There’s a certain dogmatic view in the prophecy genre that to be spiritual and saintly, you must bust your astral back conjuring angels of fire in some dangerous Theurgic rite, risking opening oneself as a channel for such unpredictable beings, after which you dispense your prophecies free of charge for the good of all and often the calumny of many.

There are those among you, such as Deb, who hold this idea that the great Prophet Nostradamus gave his predictions freely to the world. I think it is time to clear the air a little about that.

DEB:
I guess I don’t understand why you do not just go ahead and state the future, for Mankind’s sake instead of people buying your book. Nostradamus didn’t do it that way.

HOGUE

Actually, Deb, Nostradamus didn’t just give his prophecies to mankind. You had to buy them as books. You had to pay for every single prophecy he wrote. Even when he was first summoned to court to explain his predictions in 1555 to Queen Catherine de Medici and King Henri II of France, he was given a donation afterwards. It wasn’t enough to pay the fortune he spent on travel to Paris from Provence so he set up shop as a guest at the Palace in Paris belonging to the Archbishop of Sens. There he gave psychic and astrological readings to nobles, courtiers and their ladies who paid him quite well.

When the Queen invited him to the Chateau Blois to draw horoscopes of her children he was generously paid. Nostradamus was recompensed quite handsomely again in 1564 for making further horoscopes for the Queen after the death of Henri II in 1559 when she was Regent of the realm and came with her traveling court to pay her respects to the ageing prophet. By the way, if you were interested in reading that famous prophecy about her husband’s death in a joust when it came out in 1555, Nostradamus required you pay for the book and read it there.

Frankly, Deb, I can’t remember an instance after he began writing his prophecies, starting with yearly almanacs in 1550, when Nostradamus was not paid for his prophetic labors for mankind. I think the record of his accuracy is a good enough judge to say, Bravo! Nostradamus. You earned your keep. What you had to say had value.

Now, with me you get “such a deal”!

Not only do I ask for, and need your support to keep me financially going by buying a book from time to time, I also write each year over 100,000 words of prophecy and prophetic commentary on this blog page for free. I also eventually respond, free of charge, to ALL my correspondents. That’s about 5,000 letters per year. If I’m to keep providing a blog every other day throughout each year, I’m going to need some more of you 100,000 readers to join the few hundred who have donated a modest-to-generous sum of appreciation for HogueProphecy Bulletins.

***

Finally, a reader left this note today:

I just donated to your site. I responded because I enjoy reading your work, but also because you made the process easy. I simply clicked on the donate link, got to Paypal, and logged onto my account to donate. Please keep up the good work.

***

If you haven’t yet donated and if you agree with him and have a “yes” to help me continue, here’s the same simple way you can do it:

HERE

Thank you for your support.

John Hogue

(13 May 2009)

In the year 2026, the Constitution of the United States will be no more. In its place will be an entirely different document, and an entirely new way of governmental rule, I predict that man will live in greater trust and love of his fellow man at that time.

I foresee one of these changes towards a more human democracy will include the abandoning of the Electoral College system.

Most of those in favor of the Electoral College believe it adds weight to the smaller states. They argue that 25 percent of the populace is in California, Texas, New York and Florida. It would not be fair for these four states to determine the presidency.

In the future, Americans will finally grasp what other younger and more modern democracies understand. A truly national election reflects the national will beyond state borders.

In addition, 25 percent of the US population in California, Texas, New York and Florida will not all vote in lock step together. Nevertheless, in a close election even a few thousand citizens in Guam could tip a truly national election. Candidates? Get thee to Guam to win every vote needed.

It is a myth that the Electoral College system protects citizens of smaller states. I know. I live in one and it is not a swing state these days, either.

These days if you live in small non-swing states, good luck ever seeing a presidential candidate pass through for a live stump speech. Even in the closely fought Democratic Primaries of 2008 between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, we citizens of Washington State only saw Obama for a day and Clinton for two if you ventured off the islands to the mainland or emerged out of the fir forests mists and moss into the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area.

Correct me with documented proof if I am wrong but I do not recall if Barack Obama even visited Washington State during the fall presidential election campaign of 2008. I think McCain came once or twice, but briefly.

If we could have taken away the Electoral Collage in 2008, the sum total of all blue Democrat or red Republican votes would be pooled as a national sum without being divvied up state-by-state to choose the electors who chose the winner. You bet Obama and McCain would have come to Washington State much more often. They would have gone to all 50 states and territories at least once because once free of the Electoral College, we would be like any other modern democracy. Each citizen’s vote in a national election would be “national” not state controlled. Your vote for a president would really count.

Look at it this way. In my state, which is heavily Blue Democrat, Obama was sure to win the 11 electoral delegates so why waste time and treasure coming here, Obama? A million or more votes cast for McCain simply mean nothing, so why see McCain waste much time in Washington State?

In staunchly Republican Red Texas, which went to McCain, millions of Obama votes meant nothing. You did not see him campaign hard and frequently there for every vote. However, if all votes of all the Americans were thrown into a national polling pool then minority votes in all states in sum total do matter. Even a guy or gal from Guam matters.

People in the 2020s will look back at our system and say, “Well, if they liked the Electoral College so much, why didn’t they impose the same system for their state, and congressional elections?

“Why didn’t we hear the pro Electoral College people say, ‘Hey, let’s protect the small counties from the large and populous counties in our state by voting for electors in each who choose our state governor or our congressional representatives in Washington DC in a winner-take-all fashion? Candidates then need only campaign in a few swing counties, or the big counties with lots of electoral votes. Forget the rest.’”

John Hogue
(11 May 2009)

Friends,
Enter the Serengeti of Synecdoche, to creep with elephant gun half-cocked through the high grass plains of the animal kingdom of Nostradamus’ words. We are doing the Safari Darwin of Debunk. We are up-wind of a pack of lionesses of skepticism watching their instinctive strategy of the hunt. They seek to pounce upon the weakest verses in the vast herd of Nostradamian quatrains: those Wildebeests of portent too slow to run off in sudden bright cognizance, the ones too vague in vision to see the huntresses approach.

These sorry ungulates of augury are ever the prey of debunkers, marking and maneuvering for the kill to cull the enfeebled and most confused in the “heard” of Nostradamus’ over 1,500 verses.

These are the only ones they dare hope to feast upon. You will rarely see a pack of debunkers fall between the horns of a full bull wildebeest prophecy: one with clear intent, gleaming in a black-eyed and sharp auguring vision, snorting and stamping its point hard in the ground, waiting. Daring a fool lion to think these are black haunches to claw and tooth without hazard.

A lioness tried it. Ten times. Back in the 1990s, the reigning “queen” of debunking lionesses, James Randi left his teeth rather than teeth marks in the behind of bull wildebeest quatrains and got gored for his troubles. It happened when I wrote for the sake of the hunted an answer to all of his attempts to eviscerate ten quatrains, famous for leaving behind them very large and lingering sharp horned prophetic accuracy.

Every once and awhile, when current events don’t demand a quick prophetic response, I will return to and refresh this prophetic showdown from the 1990s. We will run again from time to time with these skeptically dangerous quatrains, renewing the battle of beasts-of-prey prophecies and debunking predators.

For today, I’d like to talk about the vulnerable prophecies, the type we examined back in the blog article entitled “Nostradamus Predicts McCain Win? NOT!” — quatrains 78 and 79 of Century 10. These pathetic creatures are fair game for skeptics because they are exactly the right kind to easily chase down. They remain verses so vague and open to interpretation that con-skeptics swipe and claw them to the ground easily, so that you might think the rest of the “heard” quatrains are as easy for lions to clutch by the throat and smother like a scrawny dik-dik.

Beyond it being simply wrong or false, what makes a quatrain appear prophetically weak?

Either it may not give up its secrets until the clues make sense to those in the time it foresees; or, it’s something impossibly nebulous, intended for Nostradamus’ contemporary and long-departed audience. In either case, it is marked by weak credibility for a pounce and a “purr” puss full devouring.

Here’s the two prophecies again in the original Renaissance French followed by my English translation and commentary from 1997. I haven’t looked at these interpretations for 11 years and found it amusing that I waggishly predicted some future debunker would sink its fangs into them:

***

10 Q78
Subite ioye en subite tristesse,
Sera ?† Rome aux graces embrassees:
Dueil, cris, pleurs, larm. sang excellent liesse
Contraires bandes surprinses & troussees.

Sudden joy into sudden sadness
Will be at Rome for the graces embraced.
Grief, cries, tears, weeping. Blood, excellent mirth
Contrary groups surprised and trussed up.

A vision of the contradictory images fluttering on modern Italian television? Who knows. This could describe any number of instances of sudden joy and sadness felt by people waiting for news of survivors from some ship or airplane accident.

10 Q79

The old paths will be all improved,
One will travel on them (to a place) similar to Memphis:
The great Mercury of Hercules, fleur-de-lys,
Causing to quake land, sea and country.

As far as I know, the authors of cheap-thrills Nostradamus articles in the tabloids have yet to make hay over line 2 of this quatrain:

FLASH! Nostradamus predicts Elvis slighting!

The new king from Memphis probably isn’t the King of Rock. As flashy as his sequined costumes were, I never saw any with fleur-de-lys designs. But all seriousness aside, a snarling and sexy king of another song and dance is meant here. The great Hercules of the lilies can only be a king of France. The references to home improvements in the first two lines are not intended for the new driveway at Graceland. They are better applied to the public works of Louis XIV during the period of 57 peaceful years when the rocks of the stonemasons rolled to finish the Palace of Versailles. “Thank-yuh-v’ry-much.”

Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies, (1997) p. 809

***

We’ll take on the bull quatrains by the horns as soon as stock market crashes and forecasting the fates Obama cabinet choices give me the time to go hunting.

John Hogue
(07 November 2008)

Friends,
Remember the famous Hillary Clinton political campaign ad broadcast during the Democratic Primaries of purring phones and sleeping little children? Some of it is about to become true complements of Barack Obama’s pursuit of a cabinet consisting of a team of rivals like the one formed by his idol, President Abraham Lincoln. He chose not one but all three Republican’s who ran hard against him to be nominated as their party’s candidate for president in 1860. He rewarded their rivalry with some of the most influential cabinet posts: William H. Seward as Secretary of State, Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury and Edward Bates as Attorney General.

We mark today another moment where destiny opens a wide opportunity: when the president elect once again makes good his intention to be the next Lincoln; or, as the Clinton ad now should say:

“It’s 3 a.m. in the morning and your children are safe and asleep. There’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. There’s a crisis somewhere in the world…”

Your vote ‘has’ decided who will pick up that call if you voted for President Elect Barack Obama. “

This Friday (14 November 2008) he has offered the job of Secretary of State to someone who, as the ad continues, “Already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.”

She won’t lead as President of the United States, because she lost, like Seward. She will not lead as Obama’s Vice Presidential nominee after the job went to now Vice President Elect Joe Biden.

But, if it’s three a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want picking up the phone? Obama, that’s clear from a majority of the voting electorate. But the president may be handing the phone over to his first choice for Secretary of State, his chief rival in the primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I’ve always felt a very powerful premonition whenever I’ve seen Hillary Clinton alone with Barack Obama on the stage during the primary debates. Destiny meant to bring these two human beings together in a political dream team.

I have NEVER sensed in my oracular states anything to support the popularized view of talking Media woodenheads on the television that Obama and Clinton could not stand each other or work with each other. The chemistry in their auras said to me just the opposite was true. That’s not to say they won’t debate and question each other in what could be as lively and challenging a collaboration in the future as Seward versus Lincoln in the past. But they will get things done. Great things!

I had misread my prophetic gut feelings during as the primaries ended. I thought this dream team would consist of Clinton as Obama’s running mate. When that didn’t transpire it felt very strange to me, as if events had gone against the grain of a destined, fateful collaboration.

This vision of the teaming up of the two is something I’ve been trying to frame in different forms since early 2007 in my bulletins, as any of you who have read me over the last few years know. First, I thought the team would be Clinton with Obama as Vice President. Then Obama-Clinton. I just couldn’t get the vision of this powerhouse duo to stop haunting the silent unguarded auguries of my oracle, even as the presidential elections approached and all outward signs of that future ever happening seemed dead. The feeling of a missed destiny stayed in a distant corner of silence in my future gazing, humming like a soft overtone, slightly out of key. It couldn’t really go away.

Today’s not so cryptic messages from the Obama headquarters that the job of Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton’s to have or reject, has brought the future of that dream team back to life.

If Clinton takes the job, the person I predicted since 1998 would become America’s first woman president of a Nixonian Democratic administration, might be part of a power team in international affairs and diplomacy not seen since Nixon chose Henry Kissinger to be his Secretary of State. In the end, this step may be her next step to being a president herself, in the future. One would only hope it won’t be tragedy that brings that step too soon in 2012.

I predict that if she accepts Barack Obama offer, we will see breathtaking diplomatic feats of genius not enjoyed since Trilateral Diplomacy, Detente with the Soviet Union, peace agreements with North Vietnam and Nixon’s historic visit to China.

May she be as mindful of her destiny and say, “Yes.”

John Hogue
(14 November 2008)

Friends
Toto, Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion bear witness to my 7 October predictions posted on this bog three days ago on Election Day.

It’s a full month later. Four days have passed since the election. Long enough time for all the votes to be counted. Let’s see how I did:

1.) The following is categorically going to happen: Barack Obama will win the electoral collage and thus win the presidency.

ASSESSMENT:
Correct. At the time of this writing, the Missouri vote is still being counted but Obama enjoyed a rapid and complete landslide in the Electoral College with over a hundred more votes than he needed. Obama will win a projected 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 162.

2.) He will win the Electoral College vote early that night. We will know who was elected president of the United States by no later than 11 pm Pacific Time.

ASSESSMENT:
Correct. We knew early who was the winner very early. There would be no long night of waiting, or weeks of disputed recounts. A moment after the polls closed on the West Coast at 8 p.m. all the major news channels unanimously declared Obama the winner by an overwhelming Electoral College landslide.

3.) The future of the popular vote is murkier. Because Obama DID NOT choose Clinton as a running mate, he has made this a close election –¬† one in which there’s an outside chance the McCain/Palin ticket could even win a slim margin in the popular vote that hasn’t been seen since Nixon lost a potentially disputable election against Kennedy in 1960.

ASSESSMENT:
Not quite correct on the popular vote being murkier, but correct on it being close. Obama didn’t win a mandate coming in at 6.5 percent of the popular vote. A true mandate is a minimum of 10 percent or more.

Obama gambled on picking the running mate he wanted as president. Moreover, as he appears to be echoing the karma of John Kennedy, he did not make Kennedy’s compromise. Obama didn’t pick a vice presidential nominee he personally disliked but deemed necessary to pick up votes. Kennedy in 1960 picked Lyndon Johnson to carry the US South. Obama stuck to his statesman principles. He picked someone he felt comfortable with as councilor rather than a necessary political compromise he could marginalize later. Obama threw the dice and once again showed he had the luck.

He was also lucky the Republicans couldn’t summon someone more formidable. A future disputed close election was avoided because of McCain’s strategic mistakes, such as playing the “maverick” after the economic crisis began while Obama continued playing it cool and stable, presenting a calming choice for president. The Change-meister stood in sharp contrast to McCain’s bottom-squirming moments during the presidential debates when wild gestures and sometimes-unhinged expressions made him look cartoonish. Was this a future president or a comedic impersonation of the bugged-and-squinting eyed Bill D. Cat? That’s the Sylvester-on-speed-hair-balls, “gack gack”-ing creation of cartoonist Berkeley Breathed created for the comic strips Bloom County (1980s) Outland and Opus?

If McCain had picked Mitt Romney as his VP running mate he would have had a cool and stable Republican with respectable business credentials as his backup, not a straight and strident shooting, plucky moose plugger, Sarah Palin. The Governor of Alaska choice made for great political theater and even though my friends on the left still can’t figure it out, my friends on the right were galvanized by her red moose meat and Anchorage potato spud Republican values, if not so much by her lack of national political skill sets. She made this election close. However, the timelines that my oracle also presented to me indicate that Mitt Romney would have made the election far closer. I had predicted in early January 2008 that Romney would make the best president of the Republican Primary candidates.

More than that, one has to consider how “real” issues can sway the voting public. For instance, I can’t see Tina Fey in a suit doing a good Mitt Romney impersonation, but I could see the former Governor of Massachusetts being a formidable opponent and a great communicator for the Republican agenda on the economic front. And, since any racial or religious discrimination in presidential election lost you votes (unless it was misogynistic) any taunts of “Mormon” in “magic pants” would not have had the effect on a male VP candidate that Clinton pant suits and Palin-eolithic skirted chic had.

4.) If this election is disputed, the hubris of Obama is responsible. If Clinton had been his running mate it wouldn’t even be close. Read this carefully. If there is one iota of potential remaining that Obama could even LOSE this election, it will come from his bad political choice in running mates. He needed a centrist to win big, not someone like Senator Joe Biden, who is nearly as left leaning as himself.¬† Biden might make a good Vice President (he may even “become” president) but first things first. You have to win the election.

ASSESSMENT:
I had to report on this possible destiny despite its fulfillment being remote. Then again, I thought it was remote that Hillary Clinton’s one vote legacy gaff in October 2002 — siding with those granting war powers to Bush leading to the Iraq Invasion — would cost her the presidency. It did lose her the primary and a chance to run in November. You can see what I said about it back in early 2007 HERE. Therefore, for the sake of prophetic caution I had to explain the remote possibility of Obama losing the election. I foresaw a future and hold to it, that with Clinton as his VP running mate he would have attained a popular mandate of 15 percent or more, even though this future path is closed.

5.) Personally, I confessed to George Noory on Coast to Coast that I thought the election would not be that close in the popular vote. I added that if I’m going to be wrong it could be about the election being close.

ASSESSMENT:
The final vote in 2008 was definitely not a landslide like Nixon over McGovern in 1972 or Johnson over Goldwater in 1964. Johnson beat Goldwater by a difference of nearly 16 million votes. Nixon beat McGovern by nearly 18 million. Obama will carry an estimated difference against McCain of around 9 million.

The voter turnout in 2008 was only two million more than in 2004. The projected 136.6 to 140 million record voter turnout forecast by some pundits — the largest in 100 years — never happened. The total national voter turnout at the time of this writing will clear only a little more than 225 million votes. No group of voters was decisive, either. The much-ballyhooed Obama youth vote was not a key factor.

6.) Beyond my personal feelings are those mysterious “revelations” of my oracle that after 40 years of successful presidential predicting cannot be discounted. My Oracle says this is going to be a close popular vote. The race over the coming few weeks will tighten. The best Obama can hope for is a popular vote count between 4 and 8 percent. Nothing higher, and certainly even lower than 4 percent is possible.

ASSESSMENT:
Well in the end, that mystery of augury that uses me as a medium was right and my personal feelings about the vision was once again wrong. The popular vote fell within my Oracle’s more modest percentile projections for a good night for Obama (between 4 to 8 percent of the popular vote. He got 6.5 percent, receiving 65,340,608 votes (52.6 percent) to McCain’s 57,358,053 votes (46.1 percent).

7.) Still, he will win the Electoral College, no matter how many calls for state recounts there may be.

ASSESSMENT:
There were thankfully no calls for recounts even though Missouri’s count is still out. (It will go to McCain, I think.) North Carolina took several more days to tally their close elections sending it to Obama side. Add therefore 15 electoral votes giving Obama 364 to McCain’s 163 electoral votes (174 if Missouri passes to him). The electoral landslide was so early and so overwhelming that if there were shenanigans with the ballots none made the election close enough for armies of blue versus red lawyers to come out of their trenches swinging in a half dozen battleground states.

8.) I don’t recall if I said this on Coast to Coast, so I’ll make sure it is recorded here for posterity. There’s a potential return to the days of Florida 2000 in more than one state, only this time around, the burden of defending themselves against cries of voter fraud, bungled ballots and miscounts will be on operatives of the Democratic Party and special left-wing interests more than on the Republicans. The Left will no longer be able to uphold the myth that only the Right steals elections and tampers with voting machines or those computers that record the tallies of such.

ASSESSMENT:
I did get one thing right in number 8. I reviewed my radio predictions in early October and I did say that voter fraud would make more news this time around from the Democratic side. Then came the Acorn scandal. Some Acorn registrars, piece paid by the headhunt to sign up the maximum amount of left-of-center voters, entered thousands of phony names, including Disney characters, and the entire Dallas Cowboys Football team. Acorn forever busted the myth that only Republican ideologues try to steal elections.

9.) In the end, it matters not, for Obama will be elected president on 4 November 2008. Even though he threw away a popular mandate by not picking Clinton as his running mate, Obama will enjoy a mandate in the Congress. I predict the Democratic Party will have two-thirds majorities in BOTH the House and the Senate. That means in the Senate, Democrats could win even a few more seats than 60.

ASSESSMENT:
He got the legislative mandate in the House of Representatives, but I will definitely be wrong about gaining more than 60 votes in the Senate. Right now, it stands at 57: a caucus of 54 Democrats and two Independents. I’m still holding out for a Democratic legislative mandate of 60 seats if the Senate Election recount in Minnesota tips to the comedian-turned-politician, Al Frankin. He’s currently behind incumbent Senator Coleman by a mere 221 votes. Georgia could see the Democrat Jim Martin win against Republican Chambliss in the run-off election expected in mid-December. The felon in Alaska, incumbent Ted Stevens (guilty of corruption), may yet lose his seat once all the absentee ballots are counted.

Prediction number 10 is a prophecy in motion like the future. We will return to it at the end of February 2009 when Obama and the Democratic Party begins (endures?) their first month in office commanding both the Executive and Congressional branches of Government. Here’s the prediction once again:

10.) After Election night the Democratic Party will be standing naked. It will no longer be able to pretend it can’t act because it is clothed in a Republican straight jacket made of the fabric of Senate filibuster or the confining corset of a Republican president’s veto power. The Democratic Party elect will no longer hide their warts, cellulite flab and hypocrisies under a cloak of excuses. The American people will vote them the Executive Branch and both houses to do the people’s business unimpeded. Do not take this as a mandate to take American government out of the frying pan of one ideological extreme into the fire of another –¬† from Right Wing extremism to Left.

The American people will speak on 4 November and their vote will say it really IS time for a change.

What kind?

They expect balance, fairness. They seek a purple American government, not dark blue after eight years of deep red. So listen well, Democratic Party elect. After Election Night, you will stand exposed.

You are on a two-year probation granted by a slim majority of your judges and parole officers, the American voters.

CHANGE!

Or suffer dire political consequences in the mid-term elections that could isolate President Obama and rob him of his destiny.

Look for a bulletin about Prophecy 10 on 20 February 2009.

John Hogue
(08 November 2008)

Friends
I got this great CGI political cartoon from Johnny Anonymous who hosts the ATSmix with Dave Rabbit. I enjoy doing radio pod casts with them. They are very funny, witty guys. Together we invoke the fond memory of Sebastian Cabot (the late British Actor, and my look-alike) to have some in-depth yet serious fun with doomsday. I mean, if you can’t laugh at doomsday, what can you laugh at?

Well! Here we are at last, at the End of the Beginning. The wooing is about won. The honeymoon is soon to be over. The next president will have to shift his sweet talking from promising us “Change we can believe in” to explain just how we will embark on that exciting, painful, transforming course to “A Change we can Become.”

What that “Change” is, only the mighty and all-powerful Wizard of Oz knows.

John McCain kind of looks like the befuddled Elmer-fuddish and foppy Wizard of Oz in the classic movie that Toto so rudely revealed when the little bit of an intrepid doggie pulled the curtain back on the Wiz’s charade. However, he’s about to be sent packing on a balloon back to Kansas. (Or was it Arizona?)

Well, bust my buttons! I wish the Wizard of Arizona a good life. Perhaps he can be president of the Lollypop League or fight for the rights of Munchkins on the floor of the Senate. For that is where prophecy will land him (after the pop of his presidential ambition balloon.)

Obama courted the American people with his full court press of promises. He will be our hubbie-in-chief and no tapping of ruby Republican red slippers three times, reciting “There’s no place like home — there’s no president like Reagan — will bring the farm house down to that black and white political world again.

So, I suggest you celebrate the history changing Election Night cuddling with your favorite Munchkin, winged Chimpanzee, naughty witch, tin man, dancing scarecrow or cowardly lion by listening to George Noory’s special Coast to Coast AM show starting 9 p.m. Pacific, tonight (Election Night). I don’t yet know when I’ll be on, or whether Ron Paul will join us, but it will be a Wizard of Oz hoot for sure. You can bet your burnt witch’s broom on it, Wiz.

Check your local Premier Radio affiliates for the show. You can also listen live on internet or download a pod cast later on at: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

MY PRESIDENTIAL PREDICTIONS

(I made these on my 7 October appearance on Coast to Coast AM and I still hold to them:)

***

1.) The following is categorically going to happen: Barack Obama will win the electoral collage and thus win the presidency.

2.) He will win the Electoral College vote early that night. We will know who was elected president of the United States by no later than 11 pm Pacific Time.

3.) The future of the popular vote is murkier. Because Obama DID NOT choose Clinton as a running mate, he has made this a close election — one in which there’s an outside chance the McCain/Palin ticket could even win a slim margin in the popular vote that hasn’t been seen since Nixon lost a potentially disputable election against Kennedy in 1960.

4.) If this election is disputed, the hubris of Obama is responsible. If Clinton had been his running mate it wouldn’t even be close. Read this carefully. If there is one iota of potential remaining that Obama could even LOSE this election, it will come from his bad political choice in running mates. He needed a centrist to win big, not someone like Senator Joe Biden, who is nearly as left leaning as himself. Biden might make a good Vice President (he may even “become” president) but first things first. You have to win the election.

5.) Personally, I confessed to George Noory on Coast to Coast that I thought the election would not be that close in the popular vote. I added that if I’m going to be wrong it could be about the election being close.

6.) Beyond my personal feelings are those mysterious “revelations” of my oracle that after 40 years of successful presidential predicting cannot be discounted. My Oracle says this is going to be a close popular vote. The race over the coming few weeks will tighten. The best Obama can hope for is a popular vote count between 4 and 8 percent. Nothing higher, and certainly even lower than 4 percent is possible.

7.) Still, he will win the Electoral College, no matter how many calls for state recounts there may be.

8.) I don’t recall if I said this on Coast to Coast, so I’ll make sure it is recorded here for posterity. There’s a potential return to the days of Florida 2000 in more than one state, only this time around, the burden of defending themselves against cries of voter fraud, bungled ballots and miscounts will be on operatives of the Democratic Party and special left-wing interests more than on the Republicans. The Left will no longer be able to uphold the myth that only the Right steals elections and tampers with voting machines or those computers that record the tallies of such.

9.) In the end, it matters not, for Obama will be elected president on 4 November 2008. Even though he threw away a popular mandate by not picking Clinton as his running mate, Obama will enjoy a mandate in the Congress. I predict the Democratic Party will have two-thirds majorities in BOTH the House and the Senate. That means in the Senate, Democrats could win even a few more seats than 60.

10.) After Election night the Democratic Party will be standing naked. It will no longer be able to pretend it can’t act because it is clothed in a Republican straight jacket made of the fabric of Senate filibuster or the confining corset of a Republican president’s veto power. The Democratic Party elect will no longer hide their warts, cellulite flab and hypocrisies under a cloak of excuses. The American people will vote them the Executive Branch and both houses to do the people’s business unimpeded. Do not take this as a mandate to take American government out of the frying pan of one ideological extreme into the fire of another — from Right Wing extremism to Left.

The American people will speak on 4 November and their vote will say it really IS time for a change.

What kind?

They expect balance, fairness. They seek a purple American government, not dark blue after eight years of deep red. So listen well, Democratic Party elect. After Election Night, you will stand exposed.

You are on a two-year probation granted by a slim majority of your judges and parole officers, the American voters.

CHANGE!

Or suffer dire political consequences in the mid-term elections that could isolate President Obama and rob him of his destiny.

***

I posted this on my early election morn (Pacific time). Now the wait begins to see how many things I got right or wrong. I start pawing my furry lion’s tail nervously for the reckoning later this evening. I will stand in the rain in line at the polling place, pondering the presidential outcome and get Tin Man rusted (easy thing to do up here in the Pacific Northwest). Actually I voted absentee on Halloween night but I liked the image of the last sentence and since this is about politics I’ll join the two candidates and be a bit too fee and easy with the truth. In additon, while I await my radio appearance in the evening and sort out the talking head cases as polls begin closing on the East Coast, I might, like Dorothy, get hit on the head by a door-in-a -tornado of new insights and have a different technicolor vision to tell on Coast about the next president that will rival Oz, the Emerald City and Munchkinland

Here’s a preview prophecy we can sing to the signature song “We’re off to see the Wizard”:

We’re off to see Obama,
Obama Obama in Oz.
He’ll be the Prez,
If ever a Prez,
If ever a Prez he was.
If ever, oh! ever a Prez he was,
Barack Obama’s the one because,
Because, because, because, because, becaaaause!
Because of the Wonder of Change we Buzz.
Dah-dittily, dittily doo! Dee dum!
We’re off to see Obama!
The wonderful Wizard of US!!

John Hogue
(Afternoon of 3 November 2008,
posted Election Morning: 4 November 2008)

CAP News, a tongue-in-cheeky cyber journalism web site, proclaimed Dr. Hubert Evans used a prophecy from Nostradamus to prove Senator John McCain would become president. This fellow is touted to be some Professor in Renaissance Studies at Yale University and author of the best-selling book: Nostradamus: Prophesize This!

Looking at his conclusions I believe he is more “spoof”-fessor than professor and rather than Yale University, he hails from James Randi U., brandishing his “Pen” to be a “Teller” of tall Nostradamians tales.

This Evans fellow (who I assume is not a man with three buttocks) declared, “Conventional wisdom picks Obama. Nostradamus, four and a half centuries ago, picked John McCain.”

“Quatrain 78, Century 10 in particular seems to indicate that Obama had better not be measuring the White House windows for curtains quite yet, at least by my interpretation,” boasted Dr. Evans.

Here is his translation

At the war’s end
The Feeble Kept-One will strike down the Night
And his Imbecile Queen will rise from the snow
Bedecked in finery and the pelt of a wolf.”

Here now is the actual Renaissance French followed by a literal translation of 10 Q78:

Subite ioye en subite tristesse,
Sera Rome aux graces embrassees:
Dueil, cris, pleurs, larm. sang excellent liesse
Contraires bandes surprinses & troussees.

Whatever Doctor Hubert Evans is, his knowledge of Renaissance languages has been protected by teacher’s tenure far too long.

The article is clearly a fling of mud slung by punked-journalism. It is an attempt at sophomoric humor from cynics putting on airs of skeptical inquiry, trying to set up a Nostradamus credibility buzz kill for Chip Manheim, who we are told is a “renowned skeptic and paranormal debunker.”

Segue now to a bit of bullish Chip:

“Whenever current events cough up a notable historic chapter, like on 9-11, the Nostradamus nuts are right there, twisting text to make the prediction meet the event,” Chip chafed.

“Just in terms of comparison, take a look at the next quatrain from Century 10, Quatrain 79. This, incidentally, was the last quatrain that Nostradamus ever wrote:

“In five moons, the Feeble Kept-One is no more
In addition, his Imbecile Queen sees the Great Bear
From her backyard, almighty, and flings giant poison arrows
In addition, the Great Bear responds in kind, and, well, The End.

“What the f**k does that even mean?” Manheim exclaimed.

The answer, Chip, without need to wax vulgar is that you are perhaps severely impaired intellectually, or perhaps a less than stellar researcher and investigator, or most likely just doing your part in a propaganda campaign to belittle a fair and balanced study of Nostradamus by uttering false information as fact for a fib.

For one thing, Century 10 Quatrain 79 was not the last verse Nostradamus wrote or published. Anyone who has actually READ his book ‘Les Propheties’ (The Prophecies) knows that he wrote 21 quatrains after Quatrain 79 to finish Century 10 at 100 quatrains.

Chip Manheim’s grasp of Nostradamian French is even farther removed from diddling Dr. Evans persona. Here is the original words and spelling:

Les vieux chemins seront tous embellys,
Lon passera Memphis somentree:
Le grand Mercure d’Hercules fleur de lys,
Faisant trembler terre, mer & contree.

And the translation into English:

It would seem that the “Nostradamus’ nuts” are the Nostradamus debunkers.

Certainly, we should train a truly skeptical eye on the prophecies of Nostradamus. The root of skepticism in ancient Greek is “to investigate.” Notice that the word does not qualify bearing a preconceived prejudice for or against what is about to be investigated.

I like a good joke at Nostradamus’ expense; however, this one is spiced to sharply with negative agendas. I “predict” CAP will do better next time. (I did laugh at the book title: Nostradamus: Prophecize This!)

There will ever be new generations of con-artists, cynical propagandists, parlor magicians beyond their prime seeking new employ as debunkers, Nostradamus comedy writers, etc., that will use their negative skills to deceive, to twist and help people idly laugh off serious investigation into Nostradamus’ prophecies.

They don’t seem to get it. These fake critics never do as much harm to the study of Nostradamus, but they do do grievous harm to true skeptical inquiry.

John Hogue
(3 November 2008)

PS–After the election tomorrow, I will explain Quatrains 78 and 79 to you. They are a foggy trip and I will tell you why cynical wolves in the fleece of skeptical inquiry clothing prey on them.

PSS–Will McCain still win, according to Nostradamus? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Election Day bulletin.

Friends,
The Democratic Primaries ended in early June 2008. I sensed the victor in the delegate, and superdelegate count, Senator Barack Obama, was about to make his first significant political mistake. He would choose a vice president on his ticket that would make the outcome on Election Night, 4 November 2008, far closer than it needed to be. There is, indeed, an outside chance his opponent, Republican Senator John McCain, could win.

Rumors ran rife of a “dream team” ticket in the works back in June and July, uniting presidential candidate Obama (who won a majority of delegates) with Hillary Clinton as a VP candidate, who won a slim majority in the Democratic primary voter turnout. Early June 2008, I looked into Obama’s aura and saw shades of hubris that I new locked H. Clinton out. The dream tream was impossible. Here’s why.

It is important now for all American citizens to be aware of an egoistic pattern influencing the man most likely to be our new president for the coming four years. Greatness or tragedy will hinge on how this man deals with his tendencies to make decisions unconsciously influenced by a predilection to passive-aggressive narcissism. I don’t think he’s conscious of this reflex habit, but Barack Obama’s ego has a subconscious need to win people over solely through its own powers to seduce, to inspire or to bargain. This ego trait is very possessive of its turf and objects of desire: the American voter. It can’t tolerate acknowledging the need of another charismatic partner to help it woo a nation.

Obama was caught in this egoistic tendency back in June after winning the primaries. There was no way he could let Hillary Clinton be the one to court a significant voting block despite the hard political fact that she could easily draw to his candidacy millions of centrist independent voters and the blue-collar conservative democrats that would make his ascent to the presidency an unstoppable mandate by landslide.

His tendency to narcissism would run on the audacious hope that he could win over those conservative, working-class voters by himself. To enlarge his pride, this Leo-the-Lion president to be would risk making this election a squeaker. He’d even lose, rather than be sworn in on Inauguration Day, 20 January 2009, if grabbing the pantsuit coat tails of the woman who beat him by a slim majority in the popular primary vote was what significantly helped him get there. Obama will have victory because “HE” and no other, convinced enough Americans to love “HIM.”

I have written and talked on radio about a vision of Obama as the coming “Black” Kennedy since the summer of 2006. I initially thought he would attain his destiny first under the tutelage of H. Clinton as her vice president and then run for office in 2012 or 2016.

Destiny is hard to peg on rigid timeline.

People often come too late or surge too soon to their destinies. For instance, Senator McCain has come to his destiny too late. He was meant to be the “War” president in 2000 who would successfully wage and quickly defeat al-Qaeda after they attacked America on 11 September 2001. Now he comes, playing the war president who will “fight for you” and me eight years too late. History has moved beyond al-Qaeda conflict for now. What had ripened in McCain in 2000 has begun to discolor, shrivel and rot in 2008. It saddens me to say such harsh things about a good and courageous man. The eye of prophecy can be pitiless.

Back when I was writing Predictions for 2008, I documented, dated and sealed the following passage in December 2007, but chose not to publish it. Now I must share it because it defines the essence of why McCain will loose his bid to become president in 2008. The brackets are from today and are added for grammatical clarity on account of this passage being an early rough draft:

“Since the oracular presence is lifting light invisible through stillborn future timelines, what about Senator McCain [as president in 2008]? There, is a great president too. One I might have voted for, whose life force is waning. Everyone has a certain amount of fuel of life. Some burn it at both ends wastefully. Others let it go stale by holding it in. Fearful of life’s risks. Some have shallow reserves, others see their deep resources spent as players in one of history’s great tragedies. McCain had far too much of his life force beaten and tortured out of him at the Hanoi Hilton as a prisoner of war. It has shortened his lifespan and brought old age on early. These are hard words, I know. It hurts me to write them. I admire this man very much. Prophecy doesn’t care whom I admire or wish to be president. His moment comes too late with too little life force to achieve his dream.” (Written in December 2007.)

Obama, though he is by outer nature a cool and measured man, underneath he burns with a great and powerfully impatient ambition. That ambition is strong enough to have changed destiny.

Thus, McCain is late where Barack Obama is coming to his destiny too soon.

Obama can still fulfill his higher potential despite the fact that unconscious forces in his own ego and forces outside of his control have more power to turn his destiny into a tragedy because he has not matured and ripened at the right time.
As much as you have all heard and read my often forbearing and exceedingly critical views about the man, including calling him a demagogue with messianic tendencies, I have also foreseen that Obama has the potential not only to succeed where John F. Kennedy failed, but accomplish even more. I am on prophetic record for a few years now declaring that Obama could even transcend Kennedy’s destiny, becoming America’s next Abraham Lincoln. He could be one of America’s greatest presidents. Patience would have assured this destiny if impatient hubris hadn’t influenced Obama to rush too fast, too high and too soon.

Now achieving his Kennedy/Lincoln destiny is going to be harder. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Success and greatness coming harder to him will have more value. It is the forge of his sharpened wisdom; if only he can survive the coming hammer blows in the next two years. We will have time to examine his success for failure in bulletins spanning the next two years because Obama will be America’s next president.

Ten days ago, on 7 October 2008, I appeared on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and made my official presidential predictions about what we’ll see happen on Election Night, 4 November 2008.

Here are the predictions:

1.) The following is categorically going to happen: Barack Obama will win the electoral collage and thus win the presidency.

2.) He will win the Electoral College vote early that night. We will know who was elected president of the United States by no later than 11 pm Pacific Time.

3.) The future of the popular vote is murkier. Because Obama DID NOT choose Clinton as a running mate, he has made this a close election — one in which there’s an outside chance the McCain/Palin ticket could even win a slim margin in the popular vote that hasn’t been seen since Nixon lost a potentially disputable election against Kennedy in 1960.

4.) If this election is disputed, the hubris of Obama is responsible. If Clinton had been his running mate it wouldn’t even be close. Read this carefully. If there is one iota of potential remaining that Obama could even LOSE this election, it will come from his bad political choice in running mates. He needed a centrist to win big, not someone like Senator Joe Biden, who is nearly as left leaning as himself.¬¨‚Ć Biden might make a good Vice President (he may even “become” president) but first things first. You have to win the election.

5.) Personally, I confessed to George Noory on Coast to Coast that I thought the election would not be that close in the popular vote. I added that if I’m going to be wrong it could be about the election being close.

6.) Beyond my personal feelings are those mysterious “revelations” of my oracle that after 40 years of successful presidential predicting cannot be discounted. My Oracle says this is going to be a close popular vote. The race over the coming few weeks will tighten. The best Obama can hope for is a popular vote count between 4 and 8 percent. Nothing higher, and certainly even lower than 4 percent is possible.

7.) Still, he will win the Electoral College, no matter how many calls for state recounts there may be.

8.) I don’t recall if I said this on Coast to Coast, so I’ll make sure it is recorded here for posterity. There’s a potential return to the days of Florida 2000 in more than one state, only this time around, the burden of defending themselves against cries of voter fraud, bungled ballots and miscounts will be on operatives of the Democratic Party and special left-wing interests more than on the Republicans. The Left will no longer be able to uphold the myth that only the Right steals elections and tampers with voting machines or those computers that record the tallies of such.

9.) In the end, it matters not, for Obama will be elected president on 4 November 2008. Even though he threw away a popular mandate by not picking Clinton as his running mate, Obama will enjoy a mandate in the Congress. I predict the Democratic Party will have two-thirds majorities in BOTH the House and the Senate. That means in the Senate, Democrats could win even a few more seats than 60.

10.) After Election night the Democratic Party will be standing naked. It will no longer be able to pretend it can’t act because it is clothed in a Republican straight jacket made of the fabric of Senate filibuster or the confining corset of a Republican president’s veto power. The Democratic Party elect will no longer hide their warts, cellulite flab and hypocrisies under a cloak of excuses. The American people will vote them the Executive Branch and both houses to do the people’s business unimpeded. Do not take this as a mandate to take American government out of the frying pan of one ideological extreme into the fire of another ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ from Right Wing extremism to Left.

The American people will speak on 4 November and their vote will say it really IS time for a change.

What kind?

They expect balance, fairness. They seek a purple American government, not dark blue after eight years of deep red. So listen well, Democratic Party elect. After Election Night, you will stand exposed.

You are on a two-year probation granted by a slim majority of your judges and parole officers, the American voters.

CHANGE!

Or suffer dire political consequences in the mid-term elections that could isolate President Obama and rob him of his destiny.

Tune into Coast to Coast AM on Election Night, 4 November (10 pm until 2 a.m., Pacific). See www.coasttocoastam.com for more information. I will be part of a panel of guests, which I’m told will include Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. We will put my predictions (above) to the fire test.

–END–

John Hogue
(17 October 2008)

Friends,
So much is going on these days that my weekly bulletin will be three quickening prophecy quickies in one:

I.
The Tale of Two October Votes

In a Casino-style economy, the “House” rules can be changed to protect the guilty, keep the illusory Polly Anna dream of inflated prices in the housing and business loaning markets flying with piggy wings. No need for this pork barrel deal with lipstick to bail out without a right and a left wing of bipartisan, bipolar flutter in the chambers of the House of “Mis”-Representatives. They passed the bailout today (Friday, 3 October 2008).

The Speaker of the House, Pelosi’s Congress, pilloried the American taxpayer out of $700 billion to cover toxic loans and business boondoggles. These clowns of commerce metaphorically threw pork barrels full of cash off the extended fire truck ladder — like in the movie “It’s a Mad Mad World” — at a mob of degenerate banking investment industry firms below. They chased that with an extra $100 billion pigs’ earmarks. They sweetening the ham with the honey of tax break extenders for, among other t! hings, wooden arrows for kiddies, wool product relief, bicycle commuter helpers and the upkeep of NASCAR-to-demolition-derby racetracks across the “yeehaw” belt. Last but not least, Pelosi, the Godmother who made an offer no pork barrel spender could refuse, presided and approved the vote for tax protections for imported Puerto Rican rum. (Hey! Whad-da-bout us gin-and-tonic drinkers?)

The vote passed this Friday morning 263-171. I believe 35 more Democrats and 28 Republicans changed their “no” vote for this second stab at the bill — the last try failed on Monday.

Having passed, did this stimulus dump of billions excite the pigs to fly home to the floor of the Wall Street Stock Exchange? Did the huge slice from the taxpayer’s pie in the sky come out of the clouds to be sawed and shared to marketers on the wooden floor? Did the Dow Jones rally in the anticipated opiate rush in the hundreds of plus points on the big board?

There had been a rally on the market of nearly +250 points. T hen the bill in the Casino House of Representatives passed. Pelosi opened her mouth at a hastily pushed press conference. She talked, but what I really heard her say, was how necessary it was to throw the taxpayer’s money first then ask questions in congressional hearings later to probe how of Bush-Republican abuse over seven years in office got us here to this ugly bailout. (She didn’t mention that it included two years of congressional Democratic majority indolence under her watch.)

When Pelosi quacks, investors listen.

The market tanked.

The Dow Jones eventually closed at MINUS 157 points!

Bailout Friday effectively ended the week sustaining the trillion-dollar, seven-percent US Stock Market value loss incurred the last time Pelosi opened her mouth in a press conference after the first House vote failed on Monday. Back then she had praised and patted backs of fellow Democrats who nobly tried but flunked passing off the clunkie! r ambulance of the bailout proposal on “Black”-berry Monday, 29 September 2008.

Boy! That -777.68 Dow Jones point drop made 999.9 in a pure block of gold look like a more profitable post-Dows-doomsday disaster investment.

Speaking of numbers, why does a day numbered “29″ get financial markets in trouble? The Stock Market takes it in the shorts on September 29, 2008. The Stock Market crashed on October 29, 1929. Things that make your 4-K go “Four-Ket it!”

Friday’s 3 October “surprise” bailout bill was a better horse trade amongst gip-zies than Monday’s mange. Or, to put it in another horse-power metaphor, Friday’s ambulance swerving to the rescue didn’t have the oil leak and seizing engine block of that Ghost Buster Ambul-hearst with specter-wining razz sirens squealing through the emergency room door of Congress last Monday.

Once the House of Reps had been slimed with econ-ectoplasm on Monday, the peerless Senate by midweek strode in like great geese and went ambulance shopping. When they found a “keeper” they stood up to the plate and with a convenience store-to-shoplifter bat at the ready, started swinging it at the American people and voted for a better stretcher barrier on unbolted wheels to economic rehab. They glazed the vehicle sticky with extra main-street-sweet bailouts to get more votes for the upcoming House ratification. The senatorial geese were seemingly deaf to millions of their constituents back home. The American people were making an historic flood of phone, text, cell calls, sharing their blackberry-Monday reactions and pushing hard the “sent” button on a host of hot and bothered e-normously large number of emails to legislators, most of which polled on average a resounding 85 percent “NO” to the bail-out vote.

It’s not just the 29s but also the October surprises that keep repeating. From the October crash of 1929, we move to legacy votes by the House and Senate this! first week in October 2008. They are as significant to the future of political careers as the notorious vote six years ago cast in October 2002 to give President Bush the power to make war on Iraq.

This is the tale of two Octobers and I predict that ALL who voted in favor of this bailout will be struggling in the coming years to explain, wheedle, or avoid apologizing, as Senator Hillary Clinton did, to her political detriment this year, for being in favor of a historic vote that lead to an American disaster.

This bailout vote will be remembered as the economic version of the, “Let’s rush to war in Iraq,” vote.

Not only did H. Clinton find a new way to make a bad judgment call (she voted “yes” to the bailout), this time she’s not alone. Senator Barack Obama, who will most likely be our next American President, actively lobbied, cajoled, blackberried, celled his sale, land-lined his leanings, pleaded, charmed and bargained hard to push a majority in the House of Representatives in! favor o f this economic quagmire maker.

McCain, the other guy running for the oval office also held his nose to the offal bill and pushed Republicans to vote for it. McCain’s vote, however, will be forgotten after Election Day, 5 November. Not Obama’s.

Obama voted in favor of his own economic “Iraq” disaster. He’ll be holding the $700-billion money bag when he’s president. This bailout will not help the economy but perpetuate its inflated, greed-driven ways.

I predict what former Governor or Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, said shortly after the vote will be regarded as sage. The US economy has become “Bail-out-aholic.” It will now continue to tantrum, DT freak out and demand bail-out fixes like a drug addict from a US government, which Huckabee said, “has become co-dependant” in a dysfunctional relationship with, what I would add, is, from this bailout vote forward, a socialistic-substance abusing economy.

We have! a man currently in the White House, responsible for his Treasury Secretary Paulson’s chicken-little freak on Congress. This fear-mongering president advanced to ultimate places of influence and power through a lifetime of bailouts. G.W. Bush avoided fighting for his country in skies over North Vietnam by laying low in an Air Force squadron famous for keeping rich kids and the spawn of the politically influential in the military reserves. Bush used his presidential powers to secret away all records from his 1992 SEC fraud investigation. His “daddy” while in office as president at the time had stuffed the Securities and Exchange Commission with cronies to bail out his son for suspicion of insider trading. Bush the Younger sealed hearing records away because evidence might exist implicating him bailing out his stock in Harken Oil just before his company “coincidentally” went bankrupt. This, by the way, was the THIRD oil company CEO George W. Bush piloted before pushing the ejection button when his business acumen cra! shed it in bankruptcy.

Now the “Bailout” Bankruptcy Bush has moved to higher peaks of precipitous possibilities: the entire US economy, with majority Donkey-Cratic help from “Blarney” Frank, Pilloried-Pelosi and Obama: the “promise then anything, but give them a Bush bailout” next president, no less.

II.
OBAMA’S ALBATROSS

I made the following observations in an email written to me on August 21, 2008. “Jast” the “Dreamland/Hogue Listener” made me aware of Third Party Candidate Ralph Nader’s comment about widespread speculation that Senator Obama’s choices for Vice President on his ticket were down to Sens. Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, or Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

“I don’t think he’s that dumb,” said Nader, believing that Obama would be a fool not to choose Senator Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

This was my reply to the email the following day. It bears some prophetic significance now:

“Nader took too much stock in Obama’s political experience. Biden might be a good VP but you have to get to the White House too, and without Clinton in the ticket Obama has staked his claim on the prize with a slide to the left. Like it or not, Democrat leaders on the left must win what is essentially a slightly right-of-center US population! . That’s why B. Clinton won two terms. The demographics haven’t changed.

“McCain is not to be underestimated, yet [Obama's] people go on underestimating him and the power of the Republicans to win national elections.

“Nader is a good man but not a good prophet. I saw the Clinton bid for VP end in early June. Obama has a seducer’s ego. It is impossible for him to surrender to another to carry his seduction for him. He is challenged to convince and charm those unhappy Clintonites himself, without H. Clinton’s help. It’s an ego trip with him.

“The Black Kennedy of today is four-years surging too soon to his destiny. He has made the Biden choice out of inexperience. I imagine it would have been the same immature choice Kennedy would have made if he had run in 1956 than 1960 when he was ready.”

(My reply was posted on 22 August 2008, the day Sen. Joe Biden was chosen to be Obama’s VP on the ticket.)

For! almost one year and seven months, I’ve been calling H. Clinton’s legacy yes-vote on Iraq “Hillary Clinton’s Albatross” strung and rotting around her neck, destined to be the one thing that would prevent my prediction of her becoming president in 2008.

Barack Obama’s albatross is Hillary Clinton.

By not choosing her as his running mate, he forfeited his chance at a landslide victory in November. His strategic political inexperience may yet have handed the McCain-Palin ticket a real chance to win in a close and closely disputed election echoing what happened between Nixon vs. Kennedy (1960) or more recently with Gore vs. Bush (2000).

Now what was a sure victory has been compromised by the hubris of Obama: his narcissistic need to win people over by himself. He, a left-leaning candidate and not the centrist H. Clinton, must win over the right-of-center voters without which no Democrat can win the White House. The centrist Bill Clinton understood this need. That’s why he’s the only Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to achieve more than one term in the White House.

The Democrat Left doesn’t get it — to their political peril.

John Hogue
(16 October 2008)