Reverse the Curse : Campaign Edition

Of course, what curse should be reversed is entirely up to you. I'm working to assemble as many mumbo-jumbo election prophesies as possible. Primarily, I'm doing this so that I can smash down the losers when we're through with November 2, but it's also kind of fun.

Green Bay beat Washington, heralding the triumph of John Kerry as a Redskins win before the election has also meant victory for the incumbent party's candidate since their inception.

Nickelodeon's "Kids' Vote", which has predicted the last four elections, also fell in favor of Kerry this year.

The Dow Jones fell by 0.52 percent in October; anything worse than .5 has signaled a win for the challenger. Advantage : Kerry.

Of course, Laura Bush quite soundly defeated Theresa Heinz Kerry's campaign-staff-selected cookie recipe in the Family Circle bake-off, a contest which has predicted the president since 1992. (Heinz Kerry claims conspiracy, vowing that she has never baked pumpkin spice cookies.)

There's also something called the Shrum curse. Bob Shrum is sort of the William Jennings Bryan of the contemporary age as every Democratic campaign he has worked on has lost. Shrum is back again in 2004; a good sign for Bush.

In the Weekly Reader's poll of children, perennially accurate since Dwight Eisenhower, Bush was determined the winner.

The jury was still out on Halloween masks at the time I checked (most sold = winner); I've seen reports giving either side the edge.

Of course, many predictors have been aided by Gore winning the popular vote in 2000.

One is the Thirteen Keys to the Presidency, which currently predicts a Bush reelection. 2000 was its first "losing" year since it began in 1984, but the originators argue the system can only predict the popular vote, not the electoral. As it's not a mystical prediction, the argument seems fair.

The Hogue Prophecy attests to predicting every winner since 1968; this year he predicts Bush but notes that "2004 will become one of the closest presidential races in history, with no less than three disputed states requiring a re-count" and there will be dark times ahead.

Indian astrologers (whose claim to fame was predicting the assassination of Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi in 1991) see the stars in alignment for Kerry. Previous record on US presidential elections for the Future Samachar crew is unclear.

If you know of others, I'd love to hear them.