Brown in New Hampshire

NITYA VENKATARAMAN REPORTS: Looking for New Hampshire residents who didn’t vote on a day of record numbers for voter turnout is a little bit like trying to report a drought when it’s raining. And a midday questioning of sixty-some passerby in Steeplegate Mall in Concord, N.H. was a testament to that. Even a 58-year-old man whose wife assured me he’d never voted in a presidential primary told me today he was making an exception. Only four of the collection I managed to stop weren’t planning on voting: one said she didn’t feel like she was informed enough about the candidates to cast a ballot, another had no interest in politics, one more said she didn’t get off work in time to make it to the polls, and a last hurried off in a direction opposite me because she "didn’t want to talk about it." Most entertaining exchange came by way of a cellular accessories kiosk. "You were in the paper today," he said. Flashing back through the list of candidate events I attended yesterday hoping I hadn’t been photographed, I said "Mmmmmm…I don’t think so." "Yes, you were," he insisted, thrusting the front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader in my direction. As far as celebrity look-alikes go, I get a Mindy Kaling (LINK) every now and then so I was half-expecting some kind of print ad for The Office in the newspaper’s entertainment section. And…there she was. Bridget McCain. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s 16-year-old adopted daughter. Of Bangladeshi origin. So, I told him. "Well, that’s actually John McCain’s 16-year-old adopted daughter. Of Bangladeshi origin." Says he, "Are you sure it’s not you?" "Well, yeah," I said, quickly adding before he could doubt me, "Because John McCain isn’t my dad." I came back to the ABC workspace in Manchester, armed with a copy of the New Hampshire Union Leader to conduct my second unscientific questioning of the day. Responses seemed divided: between those who disagreed with cellular accessories kiosk man and those who saw his point but didn’t want to say it. You be the judge. –Nitya Venkataraman