Faced with crumbling support and a growing challenge from the far left, Germany’s Social Democrat party nominated Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to lead the party into national elections next year.

The nomination effectively kicks off Germany’s election campaign with a year to go until the September 2009 poll, pitting Mr. Steinmeier against Chancellor Angela Merkel. That rivalry, say analysts, could add to the paralysis in Germany’s already-fractious coalition government, where the Social Democrats are junior partners to Ms. Merkel’s conservatives.

Like center-left parties in Britain and France, Germany’s Social Democrats are in deep trouble as they compete with conservatives for the center ground on economic policy while at the same time trying to hold on to voters who feel Europe’s mainstream leftist parties have abandoned their roots.

Germany’s Social Democrats face a particularly strong challenge from the hardline leftist party Die Linke (German for ‘The Left’), an alliance of former East German Communists, discontented West German trade unionists and ex-Social Democrats. Die Linke has eaten into the Social Democrats’ voter base with a populist promise of pacifism abroad and anticapitalism at home. Opinion polls say about 14% of the German electorate would now vote for Die Linke, up from 9% at the last elections in 2005. Many of their supporters are former Social Democrat voters.

Not the best news for one of Bush’s favorite leaders.  And it looks like Bush and his brand of politics is pulling other leaders into the gutter with him.