I apologize if it seems my writing is heavy on the Obama - that's not because of my support for him, but because Hanover seems to be leaning his way. In addition to everything in my post below, our local paper, the Valley News, endorsed him, and his Monday Claremont crowd was splashed across its front page today. I even passed his huge crowd in Rochester last night on my way to the Huckabee event. To try and balance that out, I'll lead off this post with some encouraging news about John Edwards. Both the students who lead the campus Edwards effort are in Claremont today. One Edwards person out that way told me Clinton voters seem to be peeling for Edwards left and right, and while second place is unlikely, it's "not out of the realm of possibility." Given the last poll I can't see that happening, and I doubt the Claremont effect is statewide, but it's still good to see Edwards' message resonating.

The Clinton people have been virtually nonexistent in Hanover. The College Democrats held a debate between campaign student leaders last night, and the Clinton campaign tried to send a staffer instead. When the DCD told them no dice, they threatened not to send anyone - a hollow threat, it turns out, as a student was eventually chosen. This makes me question what Ann Lewis said on MSNBC moments ago: that they Clinton campaign has corrected its lack of efforts to reach out to younger voters in Iowa. Aside from a large group of sign wavers outside the High School polling place, that's all I've seen from the Clinton campaign anywhere. On a related note, the enormous Clinton sign in my neighbor's yard has been defaced; sometime last night someone painted on a large universal no sign. Say what you will about Clinton, but that is undemocratic and disgraceful.

Oddly enough, the whole town has grown quiet. When I walked from the high school to my apartment, Main St. and Wheelock St. had both grown quiet, despite the Obama and Paul frenzy I wrote about yesterday. In fact, I haven't seen any Paulites anywhere - McCain was the only candidate with a decent sign showing.

Voting was easy. The sky is clear and the temperature wonderful - currently 50 in Hanover, 51 in Manchester, 52 in Concord, 59 up north in Berlin, and a whopping 65 in Nashua, 80 degrees warmer than the lows from a week ago. We still have two feet of snow on the ground, but the water pouring past my window says that won't last long. This contributes to the turnout, and I'll bet the lack of ice especially helps Clinton turnout. I cast my ballot - Obama for President, Biden write-in for VP - at about 10:50. Ballots were being distributed by last name (A-B here, C here, D-E-F here, etc.); the B and S lines were long, but everyone else could walk right up. I didn't see any challengers or obvious monitors, though an Obama staffer was out front making sure everyone took off their buttons before going in. A CNN exit poller stood just past the big black ballot box, but unfortunately chose the guy behind me. A number of media cameras were around interviewing folks as they left the high school. I was the 832nd ballot cast; I'm not sure how many registered voters there are in Hanover, but the population is about 10,000 including 4,000 students. That means that by 11:00, at least 10% of registered voters had cast their ballots - phenomenal.

I've decided not to go to Nashua tonight. I'll wander around town in a bit and might take some more photos, but this may well be my last post for the day if nothing interesting pops up. Unfortunately, my shredded tires mean I'm limited to Hanover and can't give you any wider Upper Valley view beyond what my spies tell me. I'll end this post by highlighting a delightful little Giuliani slam from the Guardian:

Giuliani waved off a question about his decline in polls, pointing to the church and saying, "The only poll I'm interested in is the one that goes on inside there." That wasn't exactly so. At his New Hampshire headquarters, he asserted that opinion polls in some 15 states find him on top.

Two more pictures after the jump.

There's more...

Photos after the jump.

Though I was unable to attend Obama's Lebanon speech yesterday, I more than made up for it in Hanover this morning. Obama spoke to what looked to be around 600 Dartmouth students and a handful of locals at 9am in the College gym. (I am, by the way, horrendous at estimating numbers, so don't hold me to that estimate.) That may seem like a low turnout for an Obama event, but remember that this is a college of 4,000 students, we hate to do anything before 10AM, and that class started yesterday. The gym was a new venue for the College's primary events - only Bill Clinton had used it before, just last night. I showed up at 6:30 to volunteer, and by a happy series of events wound up standing directly behind the Senator on stage, wearing both an Obama button and a Biden button. This was Obama's final planned event until tonight's watch party, so will likely get frequent television play throughout the day. Larry Davis was apparently in the back, though I couldn't see him from the stage under the glare.

Several dozen students had already gathered to volunteer when I arrived, with several more waiting outside to get in - I was happily amazed, given students' aversion to waking up. Things went much more smoothly than the last time I helped with a campus Obama event, in May. An independent Dartmouth student introduced Michelle Obama, who introduced her husband. He gave his typical stump speech, tweaked only in that he's added a section about the Iowa turnout and results. His voice wasn't quite as hoarse as it has been over the last few days, an encouraging sign. He asked who was still undecided, and a couple dozen folks raised their hands. He also made a real push for Republicans and Independents. Though the Upper Valley is an Edwards stronghold, I would imagine Obama will take Hanover pretty handily. He pointed out that in Iowa, as many young voters showed up as senior citizens, and I predict that happening here, too. Obama aside, isn't that wonderful for democracy? And it only took MTV 16 years to get it done.

Unfortunately, one audience member fainted in the middle of the speech. Obama stopped the speech, told the crowd to move back and give her space, and passed his water bottle down. An EMT showed up, and ten minutes later she was taken out on a stretcher. Obama stood on the corner of the stage, mostly silent except for the occasional, "It's ok, everybody; she looks alright." I am told that this speech aired live - I didn't catch what channel - and that it continued whilst Obama just stood there. I put my camera away, but of course the press photographers clicked away harder than ever at the woman on the floor. Hotline has a story on the faint. Apparently Larry Davis yelled a joke about Sinatra to lighten the mood as they wheeled her out - I do recall hearing something, but I assumed it was a shouting EMT. My own thought was, "Wow, maybe the RFK comparisons are appropriate after all."

Many students headed straight from the event to the polling place - more on that in my next post. `Twas my third election, including an Idaho school bond and the NH midterm, and I checked Obama for President and wrote in Joe Biden for Vice President (an item actually on the ballot with two names I'd never heard of.) After leaving the polling place, I was approached by a cameraman for BarackTV, so who knows, maybe I'll wind up in their GOTV video.

Here's a brief interview with sophomore Shaun Stewart, the head of Dartmouth for Obama and Communications Director for the College Democrats of New Hampshire. I wanted to post it later today along with an interview with one of the campus Edwards leaders, but they are both campaigning in Claremont - more on that in my next post. To balance things out, I will interview one of them tomorrow about the NH results and where Edwards goes from here and post it as one of my final NH entries. Also, I had initially planned to go to Obama's Nashua watch party, but given that I haven't eaten much lately (I'm fixing that right now!) and have gotten 8 hours of sleep in three days, I might scratch that and watch with Dartmouth for Obama, which of course is nothing worse posting about.

There's more...

Sen. Hillary Clinton pledged to end the ban on stem cell research as president in Hanover, NH recently. Speaking to an overflow crowd, Clinton lambasted the White House for Bush's "contempt of science" and suggested Bush has turned DC into an "evidence free zone". This administration and congressional Republicans indeed have preferred ideology to science, to the detriment of our nation. Bush, unfortunately, today will veto stem cell legislation, which passed the Congress with bi-partisan support.

There's more...