MSNBC exit polls for Vermont

According to MSNBC exit polls, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in every single category of voter in the state, except for those with a high school education or less. They went 56-44 for Clinton.

Have some fun looking at these numbers here.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal points out Vermont's high number of delegates compared with its population. For example, Vermont has a superdelegate for every 78,000 people. In Texas, it is one superdelegate for every 672,000 people.

-Dan Barlow

Obama "blowout" in Vermont

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has seen the exit polls from Vermont and says it shows a "blowout" for Sen. Barack Obama.

Exit Polls for Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island are too close to reveal anything, he adds.

EDITED TO ADD: Wow, just as I was writing this, CNN calls the state for Obama and Sen. John McCain.

-Dan Barlow

Seen outside of the Montpelier polls

On Montpelier's Main Street, one person used their truck to call for lower taxes (I assume that means voting against local school and town budgets).   

And inside City Hall in Montpelier, someone invokes Hillary Clinton's youth and beauty as selling points for her candidacy.

Click the photos for larger pictures.

-Dan Barlow

Brattleboro's anti-Bush vote

The folks over at iBrattleboro.com have some nice photos of the polling place in Brattleboro, where residents will be asked if President Bush should be arrested. Check out the massive amounts of out-of-state media that are there!

I'm not making any guesses as to how that vote turns out. Brattleboro is a blue town in a blue county, sure, but there has been a lot of push-back against the vote from activists who had previously supported the impeachment efforts there and at the Statehouse.

-Dan Barlow

Sen. Doyle predicts record turnout today

Sen. William Doyle told residents at Waterbury's town meeting this morning that he predicts today's presidential primary turnout will set a record for Vermont.

"There’s no race in the Republican primary,” Doyle said, shortly before the town meeting began at 9 a.m. in the Thatcher Brook Primary School gymnasium. Sen. John McCain appears to have a lock on the party’s presidential nomination, and Doyle is a McCain supporter

But the senator said people casting ballots in the Democratic primary have a chance to help make history by nominating either the first female presidential candidate or the first African American, referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. That race, Doyle said, is where the action is.

“Most people are going to focus on the Democratic primary,” he said.

It's impossible to know how Waterbury voters are going in that race because the polls don't close until 7 tonight. But the turnout this morning was steady, with lines of voters waiting at some points for the voting booths to open.

Spotted casting his ballot was former Vermont Attorney General Jeffrey Amestoy, a Waterbury resident.

-Sue Allen

Douglas is not alone

In fact, it looks like Gov. James Douglas got on the presidential endorsement wagon LONG before his counterparts in other states.

Now, two months after Douglas made his support clear, the Republican governors of Mississippi, North Dakota, Louisiana, Hawaii, Georgia and Alabama have endorsed Sen. John McCain.

I'm just surprised to learn than Hawaii has a Republican governor.

-Dan Barlow

Tomorrow is the Day

When I was just a beat reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer or the Rutland Herald, I always looked forward to Town Meeting Day because I love Democracy in action.

But I also feared it because it meant, as a reporter responsible for several towns, slogging through a 16-hour day, stopping by multiple towns to get information and color and writing lots and lots of copy, some of which just never actually makes it into the paper due to a lack of space.

So, it is nice to be able to take a grand look at the town meeting tradition tomorrow, as opposed to being one of the reporters in the trenches (my hat is off to all of you who will be writing about the Great Debate in Town X over buying a new plow truck). I'll stop by a few towns, answer some phone calls, type up a few stories, and, for the first time since moving to Montpelier, vote in the local election.

Of course, that doesn't mean I won't wake up Wednesday morning feeling like I drank a bar the night before. Town Meeting has that intoxicating effect.

-Dan Barlow