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And the Winner Is . . .
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A Supplement to The U. S. National Election of Nov. 4, 2008
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| This page is a companion to The U. S. Election of 2008, the first in a set of eight pages on this site that are devoted to the major planetary event of the years between now and 2012: the great Chiron-Neptune conjunction of 2009 - 2011. Links to all of these pages are at the bottom of this page. |
| The main U. S. Election page lays out the combination of stellar forces that are in effect on election day for the country, and the planet, as a whole. This page, on the other hand, aims to estimate the chances on election day of the two presumptive candidates by looking at their natal charts in relation to the election day chart on The U. S. Election of 2008 page. |
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Why is it especially hard to pick a winner in the U. S. election of 2008?
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| One weird but inescapable fact is that the official "winner," the victorious candidate, will be blessed if he does not expire from sheer exhaustion by the election. Not only does the process of selecting a new president now begin, insanely, almost two full years before election day, but the eventual winner of this toxic, vitiating fight has to run a gauntlet of lies, smears, hatred and fraud more punishing than any aspirants to the White House -- or to any elective office anywhere -- have ever had to endure in the entire history of democratic politics. By the time the victor staggers out the other end, ideally in one piece, he will have been cooked in such intense scrutiny by media, bloggers, spooks and spies, all looking for dirt in everything from his family history, finances and medical records to his high school yearbooks, music choices, haircuts, clothes, favorite foods and family pets, that it'll be a miracle if the designated survivor of the election can still feel anything at all. |
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How anyone can come through all this and not be desensitized to everything and mistrustful of everyone, with nothing left in his heart resembling compassion, trust and a willingness to listen, remains to be seen. So does the question of how anyone can lead a nation that has now spent years trying to destroy him or her. "If you can't stand the heat," said Harry Truman famously, "stay out of the kitchen." One wonders what he'd have thought of the absurdly long, bitter ordeal that U. S. presidential democracy has now become. And whether Harry would think the trial by slime and fire that candidates are now expected to endure is so distasteful to our finest, noblest-hearted leaders that the only ones who will accept it are those who are so utterly ravenous for power that they will do anything to get it, or so thick-skinned and dull-spirited that they can hardly feel the blows, and they wonder when they disrobe for bed where all these bruises came from.
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Another factor that makes this election a very tough call less than 6 months before the voting, in May, is the question of whether the voting now matters at all. Many astrologers and other predictors, including this one, called the outcome of the vote correctly in 2000 and 2004, only to see the result of the election corrupted by voter disenfranchisement and intimidation, rigged computer systems and a blatantly unconstitutional intervention by the Supreme Court in the legitimate vote recount of 2000. Those who fix American elections have now had four more years to refine their craft, and with Neptune on election day in Aquarius, the sign of electronic technology, square to Mars in the undisclosed location of Scorpio -- home of all encryptations, including computer codes -- the veteran cybersneaks who stole the last two elections are ready to work their gray magic again. The passivity of the people and their representatives, and their failure to put in place the measures that will safeguard the integrity of the vote, promise that another election will surely be stolen. The only question is how soon.
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What we can run easily now, however, as we await the nomination conventions and the election is still more than four months away, is a simple "stress test" of the candidates' charts, to gauge how happy, or not, each one of them will be on election day. This measure, however inexact, even if based only on how each candidate will feel at the end of the struggle, is as valid as any as we look at the candidates' prospects now, several months before the parties choose their nominees.
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| The best that can be said for John McCain on election day is that at least he's happier than Hillary Clinton. But then everyone is. A look at McCain's planets on election day, and his Astrocartograph, suggest that he either loses the election, or his principles are outraged by the malefactors still in power, who, fearing the consequences of their crimes, engineer a crisis, declare martial law, suspend the election and the constitution along with it, and hope that Week 10 in the NFL and other distractions will keep people in their chairs. |
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John McCain
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Aug. 29, 1936 at 9:00am in Coco Solo, Panama (9N23, 79W53)
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| An astrologer friend of mine says that John McCain has a "strong chart." It's easy to see why. He has a powerful T-cross among Venus in Virgo in the 12th house of secrets, Chiron in Gemini in the 9th house of authority and law, and Saturn in Pisces in the 6th house of health and illness, and service relationships. If we allow for a slightly wider orb of relationship than many astrologers (including this one) normally use, then Jupiter in Sagittarius in McCain's 3rd house and Neptune in Virgo in his 11th can be said to link with the other three planets in a tremendous grand cross. This very momentous design -- more about it in planet-wide terms in The Crosses of 2010 -- often marks a soul who accepts on Earth the kind of extraordinary mission that may be fulfilled only at the price of extraordinary suffering. If an astrologer did not know anything about the owners of the three charts shown on this page, and had to say which of them is most likely to have had to bear a prolonged ordeal of imprisonment and torture from having acted in military service to his country, it would be the person shown in this chart. |
| We do know Mr. McCain's birth time, so we know the house positions of his planets, and we can reconstruct some of his past from what we see here. Mars and Pluto in the 10th house of his profession indicate that he will be drawn to a warrior occupation and also very likely to political power. Tricky Neptune in his 11th house of friends, in a rough, seamy 90° square to Jupiter in his 2nd house of money, suggests mixed money news. McCain is likely to have been born into a comfortable if not prosperous family, but he'll not have an easy touch with money, may find it hard to raise, and may be embarrassed when he tries to get it by less than honest means, as he was some years back when he was one of the Keating Five senators who helped bail out American savings and loan banks in one of the smellier scandals of the 90's. McCain is, not surprisingly, more likely to marry into big money than to manifest it himself. With the Moon in the 4th house of the home opposite Pluto in the 10th, McCain will have a harder time than most in balancing the interests and demands of family and work. We can match other things in his chart to what we know of his life so far, and astrology sites that do this are easy to find. But our purpose here is to explore how John McCain does on election day. |
| It's not pretty. The very stressful T-cross in the U. S. election day chart aligns closely with two points of the cross in McCain's birth chart: Saturn in Virgo on Nov. 4 is conjunct McCain's Neptune and Venus, and Uranus in Pisces on election day is on McCain's Saturn. Thus this day's exact Saturn-Uranus opposition will affect McCain far more intensely than it does his opponent, and one way that Republicans could self-immolate on election day -- if they don't swipe the election again -- will be in not just failing to support their nominee, but even sliming him right up to election day. McCain's Mars in Leo, conjunct the Moon's South Node on Nov. 4, will hardly make this easier. He'll give as good as he gets where criticisms and quarrels go, even by the standards of the minor flap he stirred recently in comparing his relentless critic Rush Limbaugh to a circus clown, then issuing an apology to Bozo, Chuckles and others whom he was sorry to have offended. With his Mars also square the Scorpio Sun on Nov. 4, McCain's famously feisty candor may work against him with humor-challenged Republicans, much as he may appeal late in the game to some progressives who admire him a little for his nerve alone, and for his being the only one in the race with a dry sense of humor. |
| Other stresses affect McCain on Nov. 4. The Capricorn Moon on election day opposes his Pluto, so minor, fleeting emotional upheavals come, as they do more than once a month when the Moon and Pluto afflict each other. Election day Jupiter in Capricorn opposite McCain's Cancer Midheaven (MC) is weightier. It signals that he may feel torn between his deepest traditional values of loyalty to home and country, and the practical necessity of embracing those whom he detests for the sake of gaining from them the keys that open doors to power. Other power-laced astral cocktails are served here too, notably that on election day Mercury squares McCain's Capricorn Moon and his Pluto in late Cancer, placing the candidate in the terribly cramped position of having to speak in praise of his enemies, even those who have questioned his patriotism and his courage while never having placed themselves in the way of anything more harmful than a hangover. The election day Scorpio Sun opposes his Uranus in Taurus, reinforcing the likelihood that he will drive himself to the burnout point today. |
| While there are a few small consolation aspects for John McCain on election day, such as a favorable Mercury transit to his Moon's Nodes -- and with it, skilled work by his media and communications team -- McCain's mood on election day, like Hillary Clinton's is likely to be anything but elated. Lastly, Pluto in late Sagittarius on election day aligns with McCain's Moon's Node axis in early Capricorn-Cancer. Many astrologers interpret this alignment to mean a moment of destiny, or a karmic nexus that the native shares with many other people. So -- as it appears Mr. McCain is not very likely to feel like a winner on election day, this must mean that Barack Obama wins the election. Right? |
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Barack Obama
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Aug. 4, 1961 at 7:24pm in Honolulu, HI (21N18, 157W52)
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| Hardly, much as many people wish that Obama could be the winner, if not on his merits, then because we would so much like to see one, only one, of these three candidates hold some positive cards on election day, and come through the ordeal empowered and ready to exercise confident new leadership. It's not that Obama doesn't win. He probably does. But the price will have been so high by election day, the compromises so unacceptable, that even the ultimate victory of the American presidency may feel like a bad bargain and a fool's errand to whoever does win it in the end. For all we know, the point of the 2008 election may be to deliver the lesson that democracy, however imperfect, is a serious political art that can yield immense benefits in a fair exchange for attentive effort. But when it devolves into a mere theatre piece that cynical manipulators play to distract, entertain and exploit a vast herd of complaisant, heavy-eyed consumers, and milk away their money and labor for decades on end for the enrichment of the B--h family and Bear Stearns, then democracy is a poisoned mineral whose wasting effects are slow, but certain. In The Republic, Plato defined the difference between polity -- that is, communal government by an informed, responsible citizenry -- and democracy, by which controllers and demagogues whip the winds of the people's greed, vanity, fear, faith and fury for their own profit and glory. 2008 is an object lesson in what Plato had in mind. |
| Does the recent discovery of Obama's birth time have any important bearing on his natal chart, and on his prospects on election day in 2008? An emphatic yes to both. Now that we know the house cusps in Obama's chart, we can see that his chart has a relatively rare and auspicious alignment of the kind that is often connected with attaining great fame and success. If Obama's correct Midheaven position is now 6° Sagittarius 4 (at the top of the chart), then this point forms a grand cross with the Moon in Gemini (3rd house), Chiron in Pisces (1st) and Pluto in Virgo (7th). While the grand cross in John McCain's chart is questionable, Obama's is not. It is tight, with all four planets and points at 3° to 6° in their respective signs. And the kicker is that Chiron also links at angles of about 120° with Venus in Cancer (5th house) and Neptune in Scorpio (9th), forming a loose grand trine among these three planets. While neither a grand cross or a grand trine by itself is terribly rare in a person's birth chart, it is unusual in Obama's chart that not only do both these grand formations occur, but they are linked by a common planet, who is significantly enough Chiron the Healer. In his very prominent location in the first house of this chart, Chiron is Obama's rising planet, as if we did not already know that one of his most important roles as president -- if not the crucial role -- will be the binding up and soothing of the pain and misery that the American government has inflicted on its own people, and the world's, in recent years. The mythic medicine of Chiron in Obama's makeup and prognosis could not be more plain in either his birth chart, or his Astrocartograph. |
| Election day will not be easy on Obama, especially as his planet and Node points in the late degrees of Taurus, Leo and Aquarius align this year with the T-cross in fixed signs in the USA's Scorpionic America chart. Obama's Sun at 12° Leo is square the Sun at 12° Scorpio on Nov. 4, and conjunct the Moon's South Node, with the predictable effects of these transits on both his health and vitality, and his relationships. He'll do his best to campaign and speak compellingly even as he finds it nearly impossible to stay awake. This health-endangering exhaustion -- Leos do not welcome restraint -- is aggravated by Mercury in Libra on election day square Obama's Jupiter in Aquarius and Saturn in late Capricorn. This is very likely a sign that the well-oiled machinery of his eloquence will not hum on election day as smoothly as it has so far. |
| The South Node, the "splitting force" that tends to strain relationships and even break them, is the hardest-working troublemaker for Obama on election day. His Sun and Midheaven (MC) in Leo, both square the South Node on Nov. 4, suggest that even if Mr. Obama wins, he suffers the breakage of important relationships. While the Sun on the MC is often found in the charts of political leaders and aspirants to political power, the South Node's position on election day certainly suggests that while Obama may gain very high office at some time in his life, Nov. 4 2008 appears for him to be a day of losing power, not winning it. As if this were not enough, the election day South Node is also square (at about 90°) to his Ascendant and 12th-house Neptune, both in Scorpio, the latter carrying more than just a hint that on this day he may be subjected to deception, fraud and psychic undermining that will be extraordinary even by the standards of an American presidential campaign. |
| Are there any bright spots, then, for Barack Obama on election day? Yes. There's a mildly beneficial sextile (60° angle) between transiting Mercury in late Libra and Obama's North Moon's Node, the "uniting force" that attracts and reinforces relationship. And more to the point for a man seeking supreme power, Pluto on Nov. 4 in late Sagittarius is trine, at 120°, to Obama's North Node, suggesting that powerful support, and perhaps power itself, comes to him in 2008. As the two Moon's Nodes are sending such mixed messages, then, are there any other clues about how Mr. Obama fares on election day? |
| Yes, and disturbingly so. A few astrologers have begun to write publicly about what many are communicating privately about the "dangerous" astral conditions that affect Obama this year, and that become more acute as the year goes along. Some writers have called for people to hold this year the collective intention of Mr. Obama's safety. Why do they and others fear that he may be in danger? Because the grating friction of the Saturn-Uranus opposition on election day, though it affects John McCain even more strongly, does still bear on Obama too. On Nov. 4 Saturn in Virgo conjoins Obama's Mars, and Uranus opposes it. Venus in Sagittarius also squares Obama's Mars. Afflictive links among Mars, Saturn and Uranus tend to manifest as anger and frustration at best. Disadvantageous placements of Mars and Uranus are often associated with mechanical trouble and problems with transportation, which is why an astrologer will normally advise you not to travel when these two planets are not well angled to you. At worst, aggressive hostility may manifest as well when Mars, Saturn and Uranus are in unfriendly positions. |
| Fortunately, no one is yet predicting publicly that any harm may come to Obama this year. Those who are irresponsible enough to consider actually forecasting such an outcome might want to explore their chances for more gainful and exciting employment in a government agency or media firm that is actively stirring fear for the purpose of keeping heavily armed people firmly in control. Such power-pandering is already underway, in fact, though the men engaged in it are likely unaware that they are playing with and in a scenario of high risk to others, and to themselves. It is well known by now that at one of Obama's campaign events before the Texas primary, FBI agents ordered the Dallas police to suspend their normal weapons-check procedures, allegedly for the sake of getting the audience into the hall more quickly. And the local police, instead of telling the FBI to go frisk themselves . . . actually complied! Thus the dangerous conditions that apply for Obama this year could come down to the reality that he has been exposed to unnecessary peril once by the stupidity or calculation of a national police agency in the budding American police state of 2008. He could be placed in jeopardy again. We naturally pray and intend, as do all people of love, that Obama will be safe. But the fact remains that the terrain is hazardous for him until and through election day. |
| All in all, again only on the subjective basis of how the candidates feel on election day, it's likely that the eventual "winner" will be much too exhausted by Nov. 4 to feel notably upbeat and gratified even though he's won. Whoever survives the vote will have to handle the effects of decades of governmental sleaze and mismanagement. |
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So . . . Who Wins?
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| Obama does. If the Republicans do not steal the 2008 election, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. On what evidence? There is some, and it's persuasive. Even if the simple stress test we've run here does not identify a clear winner, other factors do: |
| The very powerful Grand Cross - Grand Trine link in Obama's chart is a rare and auspicious combination that tends to mark a man of destiny, one whose impact as a leader will be profound and transforming. Other advantages in his chart include a set of three quintiles -- that is, planets at intervals of 72°, or 1/5 of the circle -- among Sun and Moon, Uranus and Neptune, Mars and the Midheaven. These alignments favor the kind of very energetic creativity that has marked Obama's campaign, and could mark his presidency as well. |
| A comparison of Obama's and McCain's Astrocartographs -- they'll appear in the Universal Festival Calendar preludes from July through September, 2008 -- is telling. While McCain is favored for a life of great wealth and success in Arizona, he has no astrocartograph lines near Washington, DC. Nothing within 500 miles of it. So while he spends a lot of time in the capital as a senator, Washington will not be nearly as important to his life as the Sun Belt is. Obama, on the other hand, has powerful Uranus and Moon's Node lines, representing social and political change, and the reconstructing of relationships, close to Washington and New York. |
| Obama is a much better match than McCain for the Chiron-Neptune Conjunction that rules the years 2008 through early 2012 -- that is, most of Obama's first presidential term. The key point in this alignment is 26° Aquarius, where Chiron and Neptune meet for three years of teaching and healing. Obama's Ascendant and South Moon's Node at 27° Aquarius are only one degree away from this conjunction point, and Obama's Uranus and North Moon's Node both oppose it. John McCain has no natal planets forming angles of any kind to the Chiron-Neptune conjunction. We may infer, then, that Obama is the man who is meant to be in office when Chiron and Neptune meet and work together over the next few years. |
Obama is also the most challenging match for the Scorpionic America chart at this moment of sweeping change that will be painful for many. In this chart, drawn for America's birth in November 1777 -- not July, 1776 -- the Aquarius Ascendant opposes Jupiter in Leo, and both these points square the Sun in Scorpio, forming a T-cross that is likely to be triggered by both the Chiron-Neptune conjunction and the Aquarius-Leo axis in Obama's chart. This is to say that the common feature of Barack Obama, Scorpionic America and Chiron conjunct Neptune is that they all intersect at 26° - 27° Aquarius, and their meeting is likely to bring about overdue changes, fiercely resisted changes, improbable changes that seem to pop out of nowhere, as though change itself has now acquired the power to reproduce.
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| Obama is also far more deeply affected than McCain is by planet positions in the year 2012, and by planet transits in the years ahead that are empowering and challenging, sometimes both at the same time. In 2011 Obama turns 50 in the year of his Chiron return, when the healing issues in his life come up for clearing, and he is best able to carry out his mission of healing others. As Neptune moves from Aquarius to Pisces in 2011, he will cross Obama's own natal Chiron position and form happy, productive trines with Obama's Venus in Cancer and Neptune in Scorpio. Other news that is closer to hand is that December 2008 and January 2009, at the time Obama is forming his administration and getting ready for inauguration, Jupiter crosses Obama's natal Saturn in Capricorn and his Jupiter in Aquarius, thus bringing some happiness, productivity, successful and contentment to the interval between election and inauguration day. More on this as the year turns, and the cycles are better understood. |
| For Obama, though the end of 2008 and the top of next year do have their bright features, the burden of the presidency is likely to feel even heavier than he expected, from the moment he picks it up in January. That's when he understands, much better than he did before, that the most fateful decision the American people will ever have made -- to reaffirm constitutional liberty or to accept control by a military security state -- will come during his watch. |
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As of June 23, 2008
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The Chiron - Neptune Conjunction of 2009 - 2012:
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Copyright 2008 Dan Furst. All Rights Reserved.
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