Dixville Notch for Obama

Dixville Notch has spoken: and it's Barack Obama by a landslide. And a bad night for Hillary.

I'm in the north mountains of New Hampshire, in a remote hamlet a few miles from the Canadian border, where the 17 voters in Dixville Notch have just cast the first ballot in the New Hampshire primary, like they do every four years, at one second past midnight - six hours before the rest of the state's voting venues open.

Dixville Notch, population 74, has held this New Hampshire ritual since 1960. The road signs read "Brake for Moose", but once every four years, it basks in the kleig lights of cable television and the moose have to watch out for satellite trucks.

In the Balsams hotel, a vast New Hampshire hostelry founded in 1856, 13 voters filed in - four others had cast absentee ballots - and posed for pictures. Bob Mills, the hotel electrician, told me at 10pm that he was still undecided. His wife Amber was also conflicted. The town clerk, Rick Erwin - who would play a central role in the vote count - said he was a little overwhelmed by the occasion.

The 13 voters registered, at 11.58.30pm, amid flashing light bulbs. The heat was on. Duncan Hunter, a Republican congressman and presidential candidate - longshot is a kind description - was the only 2008 White House hopeful there. He said he had come for the fun of it. He must have a good sense of humour. He was not even on Dixville Notch's ballot.

At one second past midnight they marked their ballots. At 12.02.33 the results were announced, in this order: one vote for Rudy Giuliani; four for John McCain; two for Mitt Romney.

John Edwards two votes; Bill Richardson one; Barack Obama seven. Huge cheers. Hillary? No votes.

Dixville Notch is often utterly unrepresentitive of the way New Hampshire votes later in the day. In  the 2004 primary, Wesley Clark won here. (Google him). So I asked Tanner Tillotson why he went for Obama. Not only had two of Obama's staff been up to Dixville Notch to canvass, but he liked Obama's detailed position on "network neutrality" - financial equality in cyberspace.

That's Obama's campign for you. He's not just soaring rhetoric. Beneath all that, there is ferocious organisation.