The Greens still have around two months to catch up.

In the polls, the party is currently far behind the Union, which it overtook at some institutes in April.

After a series of embarrassing election campaign mishaps, some polemics and a current apology from Annalena Baerbock for quoting the "N-word", the Greens can now be happy if they claim second place at all against the ailing SPD.

What more can they do to stop their decline?

Ralph Bollmann

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.

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The FAS asked Karsten Göbel, the head of the Berlin agency “Super an der Spree”. The advertising specialist had already given his tips at this point during the election campaign four years ago: When at the beginning there were many indications that the SPD applicant Martin Schulz would march through, he designed a rescue campaign for Angela Merkel in the FAS; When the Chancellor had the upper hand again a few months later, he thought of motives and slogans for the social democrats who had been left behind. He also has his own experience with difficult campaigns: In 2013, he marketed the SPD candidate Peer Steinbrück, who was considered a loser at the time, but from today's perspective achieved a dream result with 25.7 percent.

The campaign recently presented by the Greens managing director Michael Kellner is not enough for this purpose from Göbel's point of view. "Appeasement as before is not enough," he says. As always, the Greens put the greatest possible distance between their campaign staging and the same gray corridors of the government district: They presented the poster motifs in the cool ambience of a start-up floor in the south of Berlin.

There was another aspect of distance that was important: Kellner had to go to great lengths to explain that the cautious billposting of his own top candidate had nothing, and nothing at all, to do with the debate about her person.

In addition to numerous themed motifs, there are some large areas that show co-chef Habeck in the same size as Baerbock.

The applicant for Merkel's successor can only be seen once in large and small format.

"God save us from Baerbock"

In principle, Göbel thinks that taking the heavily criticized top candidate out of the firing line is right.

He trusts the daily survey results less than his everyday observations.

"God save us from Ms. Baerbock!": That is the mood in the meantime both at the master butcher in Brandenburg and at the naturopath in Kreuzberg.

He believes that turning this trend around is almost impossible because too much credibility has been lost: The fact that the Greens basically behave the same as everyone else is particularly dangerous for a party that has always attached particular importance to being different. A purely personal campaign such as in 1969 for the CDU candidate Kurt Georg Kiesinger (“It depends on the Chancellor”) is therefore ruled out - quite apart from the fact that it already went wrong at the time, as is well known, Willy Brandt left the government as head of government of a social liberal coalition Bundestag election emerged.

He may also overlook the claim “Ready when you are”, although the quote (“Ready when you are”) is uncomfortably reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter from the film “The Silence of the Lambs” - not exactly a popular figure. “In terms of craftsmanship, the campaign is okay,” he says. "But it is relatively boring." And for a party that acts from the position of the attacker, that is not enough.