Enough opinions; it's time for the astrology facts as they relate to the presidential election.  Consider this your fall preview guide.  For many people, politics is no more interesting than baseball.  But imagine that the ball game has had a formidable bet placed on it: the world.  Then imagine the game is rigged.

Let's work our way backwards, from the inauguration chart.  We know the new president, whoever he is, will take office at noon on January 20.  Charts cast for noon this day and time all have the Aquarius Sun in the 10th house; the Sun in this sign is a nice image of democracy (power to the people, Aquarius), and the 10th house is the domain of government, admiralty, high office, and command.  This year, the Sun is conjoined by Chiron in Capricorn, which is the highest planet in the chart.  Sun-Chiron in a chart of this kind (a coronation or government event) is a fitting image for a wounded king.  Whoever takes office, it would appear, will have some serious debility to deal with.

Chiron is not always about wounds, however; it is more often about awareness.  Lots and lots of in-your-face radical awareness, wherever it goes.  Chiron in Capricorn, the guardian angel of our times, dates back to December 2001, just weeks after the September 11 attacks.  That was when Enron declared bankruptcy and the beginning of an era when many more facts of the corporate and government world, often symbolized by Capricorn, came out into the open.  Next year is the last year of Chiron in Capricorn, and the transition into Chiron in Aquarius (which begins in March and continues through 2011). The Capricorn era, which so far spans the Bush presidency (post 9/11), has brought an astonishing diversity of scandals that have forced many millions of people to pay attention to boring politics, to see what a "corporation" is, and to have their illusions about politics destroyed.  This is Chiron the iconoclast, shattering the idol of denial.

Taurus is rising.  That makes Venus the second planet to symbolize the new president.  We find Venus in the 9th house (spirituality, international affairs) conjunct Mercury.  Given that this is conjunction in Capricorn in the 9th, we have an image of religiosity and piety.  Venus, however, is opposed by Varuna, a planet beyond Pluto (discovered in 2000), in Cancer.  Varuna is the equalizer.  Mythically, this is a deity who was deeply concerned with the punishment of liars, and also one designated with the protection of water.  He is often depicted carrying a noose.  In eras past, Varuna was the supreme creation deity, whose name still evokes reverence in Vedic cultures.  Somebody who often talks about God (Venus in Cap) has an actual meeting with the guy (Varuna in Cancer). And Varuna is not laughing.

One last note.  The 8th house of this chart has a conjunction of Mars and Pluto in Sagittarius.  Given that the 8th, Mars, and Pluto are all images of passion, power, and power struggles, that the 8th is about money and death, and that Sagittarius is the sign of religious ideals, there is more than a whiff of jihad to this chart-though it doesn't manifest right away.  But the values are all in place, and the game is set.  The early Gemini Moon will slide along for about nine months before the media really figure out what is going on.  But they will get it, guaranteed.

Before there is an inauguration, there is usually an election.  The election chart has many interesting features, as any circus clown could have guessed.  The election figure is set for midnight of November 2 in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, where the election begins, and ends, before anyplace else.  Dixville Notch, a small town in the north, has a long tradition of casting the election's first votes.  The town's 26 registered voters meet at 11:30 p.m., each with his or her own little booth; the polls open and close within five minutes-before the League of Women Voters has brushed its teeth and gone to bed.

Like most of the political charts of recent years (such as the election of 2000 and September 11, 2001), Mercury is extremely prominent in this chart.  See if you can follow how.  Astrology loves to measure the horizon-the exact sign and degree rising-and this happens to be 26 degrees of Leo and 28 arc minutes (an arc minute measures 1/21,600th of the total horoscope wheel). The horizon moves fast-one degree every four clock minutes.  So it's a lucky chance or synchronicity when a planet in the chart makes an exact aspect to the horizon, and in this chart it happens to be Mercury, at 26 degrees of Scorpio and 31 minutes.  Close enough for you?

Mercury is below the horizon, in an exact square to the horizon.  It's as if the tabletop of reality is balanced on the horns of this quick, tricky little planet-balanced so carefully that if you sprinkle some salt on an egg on Dad's side of the table, the whole thing tips over.  This tells me it's going to be a very close election, maybe too close to call.  Mercury is in Scorpio.  There is something secretive going on.  What could it possibly be?  Hmmm.  I wonder.  Let's play detective.  Mercury is about money, and data, and the news media.  In this chart, Mercury also represents the public.  Could the public somehow be having a hard time making up its mind because it's so confused and overwhelmed and feels such a heavy sense of burden?

Mercury is sitting near one of those cool new little planets, this one being called Pholus (discovered 1992, a centaur, like Chiron). The energy of Pholus is like shaking up a bottle of Pepsi on a hot day, and then promptly opening it.  There are going to be all kinds of secrets on which the election seems to hinge.  Something is going to come out, and out and out.  Just like it has for quite a while.  More sex secrets, more money secrets, more death secrets: the only kinds of secrets people care about.  (Have you heard about my secret bandanna collection?  See, all other secrets are totally boring.)

This chart has Leo rising.  The Sun is the ruler of Leo, so if we want to know what's up with the election, the Sun is a good place to look as well.  The Sun in Scorpio squares Neptune in Aquarius, the planet of delusion in the sign of technology.  Square equals tension, and a tangible event forthcoming.  Neptune in Aquarius is the astrological significator of, "The masses are not necessarily asses, but they are stoned on television, technology, Prozac, and?Diebold."

Diebold?  Write that name on your Voter Registration Card.  I quote William Rivers Pitt, author and editor of truthout.org, in a recent article called "The Push":

"Consider Ohio, widely considered to be the most important state in the upcoming election.  Wade O'Dell is chief executive of Diebold, Inc., the most prominent company manufacturing these electronic voting machines.  O'Dell is also one of George W. Bush's most effective fundraisers, a member of Bush's elite 'Rangers and Pioneers' cash-collectors.  In a fundraising letter written in August 2002, O'Dell wrote, 'I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.'  This could be passed off as the words of a political loyalist, but once you factor in O'Dell's position as manufacturer of the voting machines themselves, the context becomes far more disturbing."

Disturbing, perhaps, but let's just hope that they steal the election fair and square.  This way, no buildings get knocked down, maybe people will figure out what happened the second time around, and then the winner gets the grand prize: the inauguration chart from hell.