Just when you think there can't be people anywhere on Earth behaving as strangely as our politicians, you hear about the antics of politicians in some other country, and it makes you wonder how humans ever got the upper hand on chimps.

A friend sent me a story from Time magazine about a German candidate who has decided the best way to goose a boring, probably issue-oriented campaign is to undo a couple of buttons.

And I don't mean campaign buttons.

Vera Lengsfeld, 57, is the conservative Christian Democratic Union party candidate in Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district. The federal election is Sept. 27, and her district, which I'm not going to mention again because it hurts my eyes, has traditionally gone Green.

In this country, she would simply consult her party strategists and contributors and organize a "grass-roots" movement to oust her Green opponent for wanting to confiscate all babies in the district and process them into biodiesel. Problem solved.

But Ms. Lengsfeld has taken a different tack. Some would say a tacky tack.

She has come out with campaign posters that picture her and her CDU sister, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in low-cut dresses.

The slogan reads, "We Have More to Offer."

This is obviously some definition of the term "conservative" with which I had been previously unfamiliar.

The image of Ms. Merkel was taken during a trip to Oslo in 2008, where she attended the opera, as you do, in a dress Time described as "glamorous -- and revealing." The word "plunging" comes to mind. Also, the word "whoa."

The campaign poster actually gives both women a little modesty dickie, in the form of a translucent stripe of color where the slogan is, that neither of their dresses furnished.

Ms. Merkel's swanning around Oslo in that va-va-voom evening gown caused a flurry of Teutonic tut-tutting back home in Germany, where the media took sides about the display of her "demonstratively feminine" appearance.

"Demonstratively feminine"? Does that make more sense in German than in translation? On the one hand, I'm a little affronted by the implication that women in power should wear, even on social rather than official occasions, clothes that fit like an awning.

On the other hand, and I say this with all the respect due a foreign head of state whose nation has been known to invade most of Western Europe, have you seen Angela Merkel? She looks like a Bond villain. I'm sure she is wise and smart and very charming at parties, but she hardly seems the type to strut around all skanky and give the British prime minister a lap dance.

It's kind of hard to imagine the Germans being as relaxed about the figures of their public figures as the Italians, who gave the world La Cicciolina, possibly the first person to pioneer the dual job title "porn star/politician."

I recall an incident during the last presidential election campaign when Hillary Clinton showed some skin in the thoracic area, and eyebrows were raised. The German campaign poster is also stirring up comment. As Time put it, "Lengsfeld's critics ... accuse her of stooping too low to get votes." Well, just low enough so the voters can see down her dress.

So? Come on, male politicians -- get in the game! Let's see you in bike shorts! How 'bout some biceps? It's not as if you haven't done more degrading things for votes or donations.

Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is under indictment, but he's going to shake it on "Dancing With The Stars." With the right costume, he might be able to beat the rap.

Nothing too low-cut in the front, though. Chest hair is "demonstratively masculine."