Leadership Contest

The SPD, or Social Democratic Party of Germany, who used to lead the coalition with the Green party from 1998 to 2005, and are now junior partner of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratoc Union (CDU), is currently holding its party conference in Hamburg. They have re-elected Kurt Beck as their leader. This confirms Beck as one of the most important politicians in Germany, even though he is unknown to quite a few of the 80-million Germans. That's why you don't have to feel bad for not knowing Beck's name. He is definetely not owner of the famous beer brand (which isn't German anymore, but belongs to Interbrew today).
Well, back to Beck. His poor ratings in the polls, together with a meager performance in national politics (Beck tried to improve the situation for the unemployed with "water and soap and a decent shave", but failed to get support for a peace-conference on Afghanistan with "moderate Taliban"), raised serious concerns amongst observers about the future of Beck as Party leader and challenger to Chancelloress Merkel in 2009.
The problem for the SPD was, it had devoured as much as three leaders in less than three years, four in six years, if you include Oskar Lafontaine. He was succeeded by frm. Chancellor Schröder, who handed over to Franz Müntefering in an attempt to rally party support for his AGENDA. Müntefering, threw the chairmanship away when the party-board refused to appoint a close aide as party-COO and was followed by Matthias Platzeck, a youngish prime minister of the Land of Brandenburg (the region surrounding, but excluding the capital Berlin) who suffered two breakdowns and a burn-out before resigning and handing over to Beck.
Why Beck?, many asked back then in November 2006. Almost everybody could do the math for themselves: With the exeption of Klaus Wowereit, mayor of Berlin, all other contenders for the leadership had already lost one or more elections to the CDU. Gabriel was dethroned in 2003 by Wulff in Lower Saxony, Scholz lost to Ole von Beust in Hamburg in 2001, Steinbrück lost to Rüttgers in Northrhine-Westphalia in 2005. Beck was the only remaining governing Prime Minister (Rhineland-Palatinate) for the SPD in the former West-Germany, and appeared to be to the SPD-majority more main-stream-appealing than the flashy Berlin Mayor, not so much because the latter confessed he was gay, but because he had the gutts to form a coalition with the post-communist PDS (LEFT). This is still a political sacrilege in the West where the vast majority of Germans live.
Consequently, when Beck tried to grasp the last straw within his reach and launched the revision of Gerhard Schröder's "AGENDA" (risking to be called a coward for giving in to the LEFT, which by then had been taken over by the former SPD-leader Lafontaine), it was a choice between "Pest or Cholera". Müntefering, still Vice-Chancellor in the Merkel-administration, opposed strongly, and with what many perceived to be the more convincing position: He urged to stick with the labour-market-reforms that had only paved the way for economic recovery and the very tax surplus which Beck wants to hand over to those who are unemployed and older than 55 yrs. This group suffers, because the have contributed for the longest time to the social security system and were getting not more in return than the unemployed drop-out that never had a job. The problem according to many economists: Beck's plans are not only giving away the surplus from the economic boom, but will reappear on a monthly basis as a multi-million check from the treasury even when the country is in recession again.
However, it was clear to all: Beck needed to prevail this time, or else the SPD would be in need of the next leader. That's why Franz Müntefering lost, and Kurt Beck was re-elected toady as Party Leader of the SPD!