Did Romania’s president use the occult to get reelected?

President Obama has brought back his 2008 campiagn manager David Plouffe to help  get his domestic agenda back on track ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, but if he really wants to throw the Republicans off their game, he may want to take a trip to the dark side (No, not James Carville) and learn ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

President Obama has brought back his 2008 campiagn manager David Plouffe to help  get his domestic agenda back on track ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, but if he really wants to throw the Republicans off their game, he may want to take a trip to the dark side (No, not James Carville) and learn from how they do things in Romania:

President Obama has brought back his 2008 campiagn manager David Plouffe to help  get his domestic agenda back on track ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, but if he really wants to throw the Republicans off their game, he may want to take a trip to the dark side (No, not James Carville) and learn from how they do things in Romania:

[Romanian Presidential runner-up Mircea] Geoana, in media interviews last week, asserted that he was targeted by waves of negative energy during a key debate just before the runoff that was won by [reelected President Traian] Basescu.

“People who were working for Basescu in this domain were present to the right of the camera,’’ Geoana told Antena 3 Television. His wife, Mihaela said Geoana “was very badly attacked, he couldn’t concentrate.’’

At first Romanians mocked their former foreign minister saying he was a bad loser. Basescu himself jokingly dismissed the allegations. But the recent publication of photos showing well-known parapsychologist Aliodor Manolea close to Basescu during the campaign has caused Romanians to wonder whether the president really did put a hex on his rival.

The photos show Manolea, a slightly built, bearded man with a round face and cropped receding hair, walking yards behind Basescu ahead of the debate. Manolea’s specialties include deep mind control, clairvoyance, and hypnotic trance, according to the Romanian Association of Transpersonal Psychology.

The Basescu campaign has not outright denied Maneola’s inolvement — only that he didn’t participate in staff meetings — or explained why he appeared with the candidate. But don’t be surprised if you see a slightly built, bearded Eastern European man walking behind Arlen Specter in the coming months. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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