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Exit polls: Independents make difference for McCain

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — John McCain got a big boost of independent support in the push to his projected victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, exit polls show.

Independents, who make up about 40 percent of the New Hampshire electorate, are allowed to choose whether to vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries. Thirty-seven percent of those who cast a GOP ballot Tuesday identified themselves as independents, according to the exit polls.

McCain got the vote of 39 percent of independents, compared with 27 percent for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who finished second Tuesday. Romney and McCain were almost even among those who identified themselves as Republicans, with 33 and 34 percent, respectively.

I-Reporter Bob Sinkiewicz, an independent, said he was tempted to cast a Democratic ballot for Barack Obama, but was swayed by McCain’s experience and consistent message.

I think [Obama] got a bye on a lot of tough questions, too, he said.

McCain’s high standing with independents was reminiscent of his performance in the 2000 GOP primary in New Hampshire.

Although George Bush beat McCain among registered Republicans that year, independents, who accounted for 41 percent of the total GOP turnout, handed McCain the win. Watch as McCain supporters cheer his projected victory Tuesday

McCain last year bucked public opinion with his full-throated support of President Bush’s commitment of nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq at a time when a solid majority of Americans had turned against the 4-year-old war.

Exit polls found 64 percent of Tuesday’s Republican voters still support the conflict — and Romney, whose criticism of Bush’s management of the war has been muted, led McCain among those voters. But among the 34 percent who said they disapproved of the war, McCain had a wide advantage over the GOP field — even over Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the sole advocate of a U.S. withdrawal in the Republican field.

In Tuesday’s primaries, both Democrats and Republicans rated the economy as the most important issue in the primaries, and almost all voters said they were worried about it, exit polls show.

But an overwhelming majority in both parties said their families weren’t in tough financial times.

Ninety-eight percent of Democrats said they were worried about the economy. And 87 percent of Democrats rated the economy as not good or poor, according to exit polls. But they were more positive about their personal economic circumstances, with 59 percent saying they were holding steady and 14 percent saying they were getting ahead.

Among GOP voters, 79 percent said they were worried about the economy. And just 51 percent rated the nation’s economy as excellent or good, but an overwhelming majority said their family was holding steady financially (58 percent) or getting ahead (21 percent).

Despite their economic circumstances, dissatisfaction with the Bush administration was clearly evident in both Democratic and Republican voters.

Almost two-thirds of Democrats polled (65 percent) said they were angry with the Bush administration. And almost half of Republicans, (49 percent) said they were angry or dissatisfied with the Bush administration.

Many voters decided on their candidates late in the process, the polls showed, with 18 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats saying they settled on a candidate on the day of the primary.

A majority of Democrats said the issues were the most important factor in how they voted, while most Republicans said the candidates’ personal qualities were most important to their decision.

The war in Iraq was the second most important issue for voters in both parties — but concerns about illegal immigration rated third among Republicans, while Democrats said health care was just behind Iraq.

In last week’s Iowa caucuses, evangelical Christian voters provided the margin of victory for former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee. But they make up a smaller portion of the electorate in New Hampshire, where Huckabee ran third in pre-election polls.

Compared with the Iowa caucuses, where 60 percent of Republicans described themselves as evangelicals, exit polls in New Hampshire put evangelical turnout at about 21 percent.

Among those evangelical voters, Huckabee got only 32 percent, while McCain got 31 percent.
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CNN Student News: Ten Questions

(CNN Student News) — January 9, 2008

1. What were the results of yesterday’s U.S. presidential primaries in New Hampshire?

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2. What is your reaction to the outcome of these contests? Are you surprised by any of the results? Why or why not?

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3. What qualities do you look for in a U.S. presidential candidate?

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4. If you could, which of this year’s candidates might you vote for and why?

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5. According to the program: Why has this year’s Golden Globes ceremony been canceled? How have organizers of the event responded to the cancellation?

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6. Do you think that the cancellation of this ceremony will impact businesses and members of the entertainment industry? If so, how? If not, why not?

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7. If you were a Golden Globes nominee, would you attend Sunday’s press conference? Why or why not?

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8. Who is Cho Myong-Bok? How is pig waste from Cho’s farm being converted into energy?

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9. According to the segment, what are some of the economic and environmental benefits of this type of energy?

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10. Can you think of other ways that waste can be recycled and reused?

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* E-mail to a friend

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McCain holds early lead

(CNN) — Vote counting has begun in the New Hampshire Primary, a key early contest in the U.S. presidential race, where Republican and Democratic campaigners are vying for support in their bids to be chosen as their party’s presidential candidate.

Ballots ran low in some polling stations six hours before the last polling stations closed at 8 p.m., indicating a larger-than-expected turnout, representatives of New Hampshire’s secretary of state said.

Despite its comparatively small population, New Hampshire has traditionally carried an importance disproportionate to its size due to its status as the first state to go to the polls in the U.S. primary calendar.

With just 9 percent of precincts reported, John McCain had an early lead in the Republican race. In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were neck and neck.

In exit polls, voters from both parties rated the economy their top issue and the war in Iraq second — but concerns about illegal immigration rated third among Republicans, while Democrats said health care was just behind Iraq.

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama is aiming to press home his advantage over main rival Hillary Clinton following his success in last week’s Iowa caucus. John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are also competing for the Democratic nomination.

I’m never a frontrunner; I’m always the underdog, Obama said Tuesday as he tried to persuade undecided voters.

Among the Republicans, John McCain and Mitt Romney appear to be the frontrunners, with both seeking a morale-boosting victory after rival Mike Huckabee claimed victory in Iowa. Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter also remain in the Republican race.

We are going to prove that you can’t buy an election in the state of New Hampshire — and we are also going to prove that negative attack ads don’t work either, McCain said Monday in a jab at Romney, his main rival according to state opinion polls.

Former Tennessee Senator Thompson has nearly abandoned New Hampshire, while former New York Mayor Giuliani has concentrated his attention on later primaries.

A strong performance in New Hampshire can give a candidate valuable momentum, enabling them to rally supporters and raise extra campaign funds going forward to the crucial Super Tuesday primaries on February 5 when voters in 24 states will participate in primary elections.

By contrast, a poor showing in the Granite State can spell the end for a candidate’s White House chances.

Despite the millions spent by candidates from all parties over the past few weeks and months, the first results in New Hampshire came from two tiny hamlets, just after midnight and hours before the rest of the state’s polling places opened.

In Dixville Notch, a hamlet of about 75 near the Canadian border, Arizona senator McCain won the Republican primary with four votes, while Obama, a senator for Illinois, won seven votes in the Democratic contest. Watch Rep. Duncan Hunter honor the early-voting tradition

The two also won in midnight voting in Hart’s Location, population 42.

McCain won the state’s primary during his first White House bid eight years ago but eventually lost out to U.S. President George W. Bush for the Republican nomination.

A CNN/WMUR poll of likely voters released Monday night showed the race is still open on both sides with more than 20 percent of respondents on both Democrat and Republican sides saying they were undecided or were still open to changing their minds before voting.

New Hampshire’s independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the state’s electorate, could also throw a surprise into the primaries.

Monday’s poll showed McCain leading Romney by a margin of 31 to 26 percentage points.

For his part, Romney emphasized his experience in business rather than his experience in public office. If there has ever been a time we need a change in Washington, it’s now, he said. Because in my experience, what I’ve heard as I travel this country is that Washington is broken.

Former Arkansas governor Huckabee, who won Iowa with extensive support from evangelical Christian voters in that state, was running third in more secular, libertarian New Hampshire with 13 percent, Monday’s poll found.

Huckabee said Tuesday third would be huge for us. Even fourth is still better than where we were even two or three weeks ago.

Ron Paul, an anti-war Texas congressman and onetime Libertarian Party presidential nominee, was drawing 10 percent support in Monday’s poll. A growing number of independents have told pollsters they are considering voting for the Republican candidate.

The big trouble that we have over the last year was you know, getting our message out, Paul told CNN. And now, the money is flowing in, the money comes in faster than we can spend it. Because when people hear this message, they get so excited about it.

Among Democrats, Obama is hoping to turn an apparent boost in opinion polls after the Iowa caucuses into a second victory over his leading rivals, senator Hillary Clinton and former senator John Edwards.

Monday’s poll showed him enjoying a lead of 39 percent, with Clinton on 30 percent and Edwards third on 16 percent.

Obama’s theme of change has drawn crowds — but also criticism from rivals who suggest he will be too soft to deliver the change he promises, and too inexperienced to have a proven record of change.

Other hopefuls from both parties are also using the ‘change’ word to trumpet their own candidacy.

At a morning rally Tuesday, Obama said: My job is to be so persuasive that if there’s anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote,… you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama.

Sen. Clinton has tried to turn the tide by emphasizing her record as a change agent, as a senator and as first lady. This is very personal for me — it’s not just political, it’s not just public, she said in response to a question about the stress of the campaign. I see what’s happening, and we have to reverse it.

Edwards, meanwhile, blasted Clinton for taking money from the pharmaceutical and defense interests, despite her criticisms of big business while campaigning. What has been happening in America is it is big corporate businesses and big multinational corporations that have entirely too much influence on the policy, he told CNN.

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, placed fourth in Monday’s opinion poll on seven percent, said he has set his sights on the remaining undecided voters.

With Bill Richardson, you get change and you get experience, the former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary told CNN. You have to have experience to change things. I have a record.
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Woman who ran over street revelers is sentenced

WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman who injured nearly 50 people when she plowed her car through a street festival while high on crack cocaine was sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday.

Tonya Bell apologized to the victims, many of whom testified how their broken bones, scars and psychological wounds from the June 2 incident have had a profound impact on their lives, limiting their ability to work or pursue their life passions.

I’m so sorry for the pain I caused, said Bell, who quivered at the defense table and wept often during the half-hour hearing. It haunts me.

She told the victims she asks God to bless you back to health.

Bell, 30, of Oxon Hill, Maryland, pleaded guilty in October to multiple counts of aggravated assault while armed with a dangerous weapon, along with a charge of cruelty to children. District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Herbert Dixon gave Bell the maximum sentence allowed under the plea agreement she reached with prosecutors.

According to prosecutors, Bell had gone on a crack binge in the 24 hours before the street festival, consuming $700 worth of the drug. She then placed her 7-year-old daughter in the back seat of her station wagon and headed toward Unifest, a church-sponsored street festival in southeast Washington.

At speeds of up to 70 mph, Bell made two passes through the area, knocking people to the side and under the car. A police officer who tried to pull her over said she was laughing as she drove. Her station wagon was finally stopped when officers crashed their scooters under the vehicle and a man jumped through the window to put the transmission in park.

No one was killed, but 49 people were injured, including to police.

Some of the injured described in court how they dragged for several blocks under the car or thrown into the air by the impact. Most said they felt sorry for Bell.

Antwan Williams, 49, has had four operations on an injured leg and still suffers migraines and flashbacks.

I’d just like to ask her why she didn’t stop when she hit the first person, Williams told the judge.

Bell’s attorney said she had lived a tortured life, with abusive and absent parents. After eight criminal convictions, Bell appeared to have righted her life somewhat in 2004 when she was in a drug treatment program. However, she later became involved in an abusive relationship, which precipitated a drug relapse.

Bell said she had attended Unifest as a child.

I am horrified I ruined such a blessed event, she said. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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‘Old Gumlegs,’ the Rat Pack and star wars of 1980

(Mental Floss) — Some historians credit Republican President Warren G. Harding with running the first campaign that made use of celebrity endorsement.

When Harding ran in 1920, film was still just a fledgling industry. Harding was backed by conservative silent film stars like Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Al Jolson, evidently as part of a well-orchestrated campaign by ad agency Lord Thomas.

Other stunts planned by Albert Lasker, president of the agency, included having the aforementioned celebrities — as well as around 60 of their celebrity friends — sing Harding, You’re the Man for Us at an event hosted by the president-to-be, and bringing the Chicago Cubs down to Harding’s home town in Ohio for an exhibition game.

It worked. Harding was elected, although it soon became evident that he couldn’t sustain that initial popularity: He’s actually been called the worst president in history.

‘Old Gumlegs’

Evidently, W.C. Fields, curmudgeonly comedian on the early 20th century, wasn’t a big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt — so much so that he allegedly called the polio-victim Gumlegs, in addition to supporting Roosevelt’s challenger, Wendell Wilkie.

Of course, Fields’s lampooning of politics (and pretty much everything else) is part of his legend — in 1940, the same year of the Roosevelt-Wilkie election, he became an also ran, publishing Fields for President, a collection of humorous essays made out like campaign speeches.

Kennedy and the Rat Pack

Back in the day, John F. Kennedy was practically a card-carrying member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack and some political types believe his relationship with the coolest people in the world at the time aided in his defeat of Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 election.

Kennedy’s good looks and seemingly glamorous lifestyle identified him with the Hollywood elite that had adopted him, rendering him incredibly popular with the people. During the Democratic convention that election year, Hollywood’s support of Kennedy was on brilliant display: Kennedy shared the stage with stars like Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich and some political pundits reportedly joked that if elected, he would appoint Sinatra as Secretary of State.

Wilt and Tricky Dick

Remember back in the day when basketball great Wilt Chamberlain was bedding all those ladies? Well, it’s possible that the lanky Lothario took a brief break from all that sexin’ in 1968 — to stump for Richard Nixon. We guess it worked, because who wouldn’t want to vote like a man who claims to have slept with more than 20,000 women?

The star wars of 1980

The 1980 presidential election was so chock full of stars, it threatened to overshadow the actual politics involved.

In incumbent President Jimmy Carter’s corner was a greatest hits album of country and western stars: Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels and Johnny Cash all put on concerts and supported the southern Democrat.

Carter also had the star power of Mary Tyler Moore, Muhammad Ali, Roberta Flack, Dionne Warwick, Neil Simon, Lee Majors, and Elizabeth Bewitched Montgomery on his side.

But it evidently wasn’t enough. Former actor Ronald Reagan won, with a celebrity line-up that read like a Christmas special in Vegas: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Pat Boone, Wayne Newton, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, as well as James Cagney and Robert Stack (Unsolved Mysteries!)

Before Carter took the Democratic nomination, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy (he of the Chappaquiddick scandal) was also in the running. And he too had no dearth of Hollywood friends, including Warren Beatty, Angie Dickinson, Goldie Hawn, Martin Sheen, Bette Davis, Jack Lemmon and Shelly Winters.

Other candidates who time has forgotten also boasted all-star lists of endorsements: Paul Newman, Norman Lear, Jason Robards, Ed Asner, Margot Kidder and James Taylor supported John Anderson, while Helen I Am Woman Reddy and Linda Rondstadt both lifted their voices to support Jerry Brown.

The Boss and the 2004 election

In our most recent presidential election, the celebrities were also out in force. Before that terrifying rebel yell that may have cost him the primary, Howard Dean was endorsed by director and erstwhile actor Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally, All in the Family’s Meathead).

Governor and Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger backed President George W. Bush, as did evangelist Jerry Falwell and Curt Schilling.

And the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, backed Massachusetts Senator John Kerry both in words and song, playing a fundraising concert for Kerry in the last days leading up to the election. E-mail to a friend

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