Ms Merkel remains a strong favourite to defeat the SPD candidate (and foreign minister), Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in September.
If they could vote for the chancellor direct, 56% would choose Ms Merkel and only 28% Mr Steinmeier.
Yet for Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, these difficulties are no reason to pull the troops out of Afghanistan.
Chancellor Merkel's success is also due in part to the weakness of her main challenger, the SPD candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
As foreign minister, Mr Steinmeier has proved soft on Russia, and his party is turning against the war in Afghanistan.
They just fear that Mr Steinmeier wants to bury the fact of Russian aggression in a morass of moral equivalence.
ECONOMIST: Europe frets about its place in a different world order
The SPD has ruled out forming an alliance with the radical Left Party at the federal level, limiting Mr Steinmeier's coalition options.
El flamante ministro del Exterior de Alemania, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, dijo durante una visita a Washington esta semana que el gobierno de EE.
BBC: Mundo | Internacional | CIA "oper�� vuelos" en Alemania
There are no promising contenders for his job, save perhaps Mr Steinmeier.
Privately, Messrs Gabriel and Steinmeier admitted they did not want the job.
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An uncharismatic politician, Mr Steinmeier has failed to capture the public imagination and his SPD party has been torn apart by internal struggles.
That will mean resolving bitter internal disputes between economic reformers such as the party's candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the party's powerful left wing.
The Social Democratic foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will go, but his successor, almost certainly Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic Party, has not yet arrived.
Ms Merkel and Mr Steinmeier differ in their conclusions from this.
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Mr Steinmeier, who already challenged Mrs Merkel in 2009 and lost, is seen as a softy and did not want to go through the circus again.
ECONOMIST: Germany��s parliamentary election: Charging at Merkel | The
Mr Steinmeier, who is under pressure from the SPD to demonstrate some economic leadership before the election, has now seized on Ms Merkel's obstinacy as an opportunity.
And he is said to be untidy and impatient with paperwork, unlike the immaculate Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a chancellery man who had been in line for the job.
Meanwhile, Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected to raise the issue of "secret" prisons in talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Tuesday.
To some, one highlight of Avignon was a successful push by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, to demand an inquiry into the causes and conduct of the war.
ECONOMIST: Europe frets about its place in a different world order
While Merkel elsewhere distances herself from the idea of state aid for big, flailing businesses, her election rival, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, lauds the Magna-Opel deal on and supports aid for Arcandor too.
And both major German political parties - Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats led by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier - make clear there is no turning back from a close embrace of Russia.
"From our point of view, the boycott of the Palestinians was always an injustice and we have to find a solution to overcome these problems, " Mr Abbas said on Thursday, after meeting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The crisis has hit just as Germany prepares for next September's federal election, which will pit Ms Merkel as candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) against Mr Steinmeier as candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
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.
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