And the Winner Is . . .

A Supplement to The U. S. National Election of Nov. 4, 2008
This page is a companion to The U. S. Election of 2008, the first in a set of six 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 each of the three major candidates who are still in the race now (May, 2008), by looking at their natal charts in relation to the election day chart on the main election page. Rather than duplicate it here, I suggest opening The U. S. Election of 2008 page to compare the election day chart to the candidates' charts shown below.
Why is it especially hard to pick a winner in the U. S. election of 2008?
One weird but inescapable fact is that the official "winner," the victorious candidate, will be blessed if he or she 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 or she will have been cooked in such intense scrutiny by media, bloggers, spooks and spies, all looking for dirt in everything from each one's family history, finances and medical records to their 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.
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.
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.
For astrologers, another hitch in calling this race is that not since the early 20th century has there been such uncertainty about when the candidates were born. The birth times of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are unknown. The best guesses that some people are making are based, at best, on anecdotal claims. While we can reckon well the planet positions of both the Democratic contenders, except for the fast-moving Moon, we have no idea in what houses their planets belong. We do know the birth time of John McCain, who may be the first potential American president to be born on a military installation, at Coco Solo Air Force Base in Panama.
What we can run easily now, however, 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. We start behind Door Number 3 with the one who's likely to be the least happy player, Hillary Clinton:
Hillary Clinton
Oct. 26, 1947 in Chicago, IL (41N51, 87W39)
Chart cast for 12:00pm CST (Birth time unknown)
Her powerful and power-seeking cluster of four planets in secretive Scorpio, forming squares to all three of her planets in the regal sign of Leo, will be sorely aggravated on election day. Neptune and Chiron in transit through Aquarius are square at 90° to her Venus, Mercury and South Moon's Node in Scorpio, and opposite her Saturn in Leo, so that before and on election day, Ms. Clinton is likely to be at the center of a complex, very frustrating scenario of lies, deceptions, selfish motives, wounded vanity and uneasy alliances whose basis in ambition and expediency rather than loyalty will erode faster than anyone could have foreseen. On election day the Moon's Nodes are in the middle degrees of the Aquarius/Leo axis, so that the splitting force of the South Node will be right on Ms. Clinton's natal Mars-Pluto conjunction in Leo. This means that quarrels and disputes grave enough to fracture relationships don't just flare here and there in the Clinton camp on Nov. 4, but are erupting all day with intense, disturbing results. Also, Mars' transit through Scorpio on election day takes him across Ms. Clinton's natal Mercury and South Moon's Node, and square to her Saturn, so that all communications with her today are apt to be so delicate and dicey that no one wants to speak plainly, and the country's most hazardous election day job could be that of telling Hillary Clinton news that she doesn't want to hear.
Finally, where her Scorpio planets are concerned, on Nov. 4 both Moon's Nodes are square to and form a T-cross to her natal Chiron. She could literally be sickened on election day, in more ways than one. She may have to smile graciously as she sees the prize that once seemed firmly in her grasp won by the nominee her party chose in preference to her. And it could all be much harder to bear because of that gnawing suspicion that another chance will not come. If we have to base our estimates of Ms. Clinton's chances on election day upon aspects to her Scorpio and Leo planets on Nov. 4, it certainly looks as though she will not be flush with the thrill of victory, and is likely to be furious about something.
There are other stressors too. Mercury in late Libra is on her early Scorpio Sun -- this is not so much stressor as a narrower and blinder, which will incline Ms. Clinton on election day to see not the broader picture but her own personal interests and agendas. She will likely amaze some people by behaving as though the election is all about her when she is not even her party's nominee. Pluto is in late Sagittarius on election night, opposite the natal Uranus in Gemini and square the Pisces Moon in Ms. Clinton's birth chart -- provided that she was born in mid-day or later. If she was born in the early morning, then her Moon would be near 20° Pisces, out of orb with a square to Pluto on election day, but square to Venus instead. Note that if she was born after 9:30pm, she would have an Aries Moon, perhaps a better fit than Pisces for her drive, assertiveness and ferocious will to win. The square between transiting Pluto and her natal Moon is likely to be in force on election day, and the more acute it is, the likelier it is that for her, election day 2008 will be a highly emotional time of shock, upheaval, affronted dignity and outright rage.
Not that this day is without its softer, happier features for Hillary Clinton. The Scorpio Sun on Nov. 4 is on her Chiron. Venus in Sagittarius trines her natal Saturn. The Moon's Nodes are well-aspected to her Neptune in Libra. So no matter what happens, she will retain the sincere admiration of many people who recognize her ability, and the historic opportunity she represents. The election day Sun on her Chiron gives her the ability to act as a healing force, even if only from the position of the non-candidate who graciously acknowledges the winner. But these small, kind, kissing-your-sister advantages are hardly enough to outweigh the severer conditions we have seen above, and the stark possibility that she'll witness the election, not wage it, and suffer the bitter realization that the new president may be in office for eight years, making her 69 when she might have another shot in 2016. Election day does not look happy for Ms. Clinton. If the cluster of aspects affecting her on election day actually adds up to victory, then one wonders what baleful mix of planets might spell defeat.
It looks better, though not by much, for the man behind Door Number 2, John McCain. A look at the planets on election day suggests 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.

John McCain
Aug. 9, 1936 at 9:00am in Coco Solo, Panama (9N23, 79W53)
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. 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 neither Mr. McCain nor Ms. Clinton seems very likely to feel like a winner on election day, this must leave the candidate behind Door Number 1, Barack Obama. Right?
Barack Obama
Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu, HI (21N18, 157W52)
Chart cast for 12:00pm CST (Birth time unknown)
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. But it's not to be. Even if Obama wins, 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.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are perfectly-matched adversaries for the nightmare of spiteful, lacerating competition that Americans, and the rest of the world up in the balcony, will witness through the spring and early summer of this year. Their charts even mirror each other, with fixed-sign squares in Leo and Scorpio dominating both. If anything, election day may be harder on Obama than it is on anyone else, 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. At the end 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 Saturn, and Uranus opposes it. Venus on Nov. 4 also squares Obama's Mars in Virgo. 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 each other. 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 stupidly been exposed to unnecessary peril once, and 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 in 2008.
All in all, again only on the subjective basis of how the candidates feel on election day, it's likely that none of the three candidates whose chances we've explored here, even the eventual "winner," will feel notably upbeat and gratified on Nov. 4. Whoever survives the vote will have to handle the effects of decades of governmental sleaze and mismanagement. Obama may win the election because his chart is the most challenging match for Scorpionic America at this moment of sweeping change that will be painful for many. For him, 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.
As of May 10, 2008
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Copyright 2008 Dan Furst. All Rights Reserved.