GERMANY’S politicians are criss-crossing the icy state of Lower Saxony in a mad dash to win the vote there on January 20th, seen as a test run for this autumn’s federal election. But political boffins are interested for another reason. The state is not just a good representation of Germany, but has also become an incubator of political talent.
Uwe Alschner, a political strategist, likens it to Missouri, which American wonks study because it is in parts southern, western and mid-western, and is both urban and rural. Lower Saxony is part Catholic (in the west) and part Protestant. It has lots of farms but is also industrial (the home of Volkswagen) and urban, with several clusters of innovation. It has regional dialects but also the German accent seen as the most neutral of all: Hanoverian.This gives Lower Saxony’s politicians an edge. The Weisswurstäquator (“white-sausage equator”), named after a Bavarian sausage and running east-west along the Main river, usually demarcates the cultural boundary south of which politicians are too exotic to get ahead in national politics. Among northern states, North Rhine-Westphalia, home to the largest…
