Here we go: the first of many towns, villages, municipalities, and counties heard from. Dixville Notch has spoken: It’s Obama in a landslide – CNN.com DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire (CNN) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious in the first election returns of the 2008 presidential race, winning 15 of 21 votes cast in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. [The town] is the first in the nation to vote in the primaries and Election Day. People in the isolated village in New Hampshire’s northeast corner voted just after midnight Tuesday. It was the first time since 1968 that the village…

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/03/2008 | Stevens juror left for horse race, not her father’s funeral WASHINGTON — Juror No. 4 in Sen. Ted Stevens’ federal corruption trial, otherwise known as Marian Hinnant, didn’t leave the trial to attend her father’s funeral in California, as she told the judge at the time. Instead, Hinnant had a plane ticket to see the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park near Los Angeles and didn’t want to miss it, she told the judge Monday. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had ordered her to court to find out why she’d left town and lost…

The narrative of this election moves me to tears sometimes, sometimes to open sobbing. No, I’m trying not to give in to the angstyness that’s sweeping the Democratic blogosphere. Now and then I just get blubby, because there’ve been a lot of really emotional highs and lows. A lot of news stories that make my moods swing constantly, like a weather vane pointing first east, then west. There’s no story more moving than the news that Madelyn Dunham, Sen. Barack Obama’s grandmother, has died. It seems like it was bad enough when Studs Terkel passed, but I had really hoped…

Earlier today/late last night, the news broke that Obama’s Kenyan aunt is living in this country illegally, having overstayed her visa after her request for asylum was denied. Talking Points Memo ruminates on the timing (suspiciously close to the election) and the source (suspiciously originating on a Rupert Murdoch-owned publication, then getting echo-chambered). TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | The Anatomy of a Smear On the record, of course, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, is telling reporters it can’t comment on any individual person’s immigration status. It would appear to be a…

A couple flew home to New York all the way from Bangalore in order to vote after their absentee ballots failed to arrive in time. They are both naturalized citizens. Some people really value their right to vote – and based on what I know of the fares from India to New York via Chicago, they probably paid full-coach, no discount. I hope they at least got a mileage upgrade, that Delhi-Chicago flight on American is pretty brutal according to some of my clients. Just changing planes as in-transit travelers is an ordeal. I admire this couple for their tenacity,…

Editor & Publisher is keeping track of newspaper endorsements of Obama and McCain; they’re also noting which papers were for Kerry and which were for Bush last time around. TUESDAY: Updated Endorsement Tally — Obama Leads 121-42