Clinton Praises Kohl; German's Campaign Gets a Needed Boost
Trailing in the polls with election day just four months away, Chancellor Helmut Kohl received a much-needed boost today from President Clinton, who heaped praise on Europe's longest-serving leader during a tour that had all the appearances of a political campaign.</br></br>After celebrating one of the defining moments of the Cold War by marking the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, at Tempelhof Airport, Clinton escorted Kohl aboard Air Force One for a short flight to Eisenach, a town in the former Communist part of eastern Germany where they toured a modern car plant built by General Motors Corp.</br></br>Clinton's visit was the first by a U.S. president to eastern Germany, and it was welcomed by Kohl, who lags far behind his Social Democratic rival, Gerhard Schroeder. In the 1994 election, Kohl's support among eastern voters helped him stage a dramatic comeback against Rudolf Scharping, a lackluster Social Democratic candidate. But this year, with unemployment in the east well over 20 percent, Kohl has become deeply unpopular and his Christian Democratic party's standing has plummeted in the polls.</br></br>Tossing his arm around the burly chancellor at every opportunity, Clinton sought to revive public esteem among eastern German voters for the man who linked them with the West with the reunification of Germany in 1990. "Thanks in no small measure to the leadership of your chancellor, Germany today is one nation, in harmony with its neighbors," Clinton told a packed town square, as a beaming Kohl reveled in the praise of his foreign guest.</br></br>During a foreign policy address Wednesday at Berlin's Schauspielhaus, a famous opera house located on what was once the Communist side of the Berlin Wall, Clinton extolled Kohl's record as chancellor for the past 16 years in terms that sounded like either an endorsement or a political eulogy.