First from Obama:
Senator Barack Obama statement on his votes this morning:
“I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people – we must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law.
We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties. That is why I am proud to cosponsor several amendments that protect our privacy while making sure we have the power to track down and take out terrorists.
This Administration continues to use a politics of fear to advance a political agenda. It is time for this politics of fear to end. We are trying to protect the American people, not special interests like the telecommunications industry. We are trying to ensure that we don’t sacrifice our liberty in pursuit of security, and it is past time for the Administration to join us in that effort.”
Second, from the Washington Post.
Although regionwide numbers were not available during the day, visits to polling stations in the District and its suburbs, and interviews with elections officials, indicated that turnout so far has been unusually high for a presidential primary.
In past years, “by now we would be playing cards . . . it would have been totally dead,” Rafael Beltran III, chief of elections at the polling station in the Verizon building in Arlington, said at 10 a.m.
Instead, the lines stretched long into the lobby, as long as they had been during the pre-work rush. Beltran was already thinking of calling a local judge to seek permission to stay open past 7 p.m., if necessary, to accommodate the crowds.
“Something or someone has energized the voters,” Beltran said, adding that Democrats had shown up in unusual force. “For the first time in years, some candidate or some message is coming out loud and clear.”
By the way, Hillary Clinton did not show up to vote on FISA even though she was in the Capitol region campaigning today.
