Today is the day to rejoice! - final thoughts on election 08

There are not many days where one vote has the power to do so much. Today, a vote for Barack Obama redresses the great sin of America's past, the great sin of the human family throughout history. But a vote for Barack Obama also allows us to chart a new and transforming course for our own lives, and all those who will come after us.

November 4th, 2008 will become a landmark for all people of the world - one we will look back on as a marker of the day we changed course and began to build a new and better world.

Not many people get a chance to live on such days as today ...

All the more reason to look back this morning at those who made this day possible.

Two days ago, during the roundtable discussion on 'This Week' on ABC, longtime democratic activist, Donna Brazile spoke of the key moment of this campaign - not as something that happened this year, but with a reference to the past ... to the 'Bloody Sunday' of the civil rights era. I was profoundly moved by her remarks and sent her a note saying just that. Later in the day, on this new 'Sunday' on the eve of a new era, I received what will always be, for me, THE quote of this presidential campaign:

"Without those brave men and women -- those four little girls and countless others knocking on Freedom's door, we would have waited longer and suffered more. Their blood was our redemption. Their bravery our inspiration. Their courage our motivation. Now it's time to vote and begin an era of reconciliation and change." - Donna Brazile

zjm

ps - Obama wins early vote in New Hampshire!

from the Boston Globe

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. - Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, where the tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.

Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement. 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.

Dixville Notch's first voter, following tradition, was picked ahead of the midnight voting, and the rest of the town's 20 registered voters followed suit in today's first minutes.

Town Clerk Rick Erwin said the northern New Hampshire town is proud of its tradition, but added "the most important thing is that we exemplify a 100 percent vote."

With 115 residents between them, Dixville Notch and Hart's Location's get every eligible voter to the polls beginning at midnight on Election Day. The towns have been enjoying their first-vote status since 1948.

Being first means something to residents of the Granite State, home of the nation's earliest presidential primary and the central focus, however briefly, of the vote-watching nation's attention every four years.

New Hampshire law requires polls to open by 11 a.m., but that does not stop towns from opening earlier. It also allows towns to close their polls once all registered and eligible voters have cast ballots.

Hart's Location started opening its polls early in 1948, the year President Truman beat Thomas Dewey, to accommodate its resident railroad workers, who had to get to work early.

The town got out of the early voting business in 1964 after some residents grew weary of all the publicity, but brought it back in 1996.

Dixville Notch, nestled in a mountain pass 1,800 feet up and about halfway between the White Mountain National Forest and the Canadian border, started voting early in 1960, when John F. Kennedy beat Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon, the Republican, swept all nine votes cast in Dixville that year.