Young CDU/CSU folks watch the same music clips as others. They worship the same icons. Especially in a country like Germany, which has a vibrant youth culture (look at Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt etc.) kids are attracted by the same fashion attributes. Now, wearing a bikers leather jacket can be 'cool' when Fischer does it, it will look ridiculous when Merz does it (although he would love it). I have always pitied my conservative friends for their cultural restraints. And they knew it. If you think about it almost all fashion styles have been invented by youngsters who are on 'our side'. The rockers, mods, hippies, punks, rappers were all working class. This gives us actually a lot of societal, cultural interpretation power. In the past I worked for the Socialist Group in the EP somewhat cultivating this particular domain. Remember the French group SOS Racism and Red Wedge (Billy Bragg) in the UK? Well, I worked with them promoting some joint European cultural activities. It led to the formulation of the technical and operational blue print which formed the corner stone for 'Band Aid'. Another boost to left wing pop culture. The chairman of SOS Racism is now a MEP and Bono (U2) became appointed UN good will ambassador because of it. What we couldn't foresee then (due to young age?) was that Bono would defect the cause and accept invitations to Blair's No 10 and Bush's Whitehouse.

"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819