Word: barzel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...widespread approval of his policy of reconciliation with East Germany, into votes for his Social Democratic Party. This week, as the election returns began coming in, it was evident that the answer was yes. West Germany's voters rejected Brandt's unimpressive opponent, Christian Democratic Leader Rainer Barzel, and returned the magnetic Chancellor with a majority in the Bundestag...
...decisive 45.9% of the popular vote, and probably 230 of the Bundestag's 496 seats. The Social Democrats' coalition partners, the Free Democrats, led by Foreign Minister Walter Scheel, won another 8.4% of the vote and 42 seats to give the government a working majority of 48. Barzel's opposition Christian Democratic Party and its ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union of Franz Josef Strauss, drew a total of 44.8% of the vote and 224 seats (the remaining 1% of the popular vote was distributed among 5 other splinter parties...
Besides Brandt's personal triumph, the election results were a victory of the heart over the pocketbook. Barzel had campaigned long and hard on the issue of inflation, a particular horror to most West Germans. But Brandt, with his state treaty with East Germany, had delivered something more intensely personal for millions of voters: the promise that they would now be allowed to visit relatives and home cities under Communist rule that they had not seen in years...
...campaign appeared to exact a heavier toll from Brandt, 58, than from Barzel, 48. Almost every day, the Chancellor spent mornings at his desk in Bonn; afternoons and evenings he was on his special campaign train, delivering four or five speeches. Then he would get a few hours of sleep as the train chugged back to the capital. At one point, Brandt seemed on the verge of nervous exhaustion; bags drooped under his eyes and the lines deepened in his face. Yet he never lost the magnetism that brought out roars of "Willy, Wil-ly!" from crowds. Toward...
Image Problem. Few Germans could imagine anyone shouting "Rainer, Rain-er!" for Opposition Leader Barzel, who took over the reins of his party last year. A former Minister of All-German Affairs, Barzel is a gifted orator and highly intelligent tactician-with an image problem that he has never been quite able to shake. Critics variously complained that he was an ambitious opportunist and as "spontaneous as a robot." This time, perhaps to give himself a more statesmanlike image, Barzel abandoned the slashing political style that voters had come to expect from him, and conducted a deliberately low-key campaign...