Word: chancellor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...swamped by his seemingly uncontrollable domestic problems. In January, reports TIME'S Bonn Bureau Chief Bruce Nelan, "Brandt began to talk to intimates about resigning. He had sunk into a deep depression, viewing the world and its future in near-apocalyptical terms. Diplomats in Bonn began reporting the Chancellor's lethargy and lack of drive. The opposition Christian Democratic Union increased its charges that Germany was leaderless...
...Chancellor has sunk into fits of melancholy before, but this time the image of a listless Brandt took its toll at the polls. In a series of state and city elections, the S.P.D. suffered setbacks ranging from 6% to 10%, compared with 1970. Experts were predicting that the Socialists would lose a June 9 election in the state of Lower Saxony, even though Brandt has promised to campaign there personally. The most Europe-minded of the Continent's leaders, he was also saddened by the insistence of Britain's new Labor government that it would "renegotiate" the terms...
Helmut Schmidt must attempt to pull the Social Democrats out of their tailspin after he takes the oath of Chancellor next week. He has his task well cut out for him. The urgent problems that depressed Brandt have not gone away. Moreover, a public opinion poll released last week showed that voter preference for the S.P.D. is at an all-time low of 21%; only 7% favor the Free Democrats, while 62% support the Christian Democrats. Schmidt and the Social Democrats are lucky that they do not have to face another national election until the fall...
...Chancellor usually responded to such criticisms by shrugging his imposing shoulders and saying: "It is too late to remake Willy Brandt." By resigning suddenly last week-rather than finding a scapegoat for the spy scandal -Brandt showed that he still has no intention of remaking himself...
Shortly after the Social Democratic Party suffered a serious setback in a Hamburg state by-election last March, Helmut Schmidt, 55, went on television and bluntly accused his boss, Willy Brandt, of weak leadership and laxity. That kind of pugnacity long ago earned West Germany's new Chancellor-nominate the nickname "Schmidt-Schnauze" (Schmidt the Lip). Friends and enemies alike describe him as an "American-style" politician, in reference to his rough-and-tumble skill as an infighter. Certainly no one has ever accused him of indecision or timidity- or of hiding his ambition to take over Brandt...