It is not a run that Armin Laschet is currently having.
First cameras stopped at a happily chuckling Prime Minister and Chancellor candidate, while the Federal President in front of him remembered the flood victims with serious words.
The poll numbers for the Union, which fell again after the flood disaster, are in part due to Laschet's “laugh gate”, which did not show him as a crisis manager for national emergencies a few weeks before the general election.
Now, like his Green competitor before, Laschet also has a real non-fiction problem because he was caught copying.
Unlike Baerbock and her supporters at first, however, Laschet wisely did not choose defiant forward defense to limit damage, but quickly admitted the copyright infringement he had committed in 2009 and apologized for it.
However, it is doubtful whether the embarrassing case for Laschet is over.
Because in addition to possible further plagiarism finds, inconsistencies around the book fee are now being reported again, which caused him to find explanations years ago.
And then there is Laschet's nemesis Markus Söder. For days, the CSU boss has been dismantling the “very good candidate for Chancellor” again with taunts and the good-hearted warning of a “sleeping car election campaign”. Anyone who has party friends like this does not need political opponents.