Time's Up! Voters Go To The Polls
They must be tired, after the nation's longest-ever presidential election campaign, but with Election Day finally here, it's a good bet President Bush, Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, and more than a few of their aides were unable to resist staying up long enough to find out the results from the first towns to cast Nov. 2nd ballots.
On election eve, the presidential candidates and their running mates made their final pitches to swing state voters in a race that polls said is still too close to call.
A CBS News poll released Monday shows Mr. Bush leading Sen. Kerry 47-46 percent among likely voters, well within the poll's statistical margin of error.
Voting just after midnight, Hart's Location - a tiny New Hampshire hamlet - split 15 votes for Mr. Bush and 15 votes for Kerry, with one vote for Ralph Nader, while in neighboring Dixville Notch, there were 19 Bush votes, 7 Kerry votes and none for Nader.
There won't be any more votes to count in those towns, which since 1948 have off and on taken advantage of a state law allowing the polls to close early if all registered voters have voted.
They have.
Nationwide, Election Day 2004 is seen very much as a battle of who gets out the vote the best - with an emphasis on new voters and others who may not have bothered to get to the polls in the past.
Both parties have get-out-the-vote operations that are groundbreaking in their size and expense.
The Bush campaign has built a web of neighborhood volunteers who take directions, largely by e-mail, from his Arlington, Va., headquarters. Kerry will depend on a conglomerate of labor, party and liberal issue-driven groups that target and motivate voters with armies of paid workers.
Four years ago, Democratic nominee Al Gore had 90,000 people with specifically assigned jobs working to get out the vote on Election Day. This year, Kerry has 47,000 in Ohio alone - 250,000 nationally. The growth of the Republican operation is just as big, if not bigger.
Squeezing every dwindling hour for campaigning, President Bush laid on a six-state, seven-stop tour stretching from early morning into late night, mostly in the Midwest. Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry was working the heartland for a final time, too, after a morning stop in Florida, scene of the disputed 2000 vote that gave Mr. Bush the presidency.
In an airplane hangar in Wilmington, Ohio, Gov. Bob Taft warmed up Mr. Bush's crowd of several thousand supporters on the president sixth straight day in the crucial battleground state. "He's putting his heart and his soul on the line for us, for our families, for our future," Taft said. "We have got to do the same."
"I know the economy of this state has been through a lot, but we are moving in the right direction," Mr. Bush said, addressing a wider audience of people who have lost jobs in Ohio during his four years in office. "We have to keep your taxes low and I want you to remind your friends and neighbors that my opponent will raise the taxes on Ohio's families and Ohio's small businesses."
Both sides had get-out-the-vote armies primed for action, plus lawyers deployed across the country ready to throw any photo finish into court at the first sign of polling-place irregularities.
"I expect this election is going to be decided Tuesday night," Kerry told The Associated Press on Sunday, "but, given experience, I would be irresponsible if I wasn't prepared to be able to protect every person's right to vote."
Mr. Bush said it was vital to see a clear winner emerge election night, especially considering how closely the process is being watched around the world.
"We'll see how it goes Tuesday night but I really think it's important not to have a world of lawsuits that stop the will of the people from going forward," the president told NBC.
The long, bruising campaign was finally ending, surely not a moment too soon for the combatants. Kerry occasionally coughed during his speech at a Tampa, Fla., rally Sunday night, which in the past has been an early sign of losing his voice.
Mr. Bush stocked up on lozenges and cut down on caffeine, which constricts the vocal cords, said adviser Karl Rove, who figured the president's voice would be hoarse in another day anyway. Asked what Mr. Bush is doing to save his voice, Rove cracked, "Just chewing on me less every day."
Mr. Bush pitched his case for continuity in the war on terrorism before tens of thousands filling the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati on Sunday night.
With U.S. and Iraqi forces preparing for an onslaught against the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah, Mr. Bush offered this explanation for the bloody run-up to Iraqi elections at the end of January: "Iraq is a dangerous place today because Iraq is moving toward freedom."
Kerry defended himself against Republican attacks that he lacks the toughness to serve as commander in chief.
"When I turned my boat in Vietnam into an ambush and went straight into the ambush and overran it, I didn't see George Bush or Dick Cheney at my side," Kerry told CBS News' The Early Show. "So I'm not going to take a second seat to anyone in my willingness to be tough. I did it when it mattered and as president I will defend the U.S. with everything that I have."
The president campaigned in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico Monday before a crowning home-state rally in Dallas and a night at his Crawford ranch. Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Hawaii for a late-night rally before heading back to the mainland early Monday.
Kerry made his final pitches Monday in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Vice President Dick Cheney carried the GOP message to Hawaii and Nevada Tuesday, as Sen. John Edwards did his last stump speeches on a breakneck schedule of stops in Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio and Florida.