So you put up a politically inexperienced candidate, that has no pull in any of the fractions of his party - because you think that he is 'the best man for the job', or because he is just motivated enough to drive through europe and do an entire election circus (as the only one of the candidates, btw), because he thinks it matters?
Lets talk about Martin Schulz for a minute. The 'candidate that ran against Merkel' in the last german election season. The socialist party put him on a speaking trail that had him visit cities at a high pace, and without as much as a personal assistant. So he openly complained about, that he couldn't do the schedule anymore, because he was forced to go up on stages without having changed, in sweaty shirts - and then 'connect' to the people. And when he would change, he had to do it in his car, five minutes before stepping on stage.
So for what its worth - the lesson I draw from that is - that sometimes as a political party you put up candidates - where you don't mind if they loose.
You dont put up the experienced ones, the highly networked ones - but some poor shmuck that does it out of a duty to his party, or who has little to loose.
Manfred Weber didn't seem like a valiant effort to change the system presidents of the commission get elected by in the EU. Furthermore - the personell issue ('Personalfrage') was openly put out there as to why this time it would take longer to have a President of the EC elected. Probably to calm markets.
In the end - it doesnt matter in terms of outcome - I just dont think that many people will cry over Manfred Weber, not having become a (somewhat) more democratically elected candidate to the office of the EC. More democratically, because he got to speak to crowds, on an election trail.
More in demand people, hardly ever have the time for that - which is an issue as well. (UvdL probably falls on neither side of that..
)
Also Manfred Weber came with his own program - that he actually was allowed to develop (with his constituency - hence the big data jab), which nobody wanted - so bye. Or in the other interpretation. Germany couldnt keep up with the back room diplomacy of france - so they had to conjure up another (more viable than Manfred Weber) candidate on short notice.
I've posted both views in this thread. In the end - it doesnt matter.