Germany Has Its Florida 2000

It looks like the political scene in Germany is going to go through something similar to what we did in 2000:

Germany slid into political chaos on Sunday night as the election produced a hung parliament, with both chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel claiming victory and the right to form a new government.

The result is unprecedented in German post-war history and caused bafflement in Berlin as Ms Merkel, who seemed set for an easy win just weeks ago, was left claiming a pyrrhic victory after an uninspiring and gaffe-ridden campaign.

In contrast, although the result was less than glorious for Mr Schröder's Social Democratic Party, he defied unanimous predictions that he would be out of a job by Monday.

The latest results gave Ms Merkel's Christian Democratic Union 35.2 per cent of the votes, a 0.9 percentage point lead over Mr Schröder but her party clearly failed to win a majority for its preferred coalition with the liberal Free Democratic Party.

But in spite of the CDU's poor performance its second worst result at a general election Ms Merkel still appeared likely to become chancellor, though she might have to govern with the rival SPD in the first “grand coalition” since 1966.

The first one to hire Al Gore's lawyers.....loses.