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.