A top target for the GOP will be Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who was re-elected Senate majority leader earlier this week. It’s good to be the king, except for the large target on your back that comes with the territory. In 2010, expect Reid to be one of the Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbents.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid campaigns for Barack Obama in early November. Reid is banking on the voter registration edge enjoyed by Nevada Democrats to propel him to re-election in 2010. (Getty Images)

Felling opposition party leaders offers a sweeter victory than just picking up a seat in congress. In 2004, Republicans couldn’t hide their excitement over defeating Sen. Tom Daschle, who served as both majority and minority leader depending on the Democratic party’s fortunes year to year. Democrats targeted Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell this year, but were ultimately unsuccessful at poaching the Kentucky senator’s seat. Reid will be just the latest target.

Las Vegas Sun political columnist Jon Ralston anticipates Reid’s re-election campaign “will be the most expensive, most watched and most vitriolic contest in state history.” Ralston argues team Reid “plays politics like a UFC match without rules,” and notes that “Reid Fatigue” could keep the senator from landing a fifth term.

A frequent target of Republicans, Reid has never been terribly popular. Reid had his best showing in his most recent campaign, winning 61 percent of the vote against challenger Richard Ziser, a poorly-financed Evangelical Christian not in sync with the more live and let live attitude of Nevada Republicans on social issues, in 2004. But his previous campaigns were all squeakers. In his closest match-up, Reid beat John Ensign (who would win Nevada’s open Senate seat two years later) by 400 votes in 1998.

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki has stopped just short of throwing his hat in the ring, but called Reid “too liberal and too partisan for Nevada.” (National Journal ranked Reid 9th most liberal senator based on his 2007 voting record.) But in an editorial, the Las Vegas Review-Journal points to Reid’s handling of Sen. Joe Lieberman following the Democrat-turned-independent’s backing of Sen. John McCain for president as a sign that “Give ‘Em Hell Harry” can work the middle:

With the far-left wing of the Democratic Party still demanding a pound of flesh, Sen. Reid stuck by his word… Sen. Reid’s willingness to stand up to the yowling of unreasonable followers marks an encouraging start to his second go-round as Senate leader. We hope he can rein in what promises to be cornucopia of liberal legislation and look out for the interests of Nevada and its battered economy… He’ll need to display the kind of leadership he provided Tuesday if he expects Nevada voters to return him to office in 2010.

Ensign, who is plotting the state GOP’s comeback, said Rep. Jon Porter, who lost his bid for re-election to Dina Titus on November 4, is also a viable candidate. Ensign noted that losing a race today is no barrier to victory tomorrow in Nevada. Ensign won his seat in 2000 after losing to Reid two years earlier, and Titus beat Porter after losing her bid for governor in 2006. But with a gubernatorial election also on tap for 2010, RealClearPolitics reports that “top Republican challengers may have to be talked out of running for governor.”

The freshman members of congress — especially those whose districts switched party loyalty — will also be targets come 2010.

Among the most vulnerable freshman is Betsy Markey from Colorado’s 4th district. Observers continue to question whether Markey won or incumbent Marilyn Musgrave lost. Despite a double-digit loss, Musgrave — a social conservative who views gay marriage as a top concern — has yet to concede. The 4th district had been in Republican hands since 1973, and registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 168,689 to 123,281 (unaffiliated voters account for 154,516).

A number of potential challengers have already emerged, and Markey continues to portray herself as a moderate in the still conservative-leaning district. Rep. John Salazar has invited Markey to join the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats, telling the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel “she’s a very moderate to conservative Democrat… [who would] make a great Blue Dog.”

Markey, a former aide to Salazar’s brother Sen. Ken Salazar, has so far demurred, but has made it known she won’t just follow the Obama administration blindly. “I may have an issue with some of [the] policies that come from this administration,” Markey told PolitickerCO.com. “If I don’t agree then I will vote against it.”

The Colorado Independent suggests Focus on the Family‘s financial support of California’s Proposition 8 was a contributing factor to recently announced layoffs at the Colorado Springs-based ministry. Focus was the seventh largest donor to the “Yes on 8″ campaign, donating $539,000 and providing $83,000 in non-monetary support, according to the Independent. Elsa Prince, a contributor to conservative political causes and a Focus board member, also contributed $450,000.

Focus’ founder James Dobson spoke at a pro-8 prayer rally in San Diego the weekend before the election, saying traditional marriage was “on the ropes.” Following the election, Focus issued a somewhat self-congratulatory statement patting itself on the back for its role in passing the measure and saying that enshrining the one man, one woman definition of marriage in state constitutions “helps protect millions of children from radical indoctrination in the homosexual lifestyle.”

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, law professor Brian E. Gray finds another Colorado connection to the California proposition by equating the pending legal challenges to the measure with a proposition passed in Colorado in the 1990s that was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The current challenges to Prop 8 are process-based, says Gray, working under a theory that stripping same sex couples of the right to marry (a right granted in May when the Supreme Court of California invalidated an earlier statute banning gay marriage) is not an amendment to the constitution but a more sweeping constitutional revision that would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature prior to being put before voters. Though the current lawsuits are invoking the equal protection clause of the California constitution, Gray says Prop 8 opponents could follow the lead of opponents of Colorado’s Amendment 2 and take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Passed in 1992, Amendment 2 effectively barred any Colorado jurisdiction of passing laws to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. Writing for the majority in Romer v. Evans that invalidated Amendment 2 in 1996, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy quoted an earlier case:

If the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare … desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.

Gay rights activists have been wary of bringing the issues of gay marriage before the U.S. Supreme Court for fear of suffering a precedent-setting defeat. But the lawsuits in state court — and the rhetoric of protesters following Prop 8′s passing — have turned the issue into a question about majority-rule tyranny over minority rights. But is marriage a protected right?

Gray opines:

Proposition 8 suffers these same constitutional flaws [as Amendment 2]. It provides that gays and lesbians — alone among consenting adult couples — shall not have the opportunity to enjoy the rights, privileges and social approbation conferred by the status of lawful marriage.

Gay marriage supporters protested across California and the nation (including Denver and Boulder ) this weekend in opposition to Prop 8′s passing.

On November 4, voters in three states — Arizona, California, and Florida — amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage. But it’s California’s Proposition 8 that is drawing the strongest response from the gay rights community.

Unlike Florida and Arizona, where existing statutes already prohibited gay marriage, same-sex marriages were legal in California from June through election day (the California Supreme Court had overturned a gay marriage ban in May). Money from across the country flooded both camps, making it the most expensive cultural ballot measure in California history and the second most expensive campaign this year, behind only the presidential race.

The passing of Prop 8 was particularly difficult for the gay rights community — and satisfying for the measure’s backers — because California is considered to be among the more socially progressive states and many believe as goes California, so goes (eventually) the nation. Indeed, when the Connecticut Supreme Court issued its ruling in early October paving the way for gay marriage in that state, it cited the California Supreme Court ruling 15 times, calling it of “the most persuasive sister state precedent.”

Protests were held across California following Prop 8′s passage and opponents are mounting a legal challenge backed by local municipalities. But this weekend, the protests go nationwide.

“To say it’s only California’s problem is to say that ‘separate but equal’ in the South was only their problem,” Jill Roat, a University of Colorado student organizing a protest in Denver, told the Rocky Mountain News.

Users on social networking sites are stirring up pro-gay marriage forces and a website launched last week to push for nationwide protests this Saturday. Rallies will be held in Denver, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and across the country.

In 2006, 55 percent of Colorado voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Per Nevada law, voters must approve proposed amendments in two successive elections before they become law. In 2000 and 2002, Nevadans did just that, voting in favor of amending their constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

New Mexico is one of three states to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere — New York and Rhode Island are the other two. The state does not have a citizen initiative process. Alexis Blizman, former executive director of Equality New Mexico, told the Bay Area Reporter that the LGBT community in the state is closely watching how events unfold in California and estimated that at least 100 gay couples from New Mexico are among the thousands whose once-legal California marriages are now in jeopardy.

Republicans who believe the country is swinging left think the party needs to steer away from cultural wedge issues while at the same time reaching out to groups like Latinos who trend heavily toward the Democrats.

Sean Tonner, a political consultant who ran former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens‘ 2002 gubernatorial campaign told the Denver Post that the party needs to move away from the “God, guns and gays” litmus test on social issues.

“There is a group of people who want to have every candidate take a saliva test and be proven the purest of the pure,” said Sean Duffy, a former aide to Owens, who believes the former governor was sometimes marginalized in the party for being insufficiently conservative.

“If Republicans are going to survive we need to figure out a way to recruit and run candidates who are going to attract Democratic voters,” Nevada state Sen. Warren Hardy said in the Las Vegas Sun. “Nevada has gone in the last two to four years from center-right to center-left and it’s not going back.”

Greg Payne, a former New Mexico state representative, compared the Democrats’ win in 2008 to Republicans’ victory in 1980.

“The Democrats came back with Mondale in ’84, an ultra-liberal, and got shellacked. If the GOP makes similar moves and becomes even more far-right, we could be facing a similar fate in 2012,” Payne told the New Mexico Independent.

But others blame outside factors — an unpopular administration, the financial crisis, an insufficiently conservative candidate — for the Republican defeat. For them, Republicans don’t need a new script, just a new cast.

“This election was about Republicans running a more moderate Republican at the top of the ticket. The idea was that this would allow us to reach out to moderate Democrats and independents,” wrote New Mexico state Rep. Dan Foley in an opinion piece for the New Mexico Independent. “Now is not the time to move leftward. We did that and it didn’t work.”

“The Republican Party is a great coalition between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. If you leave either of those out of the equation, the party will not prosper and the country will not prosper,” former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong told the Denver Post.

“There is no excuse for a state that has been traditionally this red to end up with more independent voters than GOP voters,” Luke Shilts, president of the Colorado Young Republicans, told Fort Collins Now. Shilts attributes the state swinging blue to the Democratic Party’s strategizing and campaigning advantage this cycle, not ideology. “We’re being outspent, outmustered, outvolunteered,” he said.

No matter how the party shakes out, Republicans take some comfort in the fact that with Democrats in power, the blame for any failures now lies at their feet. And that can only be good for Republicans in 2010 and 2012. Of course, what they don’t admit so freely, is that Dems will also get credit for any successes.

Once upon a time — say, way back in 2004 — overwhelming Republican Party support in rural Nevada offset the Democratic advantage in densely-populated Clark County. Swing county Washoe, Nevada’s second most populous, often determined who won statewide campaigns. John Kerry won Clark County in 2004 by a less-than comfortable 5-point margin while George W. Bush won every other county in the state — Washoe by 4 points and rural counties by up to a 4-to-1 margin.

Fast-forward to 2008. Barack Obama lost the rural counties (but had a better showing than Kerry), improved his margins in Clark County, and flipped Washoe. Postgame analysis is far from over in the state, but one early question is emerging: Do the rurals still matter?

Obama fought hard for the rural counties, visiting Elko three times and drawing out the few liberals hiding in the shadows. John McCain, who finished third in Nevada’s Republican caucuses, wasn’t helped by lukewarm support among conservatives in the state, many of whom were more anti-Obama than pro-McCain. Most expected the rurals to play their usual role in helping determine who would win the state’s five electoral votes, but the Las Vegas Sun reports that “even if Obama had not gotten a single vote in the 14 counties outside Clark, Washoe and Carson City, and even if all of his votes had gone to McCain instead, he still would have carried the state.”

“I said in 2004, this may very well be the last statewide election where rurals can leverage the vote,” Elko Republican Party Chairman Reece Keener told the Sun. “We just don’t have the pull that we once did.”

In a close election, every state and every voter matters. Had Kerry won Nevada, he would have won the White House. Given Obama’s electoral vote drubbing of McCain, the Democrat didn’t need to win Nevada (or Colorado or New Mexico.) Similarly, his 12-point victory in Nevada meant he didn’t need the rurals any more than he needed any other specific subset of voters.

But by 2012 (or even the 2010 midterm elections, when the governorship, one Senate seat, and all the House seats are up for grabs), who’s to say Nevada Latinos will vote as overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates or at all? Maybe the slim voter registration edge enjoyed by Democrats in Washoe will reverse itself or turnout in Clark County will fall from the heights seen this year.

If the blue wave continue across Nevada, the rurals likely won’t matter in statewide campaigns as witnessed this year. But on a local level, the gun-loving ranchers and miners in rural communities will continue to dominate and could resist shifting blue themselves. It could all depend on how the new Democrats in power choose to govern.

“When we start to see some of the new programs coming out of Washington, it’s going to really galvanize things for us,” Keener said in the Sun.

Or maybe the blue waters will wash across the rural counties, too.

“When people see we are not radicals who shut down mines and take away their guns and we go out and fix the economy, things switch,” Lance Whitney, chairman of Elko’s Democratic Party told the Sun. “People’s minds switch.”

In the end, Barack Obama didn’t need the 19 electoral votes represented by Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, three states won by George W. Bush in 2004, to make it to the White House. But he won all three, two with double-digit margins. Early analysis of the blue shift in western states credits a range of factors including high support among first time voters, the energy of volunteers as part of the Obama political machine, Latino voters, and changing priorities in the suburbs.

The blue tide that swept across the west, aided by Obama’s aggressive push in the states but perhaps equally fueled by anti-Republican sentiment nationwide, also saw Democrats pick up two Senate and four House seats. A quick look at each states results.

Sen. Barack Obama is reflected in a boy’s sunglasses as he speaks in Pueblo, Colorado on November 1 (Reuters)

Colorado

Obama became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win a majority of Colorado’s votes since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. (Bill Clinton won a plurality in 1992, carrying the state when third party candidate Ross Perot siphoned off Republican votes.) The Illinois senator won 54 percent of the vote to John McCain’s 46 percent, receiving 170,000 more votes than his rival per the count as of this writing.

Obama beat McCain with women 56 to 41 percent, a reversal of 2004 when Bush beat John Kerry 51 to 41 percent, according to state exit polls (2004, 2008.) McCain still carried the state among men (50 to 49 percent), though with a tighter margin than Bush in 2004 (53 to 45 percent.) Obama also improved among white Evangelicals, winning 23 percent of their vote compared to Kerry’s 13 percent in 2004. With Obama improving with most groups, it’s somewhat curious that the exit poll showed support among Latinos actually dipped for the Democratic nominee to 61 percent. In 2004, Kerry carried 68 percent of Latino voters in the state.

On issues, Obama did best with people most concerned about health care, winning 78 percent of their vote, whole McCain did best with people most concerned with terrorism, claiming 88 percent of their vote.  Obama won more Republicans (13 percent) than McCain did Democrats (7 percent); Independents went for Obama over McCain 54 to 44 percent.

The estimated 2.2 million ballots cast in the state is expected to break a record, though some expected the turnout percentage to be higher.

For the state’s open Senate seat, Democrat Mark Udall was able to shrug off the “Boulder liberal” label and beat Republican challenger Bob Schaffer. Udall will succeed retiring Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican in office since 1997, taking over a seat that’s been in Republican hands since 1979. Junior Senator-elect Udall will join Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar who replaced Democrat-turned-Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell in 2005.

The only House seat to switch hands occurred in Colorado’s 4th congressional district. Three-term Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a far right conservative who called banning gay marriage “the most important issue that we face today” and once received an endorsement from the KKK, saw her margins of victory slip at each election and had the distinction of having the lowest winning percentage (46 percent) of any member of congress in the 2006 election. With polls in her favor leading up to the election, challenger BetseyMarkey expected to win but was surprised at her 11-point margin (56 to 44) given the district is still a conservative stronghold. Ever the gracious loser, Musgrave hadn’t called Markey to concede as of Wednesday afternoon.

Obama supporters celebrate at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada (Getty Images)

Nevada

Obama’s 12-point victory in Nevada is really a tale of two counties: Washoe and Clark.

As expected, Obama crushed McCain in Clark County, the population center of the state which accounted for 69 percent of all registered voters in the state on election day. Obama won 58 percent of Clark County votes to McCain’s 40 percent which amounted to a 122,803 vote advantage for the Democrat, per figures available as of this writing. Statewide, Obama won by 120,521 votes, finishing with 55 percent of the vote to McCain’s 43 percent.

The margin in Clark County alone might have been enough to carry the state, but a dramatic shift in second most populous Washoe County made the Obama victory that much easier. Obama won Washoe, which claimed 1,200 more registered Democrats than Republicans, 55 to 43 percent. In 2004, when registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 17,000, Bush carried the county 51 to 47 percent with a margin of victory of 6,700 votes. In the less populous rural counties, Obama lost by as much as 4-to-1.

Exit polls show Obama won a majority of both men and women voters (51 percent and 59 percent, respectively) and all age groups except 65 and older.Obama’s support went down with age, from 70 percent among 18-24 year olds to 52 percent of voters 50-64 years old. McCain won 55 percent of voters over 65. In 2004, exit poll data showed Bush with an advantage among men (54 percent to Kerry’s 44 percent) and all age groups over 30. Kerry won more women, 52 to 47 percent.

African-Americans made up 10 percent of the 2008 vote and went for Obama 94 percent to McCain’s 5 percent. Latinos, comprising 15 percent of voters, went for Obama over McCain 76 to 22 percent. McCain won 53 percent of white voters toObama’s 45 percent. Obama improved on Kerry’s 2004 performance among all races; Kerry had 86 percent of the African-American vote, 60 percent of the Latino vote, and 43 percent of the white vote.

Similar to results in Colorado, Obama did best (74 percent) with people who viewed health care as the most important issue and McCain did best (89 percent) with people who thought terrorism was most important.

Obama managed to sway 11 percent of Republicans, while McCain got 6 percent of Democrats to cross over. Independents broke 54 to 41 for Obama.

Two of three Nevada’s House members held on to their seats — Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) and Rep. Dean Heller (R). State Sen. Dina Titus beat three-term incumbent Rep. Jon Porter in the 3rd district which the Republican congressman has represented since it was created following the 2000 census. Titus, who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to Republican Jim Gibbons, beat Porter 47 to 42 percent, with third party candidates collecting the rest of the votes. Early on election night, Heller told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he saw himself as the underdog. “This district went from dead even in registration to 40,000 more registered Democrats voters this time,” he said. Titus credited Obama’s field operation for helping her get elected.

Sen. John McCain urges on his supporters in Albuquerque, New Mexico on election day (Getty Images)

New Mexico

Of the western swing states, New Mexico is probably the most swingy. New Mexico voters picked Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush in 1988 but Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Gore in 2000 (by a razor-thin 366 votes) but Bush in 2004 (by just shy of 6,000 votes.) This year, the state appeared tired of such close races, giving Obama a resounding 15 point, 120,000 vote win.

But perhaps most interesting about New Mexico this season is it turned — as predicted by some — true blue. The congressional seats held by Republicans — one in the Senate and two in the House — fell to the Democrats marking the “first time in 40 years in which Democrats completely controlled the state’s congressional delegation,” predicted by some — true blue. The congressional seats held by Republicans — one in the Senate and two in the House — fell to the Democrats marking the “first time in 40 years in which Democrats completely controlled the state’s congressional delegation,” wrote Steve Terrell in The New Mexican.

When Republican Sen. Pete Domenici announced his retirement, all three current House members entered the race to replace him, leaving all three seats open races. Rep. Heather Wilson lost in the Republican primary to Rep. Steve Pearce, who in turn lost to Rep. Tom Udall (cousin to Colorado’s Senator-elect Mark Udall) on Tuesday. Udall enjoyed an even wider margin of victory than the top of the ticket, beating Pearce 61 to 39 percent. Obama beat McCain 57 to 42 percent.

In the 1st and 2nd congressional districts, both currently held by Republicans, the Democratic nominees enjoyed identical 55 to 45 percent victories. The more liberal leaning 3rd district was not expected to be a close race, and the Democrat won handily 57 to 30 percent.

Obama won 54 percent of the male vote and 59 percent of the female vote; he also carried every age group, according to state exit polls. New Mexico has the highest percentage of Latinos of any state, and they comprised 41 percent of the electorate on Tuesday voting for Obama 69 percent of the time. In 2004, Kerry won 56 percent of the Latino vote.

Among white voters, the results were the same as in 2004; whites backed Bush over Kerry 56 to 43 percent and McCain over Obama 56 to 42 percent. Most voters (55 percent) said that the economy was the most important issue, and of those 60 percent voted for Obama. McCain did best with voters most concerned about terrorism, earning 84 percent of their vote, while Obama did best with people most concerned about Iraq, winning 70 percent of their vote.

More Democrats went for McCain (9 percent) than Republicans went for Obama (8 percent), and both earned 91 percent of their party’s votes; Independents backed Obama over McCain 56 to 41 percent.

For more front pages from around the globe, visit Newseum, The Interactive Museum of News

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Hundreds of reports on your election day experiences have poured into OfftheBus, and in battleground states the results are mixed. By early afternoon, wait times ranged from minutes to hours and, despite minor hiccups, most people found the process reaffirming.

Expectations going in largely impacted impressions coming out. Fearing 4 hour lines, people thought nothing of waiting an hour and a half. Some used to 2 minute waits in their small communities were happy to wait 45 minutes since it meant more people were engaged. There was little politicking at the polls, and when it occurred, it was mostly of a friendly variety.

Electronic voting machines broke down and names were missing from voter rolls, but nightmare scenarios were largely “what-ifs” that didn’t come true. Most problems were fixed on site, but voters nevertheless experienced a sense of exceptionalism. “Sure, my problem was resolved, but what about everyone else out there?”

Overall, people seemed pleasantly surprised that the system didn’t implode around them, but still wished the process weren’t so complicated.

There was no line at my suburban precinct. I got my card and chose one of the three unoccupied Diebold machines, took about 5 minutes to complete the voting, and hit the print button. Nothing. Called poll workers, who had trouble figuring out how to cancel the vote so I could use another machine. Finally they opened the printer, and the paper was bunched up. It’s pretty clear that people had used the machine and failed to check the paper trail. Finally the machine timed out and returned my card, so they “refreshed” it and I used another machine, which worked fine. I certainly hope my vote got counted… Obama needs all the votes he can get here in “red” country. Next time, I’ll go for a paper ballot. Advice to voters on electronic machines: don’t leave the polling station without seeing a paper confirmation of your vote!

Judith Keim, West Chester, Ohio; total time at polls: several minutes

I went in to vote this morning, got there by 7 was out of the line by 7:45 only to discover I’M NOT ON THE REGISTRY even though i had in my hand a VOTER REGISTRATION CARD!… After an hour of waiting in ANOTHER very long line waiting to verify that I WAS registered (apparently a legal voters registration card is NOT enough) and had not early voted. Once my turn came up the lady could not find me in the system. After about 20 minutes she discovered a typo on my registration card they spelled my first name as Zsa-Asa she then found THAT name in the registry and suddenly I’m allowed to vote as THAT was the supposed problem all along.

Zsazsa O’Neal, Seffner, Florida; total time at polls: 2+ hours

I noted that they checked my name and middle initial before giving me my ballot pass. The thought crossed my mind that if I had not signed my voters registration documents or my driver’s license with my middle initial there would have been a problem, and I would have been calling 1866ourvote right then and there.

Bill Pellegrini, Dania Beach; total time at polls: 2.5 hours

The woman in front of me had an address that did not match up. She was checked and verified and permitted to vote. I was checked in, signed a book, signed a card, asked to recite my address, and given back the signed card with a sticker on it that had my personal information… I filled in my ballot and took it to an optical scanner, where I was instructed to put it in myself and that was it. ID verification, paper trail, all good…I can only hope that it goes half this well in the rest of the state.

Denise Thress, Oxford, Florida; total time at polls: 30 mins

We arrived at the polling place at two minutes after 6 am to find the parking lot full. We parked on the grass and entered to find the line dedicated to the second half of the alphabet was empty so we were lucky enough to walk straight in and vote… The most remarkable thing was that at this rural Virginia polling place there were many Obama signs lining the road in but not a single McCain sign.

Steve Trumbull, Nellysford, Virginia; total time at polls: several minutes

I arrived at the polling place at 6:40 am. Long, long line but full of friendly enthusiastic people. Lots of good conversation. There was a bus load of people from a retirement home that were being helped. We had a choice of electronic or paper ballot. I chose paper. The ballot was easy to read and understand and I put the ballot in the scanner myself. No one seemed to be discouraged. I left the polling place at 10:10. Three and one half hours to cast the most important and exciting vote of my life.

Mary Quallo, Florissant, Missouri; total time at polls: 3.5 hours

My wife and I arrived at the polling place at 7:00 am, the time the polls opened and found several hundred people, all students or student age, already in line… Everyone looked groggy, but they all dragged themselves to the polls at an ungodly hour, many of them looking like they still had last night’s clothes on. We’ve voted here for 12 years, and in a normal presidential election we would have been the first in the door at 7:00 am, but Not This Time!

Joe Andrukitas, State College, Pennsylvania; total time at the polls: 1.5 hours

Living in rural Virginia, I was expecting to see some sort of voter suppression. To give you some idea about the area that I live in, about a year ago I came home from work to find a six page newsletter had been left in my door by “the knights of theku klux clan”. When I got out of my car this morning the first thing I saw was that the McCain volunteer and the Obama volunteers were sitting together, and talking. Not arguing, just having a chat like they were old friends… I was glad to see that we could all come together in this small town in rural Virginia, and make our choice for the future of the country.

Bert Werker, Louisa, Virginia; total time at the polls: 30 mins

My wife and I woke up at 6 AM today and went to stand in line to vote. The line was longer than any other time we have voted at our polling place, however, it still moved quickly… We had the choice of paper ballot or touch screen computer, we chose the paper ballot. There is something about filling in the circle next to your vote that seems more fulfilling to me than a touch screen. Plus, I am too skeptical of the touch screen machines.

Chris Brauner, St. Louis, Missouri; total time at polls: 45 mins

I got to the polls by 5:45 AM to join a growing number of college students who have never seen that side of 6 am. It was incredibly exciting to show the world that this time, young people WILL be heard! Everyone was in PJs and great spirits!… On the other hand, I thought the voting machines were far more complicated than is actually necessary. Also, the lines were long enough that electioneering was still occurring- how annoying.

Arin Smith, Charlottesville, Virginia; total time at polls: 45 mins

Things went smoothly until I placed the 2nd of my ballot sheets into the I-Votronic scanning machine and it jammed. It took 10 mins for the poll worker to unjam the machine, placing keys in all sorts of places to unlock and reset the machine. I grew anxious, because I had scanned my ballot for the Presidential election minutes before the jam. Did my vote get registered? The poll worker assured me it did. I walked out of the precinct with a new feeling, not the excitement I had felt earlier in the day, but one of uneasiness and concern. There were only two machines at this precinct, what would happen if this machine broke down at the peak times of 12:00 and 5:00? Were similar problems ocurring across my county? My state? Nationwide?

Denise Appleby Horland, Plantation, Flordia; total time at polls: 45 mins

Three different people I talked to cited Joe the Plumber as one reason they were voting. Unfortunately for McCain, all three were voting for Obama.

Bill Anderson, Atlanta, Georgia; total time at polls: 1 hour, 45 mins

Today was good day at the polls. As I was walking in to vote I saw person talking to individuals about voting for McCain/ Palin. I have to admit that I had a feeling of pure joy that while I was observing him people were not paying him any mind. The ones that did stop, only paused long enough to inform him that they were voting for Obama!

Tonya King, Liberty, Missouri; total time at polls: 10 mins

Salon’s Mike Madden visited the New Life megachurch in Colorado Springs on Sunday and found the political energy muted. The evangelical Christians he spoke with were lukewarm on McCain (though excited about Sarah Palin) and appeared to be bracing for an Obama victory in the state and the nation. Unlike 4 and 8 years ago, when conservative Christians were seen as a crucial part of Bush’s winning coalition, in 2008 their influence is waning.

“Should places like Colorado, and Ohio, and North Carolina and Virginia — all states with more than their fair share of evangelical Christian conservatives — go blue on Tuesday, it will be a clear sign that the sun may be setting on the political influence of fundamentalist churches like New Life,” Madden writes.

Not only is the Illinois senator cruising to a victory in a state that hasn’t gone for a Democrat since Bill Clinton’s first term — and before that, not since LBJ in 1964 — but a state ballot proposition that should be chum in the water for anti-abortion conservative Christians is losing by a 2-to-1 ratio. Amendment 48 — or the “Personhood” amendment — would define “any human being from the moment of fertilization” as a person.

A mock letter from 2012 put out by Focus on the Family — the Colorado Springs-based Christian outfit headed by Dr. James Dobson whose sole purpose seems to be to stoke the culture wars — describes a world with gay marriage, on-demand abortion, strict gun control, Bush administration officials in jail for war crimes, and explicit sex on network TV all brought on by an Obama administration.

How did this happen, the letter asks and answers:

Christians share a lot of the blame. In 2008, many evangelicals thought Senator Obama was an opportunity for a “change,” and they voted for him… Christians did not realize that by electing Barack Obama — rated the most liberal U.S. senator in 2007 — they would allow the law, in the hands of a liberal Congress and Supreme Court, to become a great instrument of oppression. Many people thought he sounded so thoughtful, so reasonable. And during the campaign, after he had won the Democratic nomination, he seemed to be moving to the center in his speeches, moving away from his far-Left record… Christians didn’t take time to find out who Barack Obama was when they voted for him. Why did they risk our nation’s future on him? It was a mistake that changed the course of history.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver has passed out Focus on the Family’s voter guide, and Archbishop Charles Chaput has vocally opposed any candidate that he sees as pro-abortion and called Obama “the most pro-abortion politician to run for the presidency in 35 years, since Roe v. Wade. He has committed himself to do things the Catholic Church would resist.”

But just as all Evangelicals are not in lock step with their most vocal leaders, not all Catholics are falling in line. “I vehemently object to the notion that I’m not a good Catholic because I see things differently,” a 66-year-old Greenwood Village Catholic told the Denver Post.

The Mathew 25 Network, a pro-Obama Christian PAC, ran ads in Colorado arguing voters can be pro-life and pro-Obama. Among the group’s supporters is Douglas Kmiec, a noted Catholic legal scholar who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and dean of the Catholic University law school.

In arguing against the limus test on aborton set out by Chaput, Kmeic suggests Obama may be pro-choice, but his broader social agenda would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies more than oveturning Roe v. Wade:

Empirical study confirms abortion reduction through the Obama cultural and economic assistance course of action. Further, Obama’s center-piece commitment to improving the economic and health related conditions of the average family embraces (far more than McCain’s continuation of the trickle down policies of President Bush) the wider definition of ‘culture of life’ in the Church’s pastoral constitution. Given that, Obama presents both a proportionate reason to favor him (Obama’s policy saves at least some children as against saving none) and Obama quite simply presents the better alternative in terms of overall Catholic social teaching.

Looking at how cultural wedge issues, and abortion specifically, affect religious voters’ preferences, Newsweek online noted a recent study that found “70 percent of American Catholics say they are willing to oppose their bishops on abortion. But that doesn’t mean they will.”

This year, it appears that even religious voters are finding ways to escape cultural wedge issues — just look at the 600 Latter Day Saints who protested against California’s gay marriage ban in Salt Lake City — and support candidates or propositions that run against Christian sterotypes. Come Tuesday and in the following weeks and years, it’ll become clear where this apparent trend was real or not and whether it represented an aberrant moment in time or the start of a larger movement.

New Mexico’s largest newspaper the Albuquerque Journal became one of the last papers to endorse a presidential candidate this year, announcing its support for Republican Sen. John McCain on Sunday placing it among the minority of newspaper endorsements nationwide, according to Editor & Publisher. As of today, 273 papers have endorsed Sen. Barack Obama and 142 have endorsed McCain. Obama is ahead in endorsements 14-to-8 among Battle for the West papers.

Former Journal reporter and editorial writer Denise Tessier wrote in the New Mexico Independent that the Journal’s endorsement appears to cling to the “classic idea of the unsigned editorial.” Unlike many modern endorsements that weigh the pros and cons of each candidate or offer a peak inside the sausage factory by exposing internal debate among editorial board members, the Journal’s endorsement “props up the one being endorsed while rarely acknowledging any weaknesses” and “implies consensus of the board” that Tessier doubts existed.

David Alire Garcia, also a former Journal editorial writer, agrees with Tessier’s assessment.

“When I opened the Sunday Journal and learned that the state’s paper of record had endorsed McCain, I immediately knew the endorsement wasn’t the product of a reasoned consensus involving the members of the Journal’s current editorial board,” he wrote for the New Mexico Independent. “Instead, the Journal’s McCain endorsement is the dictate of one man.”

That man is Journal publisher T. H. Lang, and both Tessier and Garcia tell similar tales of his involvement in the 2004 endorsement. Tessier remembers the path to supporting Bush for reelection:

I thought declining to endorse a possible option for the Journal, and suggested it as our position. After I laid out the negatives of the Bush administration and positives about Kerry’s record in the Senate, the discussions circled the table — and all comments about Bush fit the negative column until we came back around the circle to [editor Kent] Walz. In light of our remarks, Walz said he would take two suggestions to the publisher: Go with Kerry or don’t endorse.

Garcia recalls the vote among board members being 4-to-1 in favor of endorsing Kerry, but ultimately “it was the publisher’s personal view reflected in the Sunday Journal four years ago.”

Many readers assume editorials — the voice of the paper — represent some sort of democratic consensus of staffers a la Slate’s listing of which candidate its staffers are backing. Readers who know about and understand the firewall often separating an editorial board from its reporting staff might similarly assume that the endorsement at least represents consensus of that board.

“It’s this kind of confusion that plays right into the hands of the Journal’s top brass, and elevates the importance of the endorsement in the eyes of readers and ultimately voters,” Garcia said.

In the last 6 months, the state has turned from toss-up to strongly favoring the Democratic nominee, and Obama enjoys an 8.5 point lead in the state heading into the election Tuesday.