Perhaps some of you saw that terrific episode of The West Wing (thought aren’t they all) called “Hartsfield Landing” about a small town in New Hampshire in which every citizen of voting age gets together at 12:01 a.m. on election day, votes, and the polls close a minute later. As fantanstic a writer as Aaron Sorking is, he did not invent this concept. There is a real town in New Hampshire which has operated this way since 1960, and it’s known as Dixville Notch. This morning, the first town to vote in the nation chose Obama over McCain in a landslide 15 to 6. That’s a full 71% of the vote for Obama, in a state where he is currently only ahead by a few points.
Why is this, or should it be news? Well, because of a trend it could spell for the rest of the country. See, in this small New Hampshire town, the Republican candidate usually wins...by a lot. Bush beat both Kerry and Gore by a sizable margin. Bush Sr. beat Dukakis 34-3, and Reagan beat Mondale 29-1. The fact that Obama is winning, and by such a large margin, could mean that formerly Republican strongholds may tip in his favor today.
We’ll shall have to wait and see, but I’m liking our chances. And, as Obama has famously said, in the unlikely story that is America, there’s never anything false about Hope.
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