Obama wins in earliest vote in tiny N.H. towns
Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location, N.H., where tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.
Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday’s first minutes. The town of Hart’s Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns’ ballots but got no votes.
“I’m not going to say I wasn’t surprised,” said Obama supporter Tanner Nelson Tillotson, whose name was drawn from a bowl to make him Dixville Notch’s first voter.
With 115 residents between them, Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location get every eligible voter to the polls beginning at midnight on Election Day. Between them, the towns have been enjoying their first-vote status since 1948.
Dixville Notch, nestled in a mountain pass 1,800 feet up and about halfway between the White Mountain National Forest and the Canadian border, followed suit in 1960, when John F. Kennedy beat Richard M. Nixon. Nixon, the Republican, swept all nine votes cast in Dixville that year, and before Tuesday, the town had gone for a Democrat only once since then. That was in 1968, when the tally was Democrat Hubert Humphrey eight, Nixon four.
Zimbabwe’s opposition endorses Obama
Over the weekend the Secretary General of the Movement for Democratic Change(MDC), Tendai Biti broke tradition and endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for United States President, saying “Once in a while, God donates individuals of such exceptional talent that you can only thank the Almighty that you breathe the same air with them. Barack Obama is that rare breed!”
Mr Biti, the MDC Chief Strategist and a Parliamentarian,in an Opinion article published on Metro wrote that the American election is no longer a domestic affair “For reasons that are as clear as pike stuff, this election is no longer a strict private American election. It is a world election”, wrote Biti.
The MDC Policy Co-ordinator General, Eddie Cross last month also publicly expressed his support for the first African American nominee for a major party “I support him because he has African roots but also because he embodies everything that the American dream stands for. That a poor, mixed race kid with a single mom can rise out of obscurity and claim the leadership of the most powerful country on earth.”
Mr.Cross,MDC-Bulawayo South., further wrote that “We have a common heritage with Obama – we represent the dreams and aspirations of our people, we represent the hope of a better, more just and equitable future. It is an opportunity and a responsibility and one that we dare not fail in.”
Biti and Cross join a list of other international politicians who have endorsed the Democratic Party ‘s nominee. Last month the mayor of London,added his voice in endorsing Obama for president.
Mayor Boris Johnson a member of the center-right Conservative Party that is a traditional ally of U.S. Republicans, said then Obama “visibly incarnates change and hope, at a time when America desperately needs both.”
Following the disputed Presidential run-off election Obama called MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and shared his deep concern for the way MDC supporters were being targeted by President Mugabe’s militia.
According to sources Obama also expressed his admiration for Tsvangirai’s efforts to ensure that the will of the Zimbabwean people is respected. The Democratic Party nominee demanded US and African act on the crisis in Zimbabwe.
Posted by Wellington Chadehumbe
on November 4, 2008. Filed under Local News.
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