Mr. Steinbrück, 66, who was finance minister in Ms. Merkel’s first coalition government from 2005 to 2009, came across to undecided voters as more persuasive and readier on the attack, according to polling by ARD, Germany’s main state television network. Ms. Merkel, 59, a physicist raised in East Germany who entered politics as a novice in 1990, was rated as more sympathetic and fair, ARD said.

The two quite swiftly laid out contrasting views of the euro crisis and Germany’s role in helping countries like Greece, but it was more than an hour into the debate before they discussed other international problems, including Syria.

Ms. Merkel stated more clearly than she had before that Germany would play no part in any military response to the apparent chemical weapons assault outside Damascus, and she stressed that Germany would always need some kind of international mandate — with NATO, the United Nations or the European Union as possible authors — before taking military action.

Until Sunday, the popular Ms. Merkel consistently outscored Mr. Steinbrück in polls asking Germans whom they wanted to win the Sept. 22 election. Ms. Merkel, who is seeking another four-year term, is very much the focus of the campaign by her center-right Christian Democratic Union.

However, Germany’s parliamentary system and complex coalition arithmetic mean that Ms. Merkel may not secure enough seats or votes to win re-election at the head of her current coalition, with the business-minded Free Democrats. If the two largest blocs — Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats — are forced into a so-called grand coalition, Mr. Steinbrück has already said that he will not join it.

That refusal led to the most lively exchange on Sunday, near the end of the debate. Pointing to polls saying that many Germans favor such a grand coalition, one of the four moderators, the popular television host Stefan Raab, pressed Mr. Steinbrück on how voters should mark their ballots to reach that outcome. Flustered, Mr. Steinbrück ended up recommending a vote for him and his party.

For her part, Ms. Merkel was pressed to declare allegiance to her current coalition partner, and did so in a way that commentators interpreted as leaving some room for the Social Democrats. She said that unlike her rivals, she was not acting out of partisan considerations. “It is always first about the country,” she said.

Ms. Merkel has deftly ducked contentious issues in the campaign so far — even over the extent to which American intelligence agencies have spied on Germans, a highly delicate subject in a country scarred by its Nazi and Communist past.

Mr. Steinbrück accused Ms. Merkel of reacting too passively — “I will wait and see,” as she said in a July news conference — rather than defending German interests. Ms. Merkel has admitted that she had not realized the extent of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities, but has insisted that she believed White House assurances that the agency had not abused its access to German data to spy on millions of Germans.

Her government has said it was seeking a new agreement with the United States that neither country will spy on the other. Asked why that was necessary if she believed the White House, Ms. Merkel parried the question.

While Mr. Steinbrück laid out a vision of creating a “fairer” Germany and reiterated that his party was prepared to raise taxes on the “Oberen,” or the better-off in society, Ms. Merkel reiterated her message that she had done well for eight years, and that she deserved four more. Campaign posters have shown the chancellor smiling but not triumphant, with slogans like “Successful together” and “Germany is strong — and should stay so.”

As the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper noted Sunday, even 20 percent of voters who lean toward the Social Democrats said they would prefer her as chancellor. “She is too pragmatic and keeps her distance too well for any kind of emotional connection to move voters to choose the chancellor’s party,” the newspaper wrote. “But she has managed to make many associate her with feeling good.”

Mr. Steinbrück’s party introduced welfare and labor policies a decade ago that are credited with bolstering Germany’s competitiveness, but the party remains deeply split over those policies, and has struggled to run a strong campaign.

Another factor that could affect the election result is the showing of a new party, Alternative for Germany, which wants to pull out of the euro. Pollsters have warned that surveys showing the party below the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats in Parliament may understate its support, with some voters reluctant to admit backing it.

The mass circulation Bild newspaper had its own verdict on the “duel,” referring to the popular moderator: “Raab won.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/world/europe/no-clear-winner-in-debate-between-merkel-and-challenger.html?partner=rss&emc=rss