues unstoppably, now admittedly also because he is obviously a skillful negotiator.

The fact that Friedrich Merz suddenly no longer finds the debt brake as important as in the election campaign should – in addition to his unconditional desire to become Chancellor – have had the influence of three people: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Lars Klingbeil. A trillion euro for investments – a great success for the SPD. Conversely, Klingbeil evaluates the concessions of his SPD in migration and citizens’ money as a sign of accommodating the Union in the coalition negotiations. He is happy that the Union demands “victim” because the SPD finally gets rid of these unpopular topics. This is called the singing.

When the coalition is, Klingbeil will have to make a decision. Does he keep the party and parliamentary group chair, or does he go to the government as a minister and vice chancellor? In coalitions with the Union, the SPD has had bad experiences to separate party chairmanship and vice -chance. Franz Müntefering (cabinet) got violent in a fight with Kurt Beck (not cabinet). And Andrea Nahles was already rid of the party and parliamentary group, when Olaf Scholz hadn’t really taken a seat in the Ministry of Finance.

My tip: the both-Als-also-sound heading becomes vice chancellor and remains party leader. So he holds all the threads in his hand and all options open to the future. Because even if the man stays a mystery to me, I actually know one thing in fact, of course: you shouldn’t underestimate him.