The gutter press - normally reliable CDU boosters - has been waging a vicious campaign against aid for Greece. So a lot of those people probably (we'll need to see the polling data) stayed away or voted SPD.

Of course, if Merkel had bit the bullet 3 weeks ago, she would have had some breathing room in which to reconcile her disgruntled voters.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman