GERMANY - Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is continuing its divided approach to the threat from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). As elections approach in three eastern German states in September and October, a pattern has begun to emerge: While the federal party leadership condemns the AfD, local politicians flirt cautiously with the right-wing populists. The clash came into focus on Thursday, when Ulrich Thomas and Lars-Jörn Zimmer, two CDU deputy parliamentary leaders in Saxony-Anhalt, produced an eight-page internal memo arguing that CDU voters and AfD voters actually had similar goals. The CDU had failed, they wrote, to properly counter the "multicultural currents of leftist parties and groups." "We must succeed in reconciling the social with the national once again," the two politicians wrote. They also said a CDU coalition with the AfD at some point in the future should not be ruled out.