Comparative Study and Campaign Management: the Brandt Campaign in Western Germany

Abstract

N MORE THAN ONE sense the study of campaign management still lies on the borderline where the science of politics meets the art of politics. Only a few decades ago, campaigning was strictly an occult art practiced by the old professionals of the business of politics. With the development of public opinion research, however, campaign management is moving more and more in the direction of scientific lucidity, although the element of art has by no means vanished. It is perhaps especially at this stage of development that comparative study should be brought to bear on the subject in order to deepen the understanding of the processes at work. Like all fruitful comparative study of politics, moreover, it is essential to the success of the enterprise that there be a certain similarity in the settings of the two countries to be compared. In the case which is to be described in the following pages, the similarity with the American scene is so striking as to be of special interest to Americans, for often one can understand oneself much better when looking at one's likeness in another country. In the last two federal elections to the German Bundestag, the campaign managers of the two major parties paid a great deal of attention to public opinion data collected by the Institut fiir Demoskopie, EMNID, and other German polls. Especially Adenauer's Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) followed clues gained from these polls and employed also professional advertising techniques.' But not until the Brandt campaign of 1961 do we find an electoral situation so similar to that of the American presidential campaign of 1960 that the Social Democrats (SPD) and Brandt's campaign manager decided to adapt some of the features of American campaign management for their own purposes. The parallels, campaign techniques, and results are of considerable interest to political scientists: there is, in particular, the organization of the campaign apparatus, the person of the campaign manager (a German political scientist), and the situation in which the SPD found itself in 1961; secondly, the parallels in the electoral situation and the conscious use of comparative experience in the SPD campaign; thirdly, the turn from the traditional ideological orientation of the SPD to pragmatism and flexibility; furthermore, the molding of the image of the candidate and the timing of the campaign; and, finally, a resume of the effect of this new style of campaigning. We shall deal with the main features of the Brandt campaign and the outcome of the recent West German elections in this order.