SPD grapples with a popularity crisis | People & Politics

Some say Germany’s largest opposition party should be rubbing its hands with glee at the bitter wrangling currently plaguing the conservative coalition government. After taking a battering in the polls in general elections last autumn,they could profit from the discord within the coalition.But the Social Democrat leadership has been surprising silent as the CDU,CSU and FDP row with each other. Is that perhaps because surveys show the SPD’s public approval rating languishing at 23 percent? During their New Year’s party conference,the SPD is scrambling for a way to reorient itself.