Peer Steinbrück moves to mobilise SPD voters for Germany election By the time Peer Steinbrück arrives, a cold drizzle has set in and those standing just outside the big, round open-sided tent with a platform at its centre are beginning to look rather chilled and wet. Mr Steinbrück, a politician who somehow manages to combine a quick wit and a moth-to-light relationship with political gaffes, bounds on to the red dais. The 2,000 or so Wuppertal residents, a mix of Social Democratic Party faithful and some undecided voters, give him a warm round of applause. These are crucial days for the centre-left SPD ahead of Sunday's general election. If anyone can unseat Angela Merkel as chancellor, it is this man. Yet the party is trailing Ms Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats in the opinion polls and watching its hoped-for coalition partner, the Green party, slip further behind. That is why it is last-minute campaigning in industrialised urban centres such as Wuppertal, east of Düsseldorf and near the famous Ruhr region, that are crucial to the party. Mr Steinbrück's challenge is to mobilise an estimated 10m who have drifted away from the party since 1998. Party activists are trying to knock on 900,000 doors in the final 72 hours of campaigning. Many of those former voters have defected further to the left, with others floating in the centre, where Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats have a commanding lead in the opinion polls. "Their propaganda machines have started," Mr Steinbrück tells his audience. They'll tell you the evil socialists are coming, they want to get into your purses and wallets, they'll nationalise your electric razor and television set. You'll be attacked by the cold hand of socialism. If you're lucky, you'll be allowed to keep your children. In fact, the SPD is proposing to raise income tax to 49 per cent for those earning more than €100,000, introduce a national minimum wage and regulate the banking and the financial sector more tightly. Its proposed method of doing so is to form a governing coalition with the Greens but, with the Greens losing support, the chances of this have faded greatly. The mainstream view is that the only way the SPD will get into power is as part of a grand coalition with the CDU, which would keep Ms Merkel in the chancellery but force some SPD policies through. Mr Steinbrück, who served as her finance minister in 2005-2009 in a previous grand coalition and has said he has no plans to do so again, will not countenance any questions about possible coalitions with anyone but the Greens. Yet as he fights for votes, his penchant for what he calls "straight talking" has too often spilled over into scoring own goals. The most recent incident was last Thursday, when it emerged that Mr Steinbrück had given a "photo interview" to a German newspaper in which he would react with gestures to questions. Asked whether he felt there was much risk of being given a nice nickname, due to his many gaffes, Mr Steinbrück showed the camera his middle finger, instantly landing the paper with a memorable front cover for its weekend magazine. Steinbrück has got rough edges, no question about it, and he likes showing it. But that also marks him out, he is not soft soaped like Ms Merkel who says yes and amen to everyone. Sven Runge, a student and SPD member. Previously, he has been accused of suggesting Ms Merkel is not passionate about the EU because she grew up in the communist east. He has said the chancellor's salary, at about €250,000, is too low because regional savings bank directors are paid more. That comment was made all the worse for the fact that he had only just recovered from unfavourable coverage of the €1.25m in after-dinner speaking fees he earned after leaving government in 2009. He has also said Ms Merkel's popularity is partly explained by her gender and declared that he would never buy a bottle of wine that cost less than €5 - a comment seen as problematic for a party with plenty of supporters who might. But after each gaffe he recovers - joking in a televised election debate with Ms Merkel that no one should expect him ever to answer a question on politicians" pay again - and there are also voters who say they like his sharp tongue. Nadine Ries, a dentist's assistant attending the Wuppertal rally, said she wanted to vote for Mr Steinbrück even though she did not back the SPD as a whole. "I find him likeable, much more so than Ms Merkel," she said. Sven Runge, a student and SPD member, said too much was made of Mr Steinbrück's mishaps. Certainly his campaign events, in which he stands in the middle of the circular tent and takes questions gathered beforehand on cards, are more engaging than Ms Merkel's slightly awkward campaign speeches. But even supporters such as Mr Runge concede the best case for the SPD is probably another grand coalition. The candidate's campaign stumbles were summed up earlier this year by Erhard Eppler, an SPD party grandee, speaking to the weekly Der Spiegel: "For quite a few politicians becoming chancellor is not hard, but being chancellor is. For Peer Steinbrück, the opposite seems to be the case.