One of the most sure-fire ways to tell if it is a big news day in Germany is to take a look at the front page of the mass-circulation tabloid Bild. No matter what's happening, the headlines scream off the top of the page in gigantic font. But when a big story hits -- and it's got to be a really big story -- the rag will actually skip the daily, half-naked floozy that usually lounges alluringly in the bottom left corner. And on Tuesday, she was missing -- replaced instead, and yes there is some (semi-sexist) irony here if you look hard enough, with a full page photo of opposition Christian Democratic (CDU) leader Angela Merkel.

On Monday, the opposition alliance of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Socialists (CSU) officially nominated Angela Merkel as their candidate to run against Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for the autumn general elections. The nomination comes a week after Schroeder -- following his party's electoral shellacking in Germany's most-populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia -- shocked the country by calling for the vote, originally scheduled for September 2006, to be moved up by one year. Merkel's crowning hardly comes as a surprise given the lack of a clear alternative, but all German dailies devote long editorials to the candidate who may well become Germany's first-ever woman chancellor.

Surprisingly, however, the Financial Times Deutschland is the only paper that decides to focus on the woman-as-leader question. Indeed, the editorial's author, Ines Zoettl, notes that it is surprising that Merkel-as-woman has been curiously absent from campaign coverage to date. The focus has rather been on what kind of platform the "union" (as the CDU and CSU are collectively known) might cobble together. Partially, the paper notes, the focus on issues has to do with Schroeder's surprise move. "There has been too little time to center on whether feminine wiles -- for good or for bad -- will play well with voters and in the chancellory and whether a member of the fairer sex will be able to hinder tyrant Bush's invasion of North Korea or Iran." But also, it is because Merkel doesn't wear her gender on her sleeve. "Angie avoids such a strategy like the plague and for that, we women should thank her. Merkel is successful without publicly playing the woman card."

For the rest of the papers, the question as to whether Merkel can run Germany better than Schroeder has is central. After all, as the financial daily Handelsblatt points out, there is a grocery list of issues to be dealt with: more growth, more jobs, more flexibility, a simplified tax system, more personal responsibility, simplified hiring and firing laws, and a reduced bureaucracy. The moved-up election date, the paper writes, puts the pressure on Merkel to quickly come up with a clear platform to address these issues -- and she will have to be tough and iron-willed to keep her party solidly behind her. "That means: Only Merkel can beat Merkel if she dithers in identifying necessary reforms, hesitates in coming up with strategies to deal with them," and if she is too hesitant in pushing through her vision within her party. The paper goes on to say that, if Merkel is unable to come up with a comprehensive plan, then she will fail as chancellor. "The army of 5 million unemployed is not only the top theme for the campaign. For Merkel -- as it was for Schroeder -- it can also become a flop theme if the problem doesn't get solved."

The center-right Sueddeutsche Zeitung has a similar take in a lead editorial entitled, "Angela the Unknown." One of the biggest challenges Merkel has to overcome, the paper opines, is that nobody -- not even many within her own party -- really knows what she stands for. "It is good that Merkel tends to be reserved in her public appearances. But politically, this characteristic often seems like extreme political caution. Several of her party colleagues complain of an extremely mistrustful Angela Merkel." In order to counter such impressions, Merkel must quickly come clean on exactly what her political intentions for Germany are. After all, the paper concludes, "It is possible to become a candidate as a political unknown. But she will find it impossible to govern the country."

Curiously, Germany's respected, center-right daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has very little to say about Merkel. The editorial, it is true, is above the fold on the front page, but it says precious little. It does, however, praise Merkel for leading the CDU out of the dark valley of the slush-fund scandal that former Chancellor Helmut Kohl led it into in 1997. The editorial also notes that Merkel's political decision to move aside to allow Edmund Stoiber to run (and lose) in the 2002 campaign has proven the correct one, and that her chances of becoming chancellor are excellent. "...It will be difficult for the union and its candidate to maintain the current giddy mood until the autumn. But Ms. Merkel knows what is important to the Germans.... 'I want to serve Germany,' she said on Monday. The current government gives the impression that it is preoccupied by something completely different."

The daily Die Welt, which seems to be sliding further into the neo-liberal camp by the day, offers up what amounts to an early endorsement of -- and a premature victory celebration for -- the candidate Merkel. The piece is almost breathless as it rushes from gleeful excitement about the union nominating a woman to a Pollyanna about Merkel's extraordinary career and finally, to the fact that, contrary to three years ago when her Bavarian foil Stoiber snatched the nomination from her grasp, Merkel has the union solidly behind her. "This is no longer a filler candidate being sent to lose against Gerhard Schroeder. Rather, this is a woman party boss that no longer needs or wants sympathy points. This is a woman who has elevated service to her country as her foremost aspiration and who is aiming to lead Germany out of its deepest depression in recent history. She will need a precise compass and a lot of courage, but much more is depending on her success than merely the future of her own party."