Ron Paul at Four Percent and Holding…

Fifty votes have been counted so far in Election 2008, and Ron Paul won two of them.

Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday's first minutes. The town of Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul.

This is bad news for McCain and slightly less bad news for Bob Barr, if only because the man from Georgia doesn't  actually expect to win today. He wants, as he said when he declined to appear at Ron Paul's multi-party endorsementpalooza, to maximize the Libertarian Party's vote totals. Barr communications director Shane Cory told me yesterday that he expects to crack one milion votes. But here's the first anecdote of Paul voters who found no solace in any other candidate. It's a step down from 1992, when LP nominee Andre Marrou won five early votes in Dixville Notch, but it's no change from the past three elections.

Again, though: Worse news for John McCain. No Democrat's won Dixville Notch since 1968. The ray of hope is that the Democrat in question lost to Richard Nixon. In the primary Dixville Notch split 10-7 between Democratic and Republican primary ballots, but Nate Silver can explain why none of this matters.