German elections shake up the political order

German elections late January dealt a blow to the CDU party in the state of Hesse. Roland Koch, the CDU Premier, ran on a law and order campaign, saying such things as "We have too many young foreign criminals." He spoke of wanting to deport juvenile foreign criminals. The CDU went from 48% of the vote to 37%. The party did much better in Lower Saxony where it ran on a moderate platform. The new Left Party, die Linke, won about 7% of the vote in each state and will be in each state parliments.