Ever since the campaigning for this election began (which was, basically, immediately after the 2004 votes were tallied and a winner was declared) and especially once the campaigning began in real earnest (which was the day after that), but most especially once the field was winnowed down to the two major contenders, Nostradamus experts have been frantically searching through The Seer’s predictions for clues. Bloggers have been poring over every quatrain, scrupulously scrutinizing each one, line by line, trying to detect a definitive indication of an outcome in the upcoming Democracy Derby.

While some lines are open to interpretation, a particularly puzzling line has been receiving a lot of attention from the various websites:

“Neither one nor the other will be elected.”

Some websites believe the line refers to allegations that the candidates’ eligibility to assume the high office is in question. Article II’s stipulation that the president must be a natural born citizen would disqualify both contenders, since John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone and Barack Obama’s birth bona fides have been legally challenged in court.

Others wonder if the election will even take place at all. Under the war powers granted to the president by Congress, the Commander-in-Chief has the absolute authority to cancel an election in the event of a national emergency. That could be anything from a natural disaster to a terrorist attack on our soil to actually declaring war.

Now that the Cold War is heating up, that possibility no longer seems so far-fetched. The October surprise could very well turn out to be a smoking gun.
never say never

Mark Warner was elected governor of Virginia in 2001 after losing a closer than expected Senate race to John Warner five years earlier. Virginia law does not permit its governor to succeed himself, so Warner’s term ended in January when the newly-elected Governor, Tim Kaine, was inaugurated. Therefore, he will be able to devote himself to full-time campaigning for president.

The fact that Warner was a Democratic governor in a strong “red” state will be a positive for him. However, even though the Republican presidential candidate has carried Virginia every time since 1968, a Democratic governor in the state is not unusual. In fact, since 1977, Virginia has elected a Democratic governor every time a Republican is in the White House. The opposite has been true when a Democrat is in the White House.

If Warner is nominated by the Democrats and George Allen is nominated by the Republicans, the Mother of Presidents will be guaranteed to have produced our next Chief Executive.

Now Warner has a pretty good fallback position if he is not the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. Because of this possible opportunity, he likely will not officially get into the 2008 race for the White House (although he has begun campaigning like many others) unless he determines that he has a more than fair chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

Of course, for this “Plan B” of sorts to work out, a couple of things would first have to happen. First, Hillary Clinton would have to become the 2008 nominee. Then she would have to be defeated by the Republican nominee in the general election. Those two occurrences would leave the door wide open for Warner.

Then in 2009, he could attempt to recapture the governorship of Virginia, where governors cannot serve consecutive terms. He would be the clear favorite to win, and if successful, would become one of only a handful of men to have served in that position more than once.

Assuming he is elected, he would have the enviable position of being a sitting second-term Democratic governor in a “red” state when 2012 rolls around. With no big-name name or celebrity candidates like Hillary in the mix, he would likely be among the favorites to win the Democrats’ open presidential nomination battle.
kitchen gadgets