Dixville Notch, N.H., is home of the first balloting in the state on presidential primary day.
John McCain and Barack Obama won their parties’ early polling in the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire Tuesday, though it was no indication of how the state’s votes would turn.
Nonetheless, the early excitement for poll watchers predicting the outcome of Tuesday’s primary was marked by pandemonium in the northern hamlet of Dixville Notch along New Hampshire’s Canadian border, where the number of media and spectators outnumbered residents by multiples.
The town has 17 voters — two Democrats, three Republicans and 12 independents. Turnout was 100 percent. Four votes were cast by absentee ballot despite the fact that each voter was given his or her own booth at the town’s single polling station.
The results were:
McCain with 4 votes, Mitt Romney with 2 votes, Rudy Giuliani with 1 vote. Those were the only Republican votes cast.
On the Democratic side, Obama won a landslide 7 votes compared with 2 for John Edwards, one for Bill Richardson and none for Hillary Clinton.
Shortly after Dixville Notch, another tiny village, Hart’s Location, offered its results. Obama received nine votes, Clinton received three and Edwards received one. On the Republican side, McCain received six, Huckabee received five, Ron Paul received four and Romney one.
The small towns may not be great predictors of the winner of New Hampshire’s primary, but it is great political theater. The folks who live in Dixville Notch are overwhelmingly independent, slightly cantankerous and somewhat offbeat from the rest of the state. They take their roles as the first balloters very seriously.
Neil Tillotson Jr.’s dad started the Dixville Notch tradition in 1960, after he ran into an Associated Press reporter who saw the humor in letting a small town “way up in the middle of nowhere be a part of the voting process.â€
“Because of the publicity we get a disproportionate number of candidates coming by,†Tillotson said, noting that he’s met every president – when they were candidates – except Richard Nixon, dating back to 1972 when he took over the role as elections supervisor.
Despite the fun, the blue ballots did not capture the scenes and sounds leading up to the Tuesday primary, which was characterized by tears, strained voices, continued jabs and calculated retreats.
The theme of change, as well as actual change, and a recipe for bison burgers dominated the final scenes in the run-up to the vote.
Questions abounded as New Hampshire voters were set to decide the fates of the 2008 presidential candidates. Will Obama’s likely win be as big as predicted? Can Clinton make her loss respectable? Will non-aligned voters flock to the Democratic primary in such numbers as to allow Romney to edge out McCain? Can Giuliani manage to finish ahead of Paul, the obstetrician/legislator from the Lone Star state? Will Fred Thompson’s effort to outflank the other Republican conservatives muster any votes?
According to the latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Obama and McCain are headed for good days on Tuesday. In the polling taken Jan. 4-6, Obama led Clinton 32-28 with Edwards at 18. McCain led Romney, 34-27 with Huckabee at 11 percent and Giuliani at 9 percent. Both parties’ likely voter base was 500 people. The margin of error was 4 percent.
An American Research Group survey conducted Jan. 6-7, showed Obama leading Clinton 40 to 31 percent with Edwards at 20 percent. Clinton had regained some support among woman voters age 25 to 49, which appeared to have stopped a slide in that polling group’s tracking. But the race still turns on age in New Hampshire, with Obama leading Clinton 43 to 27 percent among the 83 percent of voters — those aged 18 to 64 — while Clinton led among voters 65 years and older 50 percent to 25 percent.
On the Republican side, McCain leads Romney 31 to 24 percent in the ARG survey, with 14 percent for Huckabee and 13 percent for Giuliani.
Out on the trail, the candidates were giving their all in the lead up to polling, which for most of the state will begin around 6 or 7 a.m. EST and end at 7 or 8 p.m. EST.
Trying to get in as much face time with voters as possible, McCain was set to visit a Nashua polling station in the morning. That followed a busy day of campaigning that focused on his victory in the 2000 Republican presidential nominating contest.
McCain’s return to Nashua would follow a rally there on Monday, one of seven in which the Arizona senator carefully avoided any mention of Romney.
Asked about last-minute attacks on him, McCain said that’s not what the day was about and not the way to end a campaign. The closest he came to mentioning Romney was a quick line in which he mentioned that some candidates think foreign policy experience is not that important. Romney has said that the voters aren’t electing head of the State Department, but someone who knows how to manage a complex situation.
For a brief while during the way, the campaign was slowed by a malfunction on one of the ancillary Straight Talk Express vehicles. The bus that carries McCain and his family is tracked by several overflow buses full of press, longtime friends and staffers. One of them stopped on the side of road and vans were called in to get the embedded reporters moving again.
Upbeat but a little wound up on his own bus, McCain expressed confidence about his chances, his progress and momentum. He continued to say his showing in New Hampshire will affect his chances in the next few contests, in Michigan and South Carolina. He showed reporters the lucky nickel he found face-up that he carries in his pocket. He said he was ending the night with a rally in Portsmouth, because that’s where he ended his 2000 campaign.
While not mentioning them by name, Romney also discussed his opponents. At the last event of his day — a rally at his Manchester headquarters with staff, volunteers, and supporters who chanted “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!†— the former Massachusetts governor’s New Hampshire chairman Bruce Keogh introduced him by saying, “Let’s roll back the clock about 24 hours now, and I don’t know what you were doing, but I know what I was doing. And I know what Mitt was doing.â€
Romney then leaned into the microphone and referenced Sunday night’s FOX News Republican Presidential Forum: “Waiting for Huckabee to answer (my) question.â€
At an earlier event, he also targeted McCain’s votes for a comprehensive illegal immigration reform bill that allows 12 million illegal immigrants to get in line for residency.
“The people in this country and the talk shows of America said no and we said no to those politicians. It shows just how out of touch Washington is. It is time for us to say no to amnesty, no to illegal immigration,†he said.
He again pressed that someone inside Washington can not fix Washington, a claim he made during the forum.
“People who have been there all their careers don’t begin to have the freedom of movement and the capacity to change Washington. They’ve got lobbyists at every elbow, the deals have been worked out in the Senate cloakrooms are just so overwhelming – the scores that have to be settled, all of the favors that have to honored. You just can’t get the job done in Washington with people that have been in Washington all their lives. So people are saying you know what? We need change.â€
Even though he hates to forecast, Romney predicted victory saying, “I’m convinced we’re going to win tomorrow.†He said the debates over the last two days had given him an upward push.
“I think a few days ago we were probably a couple of points behind, we were probably a few points behind. The polls have shown we are on a break-even contest. It could go either way and then we had the debates last night and the night before that gave me a nice boost.â€
In one moment that elicited laughter, Romney made a tongue-in-cheek joke about his Mormon heritage.
“The whole family is not here but it is pretty well represented. These are two of the 11 grandkids, two of the five sons and my one and only wife.â€
Meanwhile, Clinton’s family was also out in full force with the candidate, who showed her rare emotional side earlier in the day when her voice cracked while speaking about her hopes for America.
In the final hours before the voting began, Clinton’s husband and daughter, Bill and Chelsea Clinton, attended rallies at Dartmouth University and in Manchester.
Not to be outdone, Edwards continued his second “36-hour Marathon for the Middle Class,†accompanied by actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins — as well as the Sarkisyan family, whose daughter recently died after not getting coverage in time from an insurance company to pay for a heart transplant.
Edwards acknowledged his “underdog status†in the state, but said his message cut right through all the money and glamour of the two “celebrity candidates.†He also pledged that he will continue to run “all the way through to the convention and to the White House.â€
In the last campaign stop before Dixville Notch opened the polls, Edwards paid a visit to the 24-hour Red Arrow Diner in downtown Manchester, home of the Whoopie Pies, a delicacy made of thick gobs of frosting wedged between two chocolate cakes.
Edwards’ bus parked outside the diner and he bounded inside with wife Elizabeth and chatted with patrons at the counter. Edwards has visited before. A brass nameplate sporting his name denotes where he sat at the counter during a previous visit.
Edwards was greeted by a phalanx of about 100 people, mostly young supporters who shoe-horned their way into the diner. As Edwards boarded the bus to leave, he told the crowd “I’ll be back,†perhaps because he had not bought any Whoopie Pies on his visit.
Earlier in the day, Edwards was asked about Clinton’s “emotional moment.†All he would say is that the future president must show “strength and resolve.â€
Elsewhere, Huckabee had not been predicting better than third in the countdown to the primary, but appeared to be having the most fun along the trail. He shared his recipe for bison burgers, which includes a fried pickle, and played guitar along the way.
Continuing with his conservative-populist theme, he focused on liberty, freedom and the benefits of small government. He also took a figurative shot at Romney, saying that someone who doesn’t own a gun can’t claim to be a life-long hunter.
Huckabee promoted energy independence in 10 years, arguing for a plan and inspirational vehicle a la John Kennedy’s approach to the race to get a man on the moon. At the same time, he borrowed heavily from Rochester’s electrical grid, signing up 600 people on an attendance sheet at one event and ramping up his bass guitar with Mama Kicks, a popular local band.
Thompson appeared on FOX News the night before the New Hampshire primary, which he conceded ahead of time. Predicting that Clinton would win the Democratic presidential nomination, he said the next president must have foreign policy credentials and a conservative outlook. He predicted his star will rise in the coming weeks.
“I’ve been in South Carolina since the very beginning … carrying a strong consistent conservative message … and (I am) the only conservative in the race as far as I’m concerned who’s been consistently conservative,†Thompson said.
“I am who I am. I mean I couldn’t be any other way,†he continued, adding that following conservative principles makes the country successful and beneficial to its residents.
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