Political
Relationship Astrology: Bush and McCain
Note:
Scroll down to see a bi-wheel horoscope
for Bush and McCain.
Who would have thought that President Bush’s
biggest Congressional opponent would turn out to be…another
Republican? John McCain, Vietnam POW and the Republican
Senator from
Arizona,
has become Bush’s Beltway nemesis.
I wrote about Senator McCain in a newsletter
earlier this year and then in an article for the NCGR
Memberletter (on Saturn and Neptune in
the charts of prospective presidential candidates, including
Senator McCain).
I must preface this brief discussion by stating
that I am not a McCain supporter, but am a lifelong
follower of American politics and enjoy all the players
on the stage—even when their politics are not
my own. Senator McCain was the 2000 Republican presidential
primary runner-up. McCain actually looked set to beat
Bush in the 2000 primaries, having defeated him in New
Hampshire, but Bush out-right-winged McCain
in South Carolina.
Now, McCain has beaten Bush in two important
Congressional battles. First, McCain was one of a group
of bipartisan senators who agreed to a compromise in
Congressional voting on President
Bush’s judicial nominees. This compromise
was designed to avoid the “nuclear option,”
the name given to the very real possibility that the
Republican majority could change the filibuster rule
and enable judicial nominees—including Supreme
Court nominees—to be speedily approved by the
Republican-controlled Senate.
Second, McCain successfully led a Senate fight
to pass anti-torture legislation—against the wishes
of the Bush administration and in the face of a presidential
veto threat. One
reporter wrote that, “Bush
stunned many with his capitulation to onetime rival
Sen. John McCain in accepting an unequivocal ban on
torture.” McCain has
a tight Mars-Uranus square, helping give him an independent,
maverick streak.
So what’s the astrology behind this? If
we do a biwheel chart for Bush and McCain (who is ten
years Bush’s senior), we find some very interesting
results:
- McCain’s
Mars conjuncts Bush’s Mercury-Pluto combo.
- McCain’s
Uranus exactly squares Bush’s Mercury-Pluto
conjunction.
- Bush’s
Uranus squares McCain’s Saturn.
- McCain’s
Pluto is less than 2° from Bush’s Saturn.
The hammer meets the rock.
- But
at the same time, Bush’s Jupiter is on McCain’s
Ascendant and McCain’s Uranus exactly trines
Bush’s Mars—yes, they are often at loggerheads,
but McCain has also strongly backed Bush in Iraq,
even when Bush’s poll numbers began to fold.
As
transiting Saturn has now hit Bush's
Mercury-Pluto and will soon make an exact conjunction to
McCain's Mars, it has triggered
the connecting planets and aspects.
What this means is that McCain will seek to
define himself by alternately challenging and aligning
himself with President Bush. Bush will become McCain’s
foil. That is, McCain’s political identity will
be defined by his contrast or alignment with
the president.
See also: George Bush and
Harriet Miers; Astrology Forecast:
George Bush's Year Ahead; President
Bush's "Closest Aspect"
