The only party I have ever been a member of is the Greens, of which I was a founding member, and like most founding members I was disgusted at their march to the right and left it.

I don't think it depends on the Left Party alone, you need the Pirates. Right before the Berlin elections, the SPD and the Greens had about 48-50% in polls, which would have been enough for a comfortable majority considering the parties failing to enter, especially considering that the SPD was fairly close to the CDU and thus the overhang mandates would likely have been distributed more evenly.

the CDU will get more direct seats than that again

Let's check the figures! 38% of the vote, with parties entering parliament adding up to 93%, would mean 40.9% of the non-overhang seats in parliament, or 244 seats in a 598-seat parliament. If the CDU/CSU could reproduce its 2009 record of 24 overhang mandates again (unlikely with such high numbers) with no overhangs for anyone else, that would give them 43.1% of seats – a 2.2 percentage point gain, which equates to the same aggregate loss for all others. Meanwhile the majority of 312 seats, if held by a coalition without the CDU/CSU, would be 52.2% of the 598 non-overhang seats and thus 48.5% of the vote. So with the Forsa poll used for the calculation, only an SPD-Greens-Left Party-Pirates coalition could put the CDU in opposition...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The Pirates must grow up and I am not sure they will manage that. At present they are a one issue party.

I think they will but it will be a slow process. The Berlin success has at least over here strenghten the broad approch (getting a full program) over the narrow approach (running just on key issues). But it will take time and I hope for their sake that they are not cast into government their first period in parliament. They need to learn to handle the daily compromises of parliament before they have a chance of surviving government.

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• Right after the 2009 elections, the SPD was shedding voters, the Left Party was overtaken by then.
  
• The FDP meltdown started at the end of 2009.
  
• Stuttgart 21 protests boosted the Greens above 20% in autumn 2010, but that melted away again.
  
• Fukushima put them closer to 25%.
  
• Several problems peaking in the debacle in the Berlin elections (commonly explained with supporters being scared away by allusions to a CDU-Greens coalition option) cut support back to the 15% region. After Berlin, the Pirates exploded federally, taking from the Greens and the Left Party.