by Jason George
It’s 7 a.m., which means the first polls have opened in two states holding presidential primaries today – No, not the large, delegate-rich, media-hogging locales of Texas and Ohio.
It’s time to vote in Rhode Island and Vermont!
That’s right, two other states in this union are helping pick candidates today; and while they collective have less delegates than the Dallas and Cleveland metropolitan areas, they’re both expecting record turnout today, as we’ve observed time and time again this election. Officials with the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office have even gone as far to say that they think they’ll see twice the number of voters they did in 2000.
In Rhode Island, polls show Sen. Hillary Clinton ahead by about 10 points, as she’s picked up the major political endorsements in the state, and is well connected and well known there. About the only in-state boldface name backing Sen. Barack Obama is his brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, Chicago native and second-season basketball coach at Brown University. (Family success that Obama hopes rubs off in RI: The Brown Bears’ 17-9 season is, so far, tied for the best in the school’s history.)
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Vermont represents a roll reversal from Rhode Island, with polls predicting an Obama landslide. (A Rasmussen poll two week ago had him up 24 percentage points.) Neither candidate has visited the state in the past two months, but both have at least phoned in interviews with local press, hoping to scoop up Green State’s 15 Democratic delegates by answering questions about local matters. If you’re interested in what those are – examples: an aging nuclear power plant and passport rules to cross from Canada – check out this primer from the “Burlington Free Press.”
In both heavily Democratic states, McCain is expected to win most, if not all, of the 37 collective Republican delegates. (Vermont is a winner-take-all state, RI is not.)