Anyway, he challenged Schröder for a debate in TV. Kohl had denied any of his challengers a debate and this tradition ended in 1980. Schröder happily agreed on two debates in September 3 weeks and 10 days before the election. They were both seen by 15 million viewers. Of the 15 million watching the second one, 7 million had not seen the first one.

Stoiber failed completely: he lost himself in details, he sweat, he was wrong on substance and he was permanently inducing "Äh.." between words. It was a gift for comedians - and he has never recovered so far. The second was particularely funny, because at several points we - I was watching it with 10 people across party lines - ended up laughing on the floor. He just couldn't get a sentence out straight.

On the friday after the debate the SPD was at around 44 percent in the internals. And this was the time, absentee ballots poured in. The SPD had a pretty awful last week, with the Justice minister resigning, but ended up 8000 votes ahead. The Greens added several hundreds thousands additional votes to this advantage after the FDP was finished because of illegally funded anti-semitic flyers in Northrhine Westpfalia.

But without the second debate, I believe it would have gone to the right.