根据这个观点，该党正在为2000年早期格哈特·施罗德总理在经济改革方面的成功尝试买单。 但失败的原因似乎是由于社会民主党拙劣的选举策略，以及当他们试图把选举结果（中右翼联盟）的出现形容为对德国社会安定的威胁时，选民根本不买账。
The real losers of the election were the Social Democrats, with a drop in support of 11% that is without precedent in the very stable history of German electoral behavior.  Some on the left claim that the SPD’s catastrophic result was the product of too close an engagement with liberalism and deregulation.  According to this view, the party is now paying the price for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s successful attempts at economic reform in the early 2000’s.  It seems more likely that the party was punished for its lackluster electoral campaign, and for the negativity with which it tried to present the outcome of the election (the center-right coalition) as a threat to social peace in Germany.