Barack Obama Wins Dixville Notch and Hart's Location New Hampshire!

These are the first two towns that historically place their vote in for President first in New Hampshire: Dixville Notch and Hart's Location. Senator Barack Obama got nine votes; Senator Hillary Clinton Three votes; former Senator John Edwards took in one vote. Here's the rest of the story from the AP

Obama, McCain Get Early Votes

Jan 8 01:28 AM US/Eastern
By CLARKE CANFIELD
Associated Press Writer

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) - Residents of two tiny towns stayed up late to give Barack Obama and John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
Voters in two small New Hampshire villages, Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, cast the initial ballots just after midnight Tuesday.

In Hart's Location, Democrat Obama received nine votes, Hillary Rodham Clinton received three and John Edwards received one. On the Republican side, McCain received six, Mike Huckabee received five, Ron Paul received four and Mitt Romney one.

In Dixville Notch, on the Republican side, McCain received four votes, Mitt Romney two and Rudy Giuliani one. On the Democratic side, Obama received seven votes, John Edwards two votes and Bill Richardson one vote.

Long-shot GOP hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter attended the vote in Dixville Notch, where results were announced before 12:06 a.m.

"It epitomizes people-to-people politicking," Hunter said minutes before the votes were cast.

Hunter received no votes in either town.

State law allows towns with fewer than 100 people to open at midnight and to close as soon as all registered voters have cast ballots.

While most New Hampshire residents have to wait until around daybreak to vote, those in the two far northern towns have been going to the polls at midnight for decades. The Balsams, located about 20 miles from the Canadian border, has been holding its early bird voting since That's when former owner Neil Tillotson, who died in 2001, arranged for early elections by having Dixville incorporated solely for voting purposes. Hart's Location began midnight voting in 1948 because most residents were railroad workers who had to be on the job during normal polling hours. Townspeople, weary of the media attention and the late hours, did away with it after the 1964 election but revived the practice in 1996.

In Dixville this year, there were three registered Republicans, one Democrat and 12 who were undeclared. Hart's Location had eight Democrats, eight Republicans and 13 undeclared.

With more candidates on the ballot--42--than voters in town, longtime Hart's Location town clerk Marion Varney, 86, wouldn't venture a guess Monday on how the voting would turn out. In 2004, Wesley Clark got the most Democratic primary votes in Hart's Location and Dixville.

"I don't even know for sure who I'm going to vote for," said Varney. "I think I might just close my eyes and mark the ballot."

The two places have a friendly competition about which is first to cast its ballots.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner recalls getting phone calls in years past from people claiming that Neil Tillotson had illegally cast the first ballot at The Balsams before midnight--that they had seen it on C-SPAN.

"I'd say it was done on 'Tillotson time,'" Gardner said. "If he said it was midnight, then it was midnight."

Hillary Clinton Tears Up During New Hampshire Speech; John Edwards Attacks Her. Is Clinton Able To Stand The Rigors Of The Campaign?

By now, you may have heard or even seen Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton become choked up and almost cry when a supporter asked her how she was doing. If you haven't seen it or know what she said, I've got it right here for you. This is video and below it, the text from Huff Post:



Clinton Makes Emotional Vow to Fight On - The Huffington Post

PHILIP ELLIOTT | January 7, 2008 06:40 PM EST |

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency. The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama.

Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy."

"And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said, her voice catching.

"You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said, her voice trailing off. The voters crowded into the restaurant applauded encouragingly.

"So," she continued, then paused, seemingly to control her voice as her listeners applauded again. "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down.

"It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not."

She concluded, "And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting _ really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am _ and I am _ and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right _ it's tough when the easiest food is pizza _ I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation so I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide."

After she spoke several of the people in the Cafe Espresso audience crowded around Clinton and offered sympathetic support.

_________________

Presidential Candidate John Edwards waisted no time in spearing the already wounded Clinton:

Edwards, speaking at a press availability in Laconia, New Hampshire, offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to bring into question Clinton's ability to endure the stresses of the presidency. Edwards responded, "I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business."

Here's my take on the issue.

____________________

When Senator Clinton was ahead in the polls and raising money, she was just fine emotionally. Meanwhile, Senator Obama and Former Senator John Edwards and Governor Bill Richardson were all behind in the polls and fighting. They handled it all well, emotionally. Now, when Clinton is behind in the polls, and lost her first primary, she all-but falls apart.

This has nothing to do with being a woman and is unique to Hillary. I think she's so consumed with the personal ambition of achieving what her husband Bill Clinton reached -- The Presidency -- that any sign, even a small one considering how far we have to go in this thing -- gets to her emotionally.

That's not what people want in a president.

Indeed, this Facebook poll of her "tearing" is not a good one. It reports that 64 percent of the poll respondents don't think the moment helped her, where 18 percent believed it helped and 18 percent thought it would have no effect. But the poll question is weird in that it asks one to make a prediction. The real truth is that the people who wrote a response on Facebook believed that it changed their view of her -- and they're voters.

Barack O'Bama The Irishman, American Indian, Kenyan, and Scot

I saw that over at Democratic Underground. Some poster calls himself Barack O'Bama! Too funny.

But then I decided to Google that name and it turns out that Obama has Irish roots. Check this out from the Chicago Sun Times... Barack Obama is American Indian, Irish, Scottish, Kenyan, and Pilgrim!

For sure, Obama's South Side Irish
ANCESTRY | One of his roots traces back to small village

May 3, 2007
BY BRIAN HUTTON
DUBLIN -- Presidential hopeful Barack Obama's ancestry has been traced back to a shoemaker in a small Irish village, it was reported Wednesday.

Obama's campaign wasn't talking about the revelation, but Chicago Ald. Ed Burke (14th) said he wasn't surprised.

"I could tell from the very first time I saw him -- he's got such a way with words," said Burke, who himself can trace ancestors to counties Clare and Kerry.


» Click to enlarge image

Sen. Barack Obama waves to the crowd at the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
(AP file)

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Records unearthed in the home of an elderly Irish parishioner who died recently have shed new light on the Illinois senator's ancestry.
A Church of Ireland rector scoured files from the church -- the equivalent of the U.S. Episcopal Church -- dating to the late 1700s. He confirmed that Obama descended from Moneygall, County Offaly.

The village today holds little more than a couple of pubs, shops and a Roman Catholic church.

Canon Stephen Neill, from a nearby town, began delving into Obama's past after a U.S. genealogist told him about the possible connection. "I would be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this is categorical evidence of Mr. Obama's link to this part of the world," said the rector.

It was initially believed the would-be president's great-great-great-grandfather Fulmuth Kearney was the only one of his family to have sailed from Ireland to New York at age 19 in 1850.

But the newly uncovered records show other family members had in fact emigrated to America since the 1790s.

They also reveal that Fulmuth's father, Joseph, was a shoemaker -- a wealthy skilled trade at the time. "They would have been among the upper echelons of society back then," said Neill.

He said he thinks the name Fulmuth -- unusual for an Irish man -- was most likely a surname that was taken as a first name.

Obama was born in Hawaii to a black man from Kenya and a white woman -- with Irish links -- from Kansas. "I've got pieces of everybody in me," he has been quoted as saying.

But does the piece from Moneygall make Obama -- who lives in the South Side's Kenwood neighborhood -- South Side Irish?

"Of course," Burke said.

Press Association of Ireland, with Sun-Times Staff Reporter Matthew Nickerson contributing


OBAMA'S FAMILY TREE
His roots spread into so many places, it's hard to keep track. Here's a breakdown of reported links:
• American Indian: Obama said he had a "full-blooded Cherokee" in the family, but a genealogist said he couldn't find proof of that.

• Irish: He's traced to Fulmuth Kearney, who sailed to New York from Ireland in 1850. But where in Ireland? The counties are feuding: One expert says Kearney was from Meath, another Carlow. Now comes the news of ties to County Offaly.

• Kenyan: Obama's father came from the Luo group.

• Pilgrim: One direct ancestor was Edward FitzRandolph, married in Massachusetts in 1637. He was a Pilgrim father from Nottinghamshire, England.

• Scottish: There's even a royal link. Obama is descended from William I of Scotland, who reigned from 1165 to 1214. William was a politically and physically strong king. He charged Henry II's army single-handedly but was captured.

Sources: Sunday Times of London, Daily Mail of London, Chicago Sun-Times, Press Association

Senator John McCain Overtakes Mike Huckabee..In The Polls

I'm not sure I trust the polls because of the extreme uncertainty of the Republican Presidential race, but now John McCain, as of this writing, is considered the front runner even as Mike Huckabee was the winner in Iowa. Let's see if this holds in the Tuesday NH Primary.

Laure Manaudou's Website Down - Nude Photos Still A Hot Topic

I can't understand why Laure Manaudou's nude photos are so popular, but they are, and the issue has stayed "hot" for several weeks now. Acccording to this blog, the website was placed offline because "she had outdated information (still pictures of her and her italian boyfriend, and the whole thing wasn’t updated since november 2006) and her blog is getting lots of comments that her lawyer or herself probably doesn’t want others to see."

As to who placed the pictures, that question remains unanswered.