The Greens did well, but the Greens back the same economic-liberal agenda (and can realistically be imagined as a coalition partner for the CDU). So colour me very pale green around the gills.

From Eurointelligence daily briefing (e-mail):

Writing in Suddeutsche Zeitung, Heribert Prantl comes to a similar conclusion. He says a CDU/FDP victory at federal level is now at least theoretically conceivable, but improbable. The FDP will not benefit from CDU votes this times because the CDU has other coalition options - like leading a Grand Coalition with the SPD - which was not the case in Lower Saxony, where it was a classical centre-left vs centre-right type of vote. But Prantl then spends most of his commentary focusing on the SPD, concluding that it should not take a victory for granted. The SPD has yet to define the concept of social democracy in the 21st century, and if it continues to fail doing this, it will end up cementing a permanent conservative majority in the country.

Linke 3%
Piraten 2%

That is disappointing. Local factors or longer trend?

European Tribune - Comments - Stale Stalemate

"What is astonishing is that it looks like the CDU had a hidden campaign to get voters to use their second vote for the FDP so they could hold on to power," said politics professor Gero Neugebauer at Berlin's Free University.

This is in Sweden called support-voting. It is a common feature due to the entrenched bloc politics. The soc-dem support votes for the communists in the 70ies and 80ies was called Comrade 4% and the Moderates support votes for the Christ-dems has been called Brother 4%. Though with the Liberals and Center also touching the 4% line in polls, the names has gone out of fashion. If a party falls to low in the polls, support-votes are assumed to return to the motehrship, though this has yet to happen.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!