Four readers called to complain about our coverage of election predictions by Sedona astrologer Gavin Carruthers and his class of students. Carruthers read the charts of the two presidential candidates for election day Tuesday, Nov. 4,  and came to some conclusions McCain supporters found objectionable.

Our intention was to run a fun and entertaining story about the presidential election that seemed appropriate for Halloween - Carruthers fit the bill nicely.

Alison Ecklund dutifully recorded the predictions that Carruthers and his class made in a straightforward fashion, as is her usual practice. Ecklund's writing style and reporting ability is among the best. She was honored by her peers at the Arizona Newspaper Association this year for Best Sustained Coverage and did her usual yeoman's job on this piece.

Ironically, most of the predictions she wrote about could be made by anyone who has been following election coverage through national outlets.

Carruthers said Sen. John McCain's  chart shows he has a temper. Hmmmm. McCain has admitted his temper sometimes gets the better of him, not once, but many times. He is famous for his temper whether his something or other is in Mars or not.

Carruthers also said Sen. Barack Obama's chart shows he has special leadership qualities and would most certainly win the election.

Turns out, most pundits and pollsters are making the same prediction without even looking skyward on a starry night.

So what got these readers so hot?

One, a prominent Sedona real estate broker, said he disagreed the front page was the proper place for such a story and objected that he got enough national politics from other news outlets. He prefers to read Dave Keeber's library column.

Keeber writes a swell column, but a significant number of our readers also have a genuine interest in astrology and other such things and thousands more consult their horoscope every day.

In my experience, people like to read that stuff whether they think it's silly nonsense or not. Maybe the front page wasn't the best placement for the story, but in our defense, it was placed at the very bottom of the page across two columns, hardly a dominant story.

It's worth noting our broker friend read the story all the way to the finish so I guess he must have found it simultaneously annoying and maybe just a little bit interesting.

I should mention we rarely write anything about astrology in our newspaper and don't plan on making a practice of it.

Another reader, who described herself as a "Billy Graham Christian," said the story would improperly influence the outcome of the election and that giving any coverage to an astrologer was sinful and surely doomed the newspaper to hell.

Ouch.

A short theological discussion followed, during which the woman scoffed at my baptism into the United Methodist church at age 32 and attacked my credentials as a Christian for defending Ecklund's story.

You gotta hand it to the evangelicals. They know who's going to hell and who isn't with a great degree of certainty.

Of course, Billy Graham, who the woman said is an "American Baptist," is actually a Southern Baptist. Turns out the Southern Baptists have some serious doctrinal disagreements with just about all of the 300 or so other Christian denominations.

For example, McCain is an Epsicopalian, an off-course religion  in the eyes of many Baptists.

McCain himself was confused about which religion he belonged to when questioned in September of 2007. McCain mistakenly claimed he was a "Baptist," then clammed up after being confronted later about his upbringing as an Episcopalian. "The most important thing is that I'm a Christian, and I don't have anything else to say about the issue," he snapped when pressed.

I bet he reads his horoscope, though.

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