Japanese clone mouse from frozen cell, aim for mammoths
by Kyoko Hasegawa Kyoko Hasegawa – Tue Nov 4, 3:31 am ET AFP – This handout picture, released by Japan natural science research center shows a cloned mouse (left) created … TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths.
Scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken used the dead cell of a mouse that had been preserved at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a temperature similar to frozen ground.
The scientists hope that the first-of-a-kind research will pave the way to restore extinct animals such as the mammoth.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of the dead mouse and planted it into an egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse, the researchers said.
"The newly developed technology of nucleus transfer greatly improved the possibility of reviving extinct animals," the research team led by Teruhiko Wakayama said in a statement.
"Even though reviving extinct animals is often described in films and novels -- such as in Michael Crichton's 'Jurassic Park' -- it had in reality been impossible," they said.
Cells from dead bodies have previously been useless as they are ruined in the freezing process. But Wakayama's team discovered a way to extract a nucleus intact from a frozen cell by grinding cell tissues into multiple pieces.
The cloned mouse was able to reproduce with a female mouse, it added.
But the researchers said tough challenges remain ahead in terms of how to restore extinct animals, which would require breeding with animals that are still alive.
To revive a mammoth, researchers would need to find a way to implant a cell nucleus of a mammoth into the egg of an elephant and then implant the embryo into an elephant's uterus, it said.
The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the Ice Age.
But Akira Iritani, a mammoth expert at Kinki University in Osaka, said it was only a matter of time before researchers could find a mammoth for a resurrection project.
"I have high hopes that we will be able to find a fine sample," he told public broadcaster NHK.
"It's said that there are more than 10,000 mammoths lying underneath Siberia," he said.
Even if it is impossible to recreate a whole animal, the process could create cloned embryonic stem cells for extinct species, giving a boost to research on evolution and zoology, he said.
Cloning can be controversial in terms of both bioethics and, if the animals are eaten, food safety.
Earlier this year, a report by the European Union warned that cloning can threaten the health of livestock.
South Korea's parliament has passed a law to regulate research into cloning, following a scandal in which a now-disgraced expert falsely claimed to have made the first human clone stem cells.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Japanese clone mouse from frozen cell, aim for mammoths
Obama vows to be president for all
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama
CHICAGO – A triumphant Barack Obama vowed to be a president for all America, even those who voted against him, and asked for patience to address the nation's problems of war and finance that he called the greatest challenges of a lifetime.
The first black president-elect cast his election as a defining moment in the country's 232-year history and a rebuke to cynicism, fear and doubt.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said in his first public words after winning the election.
His victory speech was delivered before a multiracial crowd that city officials estimated at 240,000 people. Many cried and nodded their heads while he spoke, surrounded by clear bulletproof screens on his left and right.
He appeared on stage with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, poised to become the first family of color ever to occupy the White House. Every family member dressed in black and red, and Obama told his daughters during his speech that they would get the puppy he promised would come with a victory.
"Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century," he said. "There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and, for us to lead, alliances to repair."
He was already suggesting a second term to accomplish his goals, saying he expected "setbacks and false starts."
"We may not get there in one year or even one term," he said. "But America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you — we as a people will get there."
To those who voted against him, he said, "I will be your president, too."
Obama, an Illinois senator born 47 years ago of a white American mother and a black African father, sprinkled his address with references to the civil rights struggle. He paid tribute to Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106-year-old daughter of slaves born at a time when women and blacks couldn't vote. She cast her ballot in Atlanta Tuesday, Obama said.
He quoted another president from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, and although he didn't mention Martin Luther King Jr.'s name, he echoed King's statement that "we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Obama invited "those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day."
The president-elect said he looks forward to working with Republican rival John McCain, who called him to concede as The Associated Press and television networks called the race at 11 p.m. EST. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama thanked McCain for his graciousness and told him he had waged a tough race.
Gibbs quoted Obama as saying to McCain: "I need your help. You're a leader on so many important issues"
President Bush called Obama shortly after the Illinois senator hung up with McCain, and Vice President Dick Cheney called Obama running mate Joe Biden. Obama watched McCain's concession speech from his suite in a downtown hotel, where he had watched returns with Biden, his extended family and senior campaign staff.
A few blocks away, the crowd in Grant Park that included celebrities Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey erupted into cheers to see their chosen candidate break the White House color barrier. Audience members leapt into the air, waving American flags.
The size of the group, spread out toward the Chicago skyline a few blocks in the distance, reflected the eye-popping crowds that Obama drew throughout his campaign. Even the weather favored Obama — the temperature was around 60 degrees as he spoke, unusual for a November night in Chicago.
Obama began the day by casting his vote with his wife and daughters at his side. He unwound while waiting for returns by playing two hours of basketball with friends and staff, then eating a steak dinner at home with his immediate family and in-laws.
He made a final Election Day campaign stop in Indiana, one of several longtime Republican strongholds in the presidential race that he tried to win. It was a symbolic ending of a campaign for a candidate who first made his name with an address to the Democratic National Convention four years ago in which he decried efforts to "slice and dice our country into red states and blue states."
He repeated that sentiment in his victory speech. "We have never been a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America," he said.
___
On the Net:
Obama campaign: http://www.barackobama.com
US first lady: an unscripted and powerful role
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usvotewives
by Kate Beddall Kate Beddall – Featured Topics: John McCain Barack Obama Play Video Reuters – Obama wins U.S presidency
Play Video Video: Michelle Obama Ponders Possible Future As 1st Lady WCCO Minneapolis Play Video Video: '08 winner's daunting "to do" list Reuters Play Video Video: Sights and Sounds: Presidential elation AP Reuters – U.S. President-elect Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia (2nd R) … WASHINGTON (AFP) – Unpaid, with no official duties, the wife of the US president can exert enormous influence, since she has both the ear of the president and a powerful bully pulpit all her own.
With Barack Obama's victory in the US election Tuesday, Michelle Obama is set to become the first African-American first lady in US history, in a year that also saw former first lady Hillary Clinton shatter barriers with her formidable run for the White House.
Since Martha Washington reluctantly debuted the role in 1789 -- despite a marked preference for private life -- a varied parade of American women has passed through the role, transforming it along the way in its many guises: national hostess, White House manager, behind-the-scenes policy advisor, public advocate of favorite causes.
The vivacious Dolley Madison, wife of the fourth president James Madison (1809-1817), presided the first inaugural ball in Washington, entering on the arm of the new president "dressed in a buff-colored velvet-gown, wearing pearls and large plumes in a turban," according to the National First Ladies' Library.
The celebrated hostess and fashion-setter was later seen as a national heroine because she refused to leave the White House until a portrait of George Washington was taken to safety when British troops burned Washington during the War of 1812.
Mary Lincoln (1861-1865) lived one of the most tragic chapters in the history of the role, seeing her 11-year-old son Willie die of disease in the White House and her husband shot dead while the two attended the theater just days after the end of the Civil War. Mary Lincoln later slipped into madness and died, impoverished, in 1882.
The gifted and ambitious Hellen Taft (1909 - 1913) was the first first lady to advocate women's right to vote, not established in the United States until 1920.
She also made dramatic symbolic changes at the White House, replacing its corps of all-white male ushers -- who greeted visitors -- with African-Americans, and changing presidential transportation from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles, according to the National First Ladies' Libraries.
When a stroke left Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) partly paralyzed in 1919, his wife of four years, Edith Wilson, "took over many routine duties and details of government," her official White House biography says.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1935-1945) eschewed the duties of running the White House and became one of the most active first ladies ever, travelling all over the United States and the world speaking on the issues of the day, notably civil rights.
After Franklin D. Roosevelt's death she maintained a high profile, and was appointed by President Harry Truman US delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. She helped draft the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was dubbed "First Lady of the World" by Truman.
The young Jacqueline Kennedy (1961-1963) charmed with her glamor and beauty, attracting a glare of public attention to the role that has never faded.
But it was her courage and grace after John Kennedy's assassination that most engraved her image on the world and, fourteen years after her death, she remains among the most popular first ladies ever.
Among first ladies still living, Betty Ford (1974-1977) further transformed the role through her public battles with alcoholism and breast cancer and her outspoken advocacy of women's rights.
Her candor inspired thousands, demonstrating the influence a first lady can yield on social issues, and she went on to win a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991, among other accolades, for "selfless, strong, and refreshing leadership on a number of issues."
In 2001, Hillary Clinton became the first and to date only former first lady to hold elected office when she became a US senator representing the state of New York.
And she subsequently became the first American woman to mount a viable run for president, leading a fierce and ultimately losing battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
While first lady (1993-2001), she also took a pioneering role in fashioning national policy, leading an ultimately doomed effort to reform the US health care system.
Outgoing First Lady and self-professed book worm Laura Bush initially used her position to encourage child literacy.
But -- over eight years in the White House, during which her popularity waxed while her husband's waned -- she went on to exert influence in causes including the fight against heart disease in women and the promotion of girls' education in Afghanistan.
She travelled widely on her own, to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, advocating women's rights to education and health care.
Obama sweeps to victory as first black president
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/election_rdp
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle and Vice president-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill take the stage after Obama delivered his victory speech at the election night party at Grant Park in Chicago, Tuesday night, Nov. 4, 2008.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he told a jubilant hometown Chicago crowd estimated at nearly a quarter-million people.
The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Iowa and more. He captured Virginia, too, the first candidate of his party in 44 years to do so.
On a night for Democrats to savor, they not only elected Obama the nation's 44th president but padded their majorities in the House and Senate, and in January will control both the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.
A survey of voters leaving polling places showed the economy was by far the top Election Day issue. Six in 10 voters said so, and none of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was picked by more than one in 10.
Obama's election capped a meteoric rise — from mere state senator to president-elect in four years.
Spontaneous celebrations erupted from Atlanta to New York and Philadelphia as word of Obama's victory spread. A big crowd filled Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.
In his first speech as victor, to an enormous throng at Grant Park in Chicago, Obama catalogued the challenges ahead. "The greatest of a lifetime," he said, "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."
He added, "There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."
McCain called his former rival to concede defeat — and the end of his own 10-year quest for the White House. "The American people have spoken, and spoken clearly," McCain told disappointed supporters in Arizona.
President Bush added his congratulations from the White House, where his tenure runs out on Jan. 20. "May God bless whoever wins tonight," he had told dinner guests earlier.
Obama, in his speech, invoked the words of Lincoln and seemed to echo John F. Kennedy.
"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder," he said.
He and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will take their oaths of office as president and vice president on Jan. 20, 2009. McCain remains in the Senate.
Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, returns to Alaska as governor after a tumultuous debut on the national stage.
He will move into the Oval Office as leader of a country that is almost certainly in recession, and fighting two long wars, one in Iraq, the other in Afghanistan.
The popular vote was close — 51.3 percent to 47.5 percent with 73 percent of all U.S. precincts tallied — but not the count in the Electoral College, where it mattered most.
There, Obama's audacious decision to contest McCain in states that hadn't gone Democratic in years paid rich dividends.
Shortly after midnight in the East, The Associated Press count showed Obama with 338 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed for victory. McCain had 141 after winning states that comprised the normal Republican base, including Texas and most of the South.
Interviews with voters suggested that almost six in 10 women were backing Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.
The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters. Obama has said his first order of presidential business will be to tackle the economy. He has also pledged to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
In Washington, the Democratic leaders of Congress celebrated.
"It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Said Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California: "Tonight the American people have called for a new direction. They have called for change in America."
Democrats also acclaimed Senate successes by former Gov. Mark Warner in Virginia, Rep. Tom Udall in New Mexico and Rep. Mark Udall in Colorado. All won seats left open by Republican retirements.
In New Hampshire, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen defeated Republican Sen. John Sununu in a rematch of their 2002 race, and Sen. Elizabeth Dole fell to Democrat Kay Hagan in North Carolina.
Biden won a new term in Delaware, a seat he will resign before he is sworn in as vice president.
The Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, survived a scare in Kentucky, and in Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss hoped to avoid a December runoff.
The Democrats piled up gains in the House, as well.
They defeated seven Republican incumbents, including 22-year veteran Chris Shays in Connecticut, and picked up nine more seats where GOP lawmakers had retired.
At least three Democrats lost their seats, including Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney, turned out of office after admitting to two extramarital affairs while serving his first term in Florida. In Louisiana, Democratic Rep. Don Cazayoux lost the seat he had won in a special election six months ago.
The resurgent Democrats also elected a governor in one of the nation's traditional bellwether states when Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon won his race.
An estimated 187 million voters were registered, and in an indication of interest in the battle for the White House, 40 million or so had already voted as Election Day dawned.
Obama sought election as one of the youngest presidents, and one of the least experienced in national political affairs.
That wasn't what set the Illinois senator apart, though — neither from his rivals nor from the other men who had served as president since the nation's founding more than two centuries ago. A black man, he confronted a previously unbreakable barrier as he campaigned on twin themes of change and hope in uncertain times.
McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam, a generation older than his rival at 72, was making his second try for the White House, following his defeat in the battle for the GOP nomination in 2000.
A conservative, he stressed his maverick's streak. And although a Republican, he did what he could to separate himself from an unpopular president.
For the most part, the two presidential candidates and their running mates, Biden and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, spent weeks campaigning in states that went for Bush four years ago.
McCain and Obama each won contested nominations — the Democrat outdistancing former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton — and promptly set out to claim the mantle of change.
Obama won California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
McCain had Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
He also won at least 3 of Nebraska's five electoral votes, with the other two in doubt.
(This version CORRECTS years since Democrat won Virginia to 44, not 40)
Barack Obama elected 44th president
President-elect Barack Obama walks on stage at his victory celebration in Chicago with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha.
‘Change has come to America,’ first African-American leader tells country
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
msnbc.com
updated 1:10 a.m. ET Nov. 5, 2008
Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States.
A crowd of 125,000 people jammed Grant Park in Chicago, where Obama addressed the nation for the first time as its president-elect at midnight ET. Hundreds of thousands more — Mayor Richard Daley said he would not be surprised if a million Chicagoans jammed the streets — watched on a large television screen outside the park.
“If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” Obama declared.
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“Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states,” he said. “We have been and always will be the United States of America.
“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,” he said to a long roar.
McCain notes history in the making
Obama congratulated his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for his “unimaginable” service to the United States, first as a prisoner of war for 5½ years in North Vietnam and then for nearly three decades in Congress.
McCain called Obama to offer his congratulations at 11 p.m. ET, Obama’s chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, told NBC News. Obama thanked McCain for his “class and honor” during the campaign and said he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them could work together.
Video
‘Change has come to America’
Nov. 4: Barack Obama tells more than 125,000 people in Chicago, “If there's anybody out there who still questions ... the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
MSNBC
Saying, “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” McCain told supporters in Phoenix that he “recognized the special significance” Obama’s victory had for African-Americans.
“We both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still have the power to wound,” McCain said.
“Let there be no reason for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth,” said McCain, who pledged his support and help for the new president.
President Bush called to congratulate Obama and promise a smooth transition of power on Jan. 20, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
“Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters,” said Bush, who invited Obama and his family to visit the White House as soon as it was convenient.
The president also called McCain to say that he was proud of the senator’s efforts and that he was “sorry it didn’t work out.”
“You didn’t leave anything on the playing field,” Bush said.
A broad and deep victory
Campaigning as a technocratic agent of change in Washington and not a pathbreaking civil rights figure, Obama swept to victory over McCain, whose running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was seeking to become the nation’s first female vice president.
Obama’s election was a broad one. He won Florida, the scene of so much electoral chaos in recent elections. He won Ohio, a key to President Bush’s two election wins. He won Colorado, home of the religious right. And he won Virginia, reversing 40 years of Republican victories there.
Surveys of voters as they left polling places nationwide encapsulated the historic nature of the victory by Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas. As expected, he won overwhelmingly among African-American voters, but he also won a slim majority of white voters. He won among women and Latino voters, reversing a longstanding Republican trend. And he won by more than 2-to-1 among voters of all races 30 years old and younger.
Slide show
Parties and prayers
Supporters of both candidates gather across the nation to watch the results roll in.
more photos
That dynamic was telling in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, where McCain poured in millions of dollars of scarce resources. Obama won both, along with Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, all states with hefty electoral vote hauls, NBC News projected.
McCain countered with Texas and numerous smaller states, primarily in the South and the Great Plains.
In interviews with NBC News, aides to McCain said they were proud that they had put up a good fight in “historically difficult times.”
A senior adviser said McCain himself was “fine” but that he felt “he let his staff and supporters down.”
Obama will have a strongly Democratic Congress on the other end of Capitol Hill. The Democrats won strong majorities in both the House and the Senate. NBC News projected that the party would fall just short of a procedurally important 60 percent “supermajority” in the Senate, however.
‘Transformation of America’
In the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent elections, had little impact. Florida had been closely watched, but results there and in other closely contested states were delayed until after Obama clinched his victory as record numbers of voters flocked to polling stations, energized by an election in which they would select either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president.
Americans voted in numbers unprecedented since women were given the franchise in 1920. Secretaries of state predicted turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland.
Voters were lured to the polls by the historic nature of an election that held the potential to yield an African-American president.
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Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a living legend of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said he was “overwhelmed” and had broken down in tears.
Lewis: Struggle was worth it
Nov. 4: Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., talks about Barack Obama’s historic breakthrough.
MSNBC
“I never imagined, I never even had any idea I would live to see an African-American president of the United States,” Lewis said in an interview on MSNBC.
“We have witnessed tonight in America a revolution of values, a revolution of ideals,” Lewis said. “There’s been a transformation of America, and it will have unbelievable influence on the world.”
Ellora Lyons, 81, of Peoria, Ill., recalled boarding a train to Oklahoma with her two oldest boys in 1948. Her brother had been killed in an accident, and they were going to his funeral.
“There was a sign on this train that said, 'n-----s to the back,’” she said. “And we couldn’t drink out of the same water fountain.”
“I remember my mom and my dad talking about black folks being not able to vote,” Lyons said. “I never thought that I would see a black man [in the White House], but I was hoping that one day that a black man would run for president.”
All told, election experts predicted that as many as 140 million Americans would vote, many of them minority, immigrant and younger Americans who were casting their ballots for the first time.
Maria Reyes, who immigrated from El Salvador and was sworn in as a citizen in August, was one of them. She cast her ballot with help from her daughter, Elvia.
“It’s wonderful time for our country right now — Obama!” Reyes said as she waved a small American flag.
In the Little Saigon section of Los Angeles, Timothy Ngo, a Vietnamese immigrant, turned out to support McCain.
“I came here as a refugee, so Mr. McCain and I grew up and fought in the same war in Vietnam,” Ngo said.
Obama, McCain cast their ballots
Obama and his wife, Michelle, voted with their young daughters at their sides at Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Hyde Park, Ill. The family was ushered inside ahead of a line of their neighbors that wrapped around the block.
Fellow voters watched in silence and snapped cell-phone pictures. They cheered when Obama held up his validation slip with a smile and said, “I voted.”
“The journey ends, but voting with my daughters, that was a big deal,” he told reporters later.
Obama’s final days of campaigning were bittersweet: He was mourning the loss of his grandmother Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him but died of cancer Sunday night and never got to see the results of the historic election.
In Delaware, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, went to the polls with his elderly mother. Speaking to reporters on his plane, Biden said he had made a deal with his wife, Jill.
“If you get the vice presidency and get elected, you can get a dog,” Biden said his wife told him. “I know what kind I want, [but] I don’t know what kind I’m going to get yet. We’re not there yet. The deal’s not closed yet.”
McCain, meanwhile, cast his ballot early Tuesday at a church near his home in central Phoenix. A small crowd cheered “Go, John, go!” and “We love you!” as he stepped out of a sport utility vehicle with his wife, Cindy. One person carried a sign that read, “Use your brain, vote McCain!”
Palin returned to where her political career began to cast her vote in the snow-dusted, two-story Wasilla City Hall where she once presided as a small-town mayor.
Palin, accompanied by her husband, Todd, voted just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, pushing aside a red, white and blue curtain on a voting booth and handing her white paper ballot to a clerk.
With Tom Curry of msnbc.com and Athena Jones, Steve Handelsman and George Lewis of NBC News. The following NBC stations contributed to this report: KPNX of Phoenix; WAFF of Huntsville, Ala.; WEEK of Peoria, Ill.; and WTMJ of Milwaukee.
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