But a fresh Merkel government is far more likely to make the attempt if it takes the form of a CDU-FDP (black-yellow) coalition than if it is another grand coalition.
The CDU was rattled after state elections last month, in which the CDU and SPD lost ground to the smaller parties - the Left Party, the FDP and the Greens - and there were calls for Angela Merkel to adopt more aggressive tactics Mr Steinmeier.
But this weekend, the CDU could win as many as 20 overhang seats, which might be enough to tip the balance away from a renewed grand coalition and towards a CDU-FDP coalition.
Many business leaders complain that the government, which yokes together the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), is plagued by in-fighting.
They know what's coming and still they are avoiding the SPD and flocking to the free-market FDP.
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Unless the government is prepared to accept a sharp rise in unemployment, the FDP's neo-liberals will have to swallow their economic principles and accept more market-distorting state intervention.
The FDP is pushing a neo-liberal agenda, pledging tax cuts, health and labour market reforms.
The FDP is the closest and longest-standing representative of pro-market liberalism in German politics.
The CDU-Free Democrats (FDP) ruling coalition suffered its worst poll since 1950, garnering a combined 39.1% (30.4% for CDU, 8.4% for FDP).
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FDP, which is more pro-reform, to counteract the forces of reaction.
Her best bet may be to disarm rivals by giving them jobs in her cabinet and to use the FDP, which is more pro-reform, to counteract the forces of reaction.
Mrs Merkel hopes to get enough votes to replace the SPD with the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP).
In Rhineland-Palatinate the voters evicted the FDP from the legislature altogether.
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Yet Hans-Dietrich Genscher, an august former FDP foreign minister, has hinted that it did not go far enough.
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The MEP, a leading member of the Free Democrats (FDP), allegedly failed to source the 227-page thesis properly.
The CDU remains the strongest party but its coalition partner, the FDP, might not win enough votes to re-enter the legislature.
Since she became chancellor, whether in coalition with the centre-left SPD or with the liberal FDP, Mrs Merkel has been poaching the ideas of others, such as family policy from the SPD or exit from nuclear energy from the Greens.
The problem would be how to reconcile the FDP's comprehensive tax overhaul with the rather modest tax-cut plans of the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.
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FDP's biggest flaw is that it has moved down-market.
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The FDP plan would mark a decided shift toward a "two-class health-care system, " warns Gerd Glaeske, director of health economics and policy at the University of Bremen's Center for Social Policy Research.
But the FDP's shellacking in Berlin is a setback for the anti-bail-out camp.
Or the vote could result in an old-fashioned coalition between the CDU and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
Angela Merkel, who looks likely to be re-elected as chancellor, would prefer to govern with the liberal FDP.
Germany's greying argues for encouraging individuals to rely less on state-funded pensions and more on their own savings, as the FDP advocates.
In 1990, West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genschers Free Democrats (FDP) merged with their liberal East German allies to become the first revived pan-German political party.
"This clearly makes the FDP the third power among the parties in Germany, " the party's secretary-general Guido Westerwelle said after the vote.
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