Why did I ever get involved with the presidents? It must be astrological. With a strong Saturn trine the Ascendant, my connection with them began before I even thought about looking at their elections astrologically.
When I was a kid, my parents bought me a poster with headshots of all the chief executives. I’m not sure why they considered it an appropriate gift for a grade-schooler, but they were both civic-minded and we all had Capricorn in our charts. The poster stood out in black and gold on my bedroom wall, and I was fascinated by the weird hairdos and fashions. I knew very little about the people, but named my hamster after one of them. (Fillmore’s cage sat beneath the poster, though he never got as far on his wheel of fortune as his namesake.)
When my first book about Sun-signs and career came out, one of my radio interviews was in Tennessee. It was election season and I thought they’d like to hear about Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore’s chances for success. Using pretty basic techniques, I already expected Bill Clinton was likely to win, and Gore’s chart settled it.
I’d always been attracted to forecasting, and calling the outcomes of political elections was the kind of definitive, testable astrology I liked. Clients were interested in it, too. I focused on the natal horoscopes for my conclusions regarding major changes, continuing on a particular path, and possible success.
Early 20th century astrologer Evangeline Adams was no stranger to prediction, and famously called the outcomes of several presidential elections correctly. She appeared to base her judgments, at least partially, on transiting Saturn, which is so important to career and life direction. When I began studying Adams’ work, I became more interested in her Gemini rising U.S. chart, and took more time with my next presidential forecasts, studying not only the candidates’ charts but the country’s too.
With several correct forecasts in a row, I now had a record to uphold! I eventually became convinced that the more things I looked at, the more accurate I’d be. I checked transits, solar returns, progressions, solar arcs, progressed declination, planetary cycles, the candidates’ progressed to the U.S. chart, as well as their progressed to U.S. progressed aspects, and included the candidates’ spouses to see if they supported my conclusions.
Some were easier than others. I was skeptical that an African American president could be elected in 2008, but the prevailing transit of Saturn opposite Uranus, announcing innovation, clinched my forecast of Obama’s win. In 2012, his progressed declination was so deeply connected with longer-term U.S. progressions that I felt his work with the country was not yet complete. At the same time, Mitt Romney had transiting Neptune squaring his Gemini Ascendant, while running mate Paul Ryan had the mirror aspect to his Sagittarius Ascendant: I imagined their joint hopes would evaporate.
The presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, despite being one of the closest in U.S. history, seemed to me relatively easy to determine astrologically, and many other astrologers agreed.
My brother, a die-hard skeptic, also kept me focused on the presidential predictions. A math person with a fixed-sign Aquarius Mercury, he argued my successes were simply coincidence. I’d actually been correct 6 out of 6 times. The probability of choosing heads correctly in 6 coin tosses is 1 in 64, or a 1.56 % (.0156) chance.
But by the time Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump, I’d become overconfident, and transiting Jupiter trine my Moon that year only added to my presumption. Living in New York City for most of my life, I assumed most would see Donald Trump’s run as the publicity stunt I thought it was. I also couldn’t imagine someone with such a checkered career in the White House. We all know the result; bias is not a good thing for astrological judgment, and the lack of an accurate birth time for Hillary didn’t help.
I was determined to do better with the 2020 election and again spent a great deal of time with the candidates, their spouses and the U.S. charts. I also returned to basics, and only used the techniques I was most familiar with – transits, progressions and progressed declination. My study of U.S. Inauguration charts for my book Tecumseh’s Curse also helped me call the 2020 outcome correctly, when I realized that Saturn and Uranus in hard aspect historically suggested a change in presidential party.
I now had an accuracy record of 7 in 8 correct, or 87.5%, versus odds of 3.13% by chance alone. When I asked my brother what he thought, he laughed nervously and began talking about Trump’s legal challenges. We know what happened with that! More importantly, I had refined my forecasting techniques and vindicated both myself and astrology.