The real reason why so many German greens prefer Merkel

German Der Spiegel notes that almost half of the country's Green Party voters would like to see Angela Merkel continue as Chancellor:

According to a new survey, some 45 percent of Green Party voters would like to see Angela Merkel remain in the Chancellery following fall elections.

To be sure, 53 percent of those queried by the pollsters at Forsa on behalf of the business daily Handelsblatt said they would like to see a change at the top. But the high share of Merkel supporters shows that the Greens have left their rambunctious beginnings far behind.
On the one hand, that's not terribly surprising. Germany's 1968 generation, out of which the Greens were born, has aged and left radicalism far behind. The Green Party itself has likewise become more staid, and large swaths of the party belong to a similar upper middle class demographic that tends to vote for Merkel's Christian Democrats -- or, in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, the party to which Stücklen belonged.

Indeed, a study last September found that the Greens have some of the country's richest voters, along with the business-friendly Free Democrats. On average, they earn more than €2,500 per month ($40,000 per year). A majority of Green voters tend to live in big cities and are well educated. In short, they increasingly fall directly into that catchall category of being spiessig, Germany's take on bourgeois.

However, Der Spiegel misses the point. The main reason why so many German greenies prefer Merkel is the fact that the lady - and her formerly conservative CDU/CSU - has adopted most of the policies of the greens, including an absurd energy transition policy (Energiewende), which soon will seriously begin to hurt economic growth in the country.