Low on Steam

Of all his nicknames, West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard cherishes none so highly as Wahllokomotive (vote puller). Indeed, over the past two decades he has chugged well ahead of the rest of his party, helping to pull it to victory behind a prosperous trail of cigar smoke. Last week the Erhard engine ran dangerously low on steam.

The locale was North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in West Germany and, with its vast Rhine-Ruhr coal-and-steel complex, the industrial heartland of the nation. The state's 17 million inhabitants represent fully a third of the West German electorate, and exercise a political power that in U.S. terms would equal California's and New York's combined. Heavily Catholic, the region has traditionally given wide majorities to Erhard's Christian Democratic Union. Hence the surprise last week when, in the state's first election since 1962, Willy Brandt's Social Democrats grabbed 49.5% of the popular vote and 99 seats to the C.D.U.'s 86. The C.D.U.'s ally and coalition partner, t he Free Democratic Party, won 15 seats--enough to allow the C.D.U.-F.D.P. coalition to continue with a bare two-vote majority. Still, the erosion was severe. What had happened?

Kumpel Chorus. For one thing, the Socialists won wide sympathy with their proposed speakers' exchange with East Germany on the question of reunification. Perhaps more important was the record oversupply of 21 million tons of coal, which stands in ominous black mountains from Bottrop to Bochum. To the Ruhr, it brought the fear of mine closings, short shifts and layoffs. The big steel firms are running at a scant 80% of production capacity. Add to that the perennial German fear of inflation, and the fact that living costs rose 4.4% in the past year, and the stage was set for trouble.

Normally, Wirtschaftswunderkind Erhard has been able to allay economic fears with his prosperous presence and confident campaign style. This time the hecklers got the better of him. Speaking in Gelsenkirchen during the last week of the campaign, Erhard was confronted by a grim-faced chorus of Kumpel (miners) who closed in about the speaker's platform carrying black flags and muttering about impending mine closings. "Shameless riffraff!" snapped Erhard when they booed him. "If it hadn't been for me, these louts and hoot owls would have rotted in their diapers. Never have I seen so much stupidity, impudence and meanness in one heap." It was hardly the way to handle angry workers, and it was probably no coincidence that Gelsenkirchen voters turned more powerfully against the C.D.U. on election night than did any other town. At week's end, Erhard and his lieutenants were undecided whether to continue with a bare-majority coalition government in North Rhine-Westphalia, or to let the Socialists rule as a minority government. Erhard himself is firmly set against a grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialists, for fear that if it is established on the state level, it may become necessary on the federal level. That could spell derailment for the Wahllokomotive.

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