Struggling German SPD searches for its "Obama"

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN (Reuters) - Can Germany's Social Democrats find a Barack Obama of their own to revive their party?

At a recent rally in Nuremberg, Hubertus Heil, the deputy leader in the struggling SPD, tried to inject a bit of the charisma and can-do spirit of the Democratic presidential candidate by asking delegates to chant: "Yes, we can".

It didn't go down well.

After a moment of mumbled 'Yes, Vee Kahn", the English chants fizzled out. But since that rally in late May, German media and dispirited members of the centre-left SPD, which has slumped to post-war lows in opinion polls, have been asking: "Where's our Obama?"

Some on the left think Berlin's popular Mayor Klaus Wowereit might be the best hope to give the SPD a lift in the way Obama's historic candidacy has helped boost the U.S. Democrats.

Wowereit, 54, is a few rungs down the ladder from unpopular SPD Chairman Kurt Beck and so would not likely be stepping into the 59-year-old's shoes soon.

Beck himself will decide who runs against Chancellor Angela Merkel as the SPD candidate in the 2009 election -- he has hinted he might not run but instead nominate the popular Foreign Minister, Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

But many in the SPD, which governs with Merkel's conservatives in an awkward "grand coalition", are already looking past the dim prospects of 2009 to the following election in 2013 -- and it's Wowereit's name that keeps coming up.