Three Carroll County towns back Dean

By Jacqueline Pottle

With three exceptions, Carroll County towns stayed on the same path set by the rest of the state, handily putting Sen. John Kerry over the top of Howard Dean.In Hart's Location, former general Wesley Clark won with 6 votes, and in Jackson and Sandwich, Dean beat Kerry 143 to 110 and 180 to 100, respectively. Kerry garnered a total 2,894 votes, or 37 percent of the Democratic votes, while Dean captured 2,338, or 30 percent of the votes in the 17 county towns. As of press time, results were available from all towns in the county except Brookfield. That's a slightly closer margin than state-wide statistics that show Kerry received 39 percent of the Democratic votes and Dean won 25 percent. In other towns, the race between Kerry and Dean was close, including Conway where the former governor lost 558 to 445. Coming in second place in the county was John Edwards with 992 votes. Trailing close behind was Clark with 976 votes, followed by Joe Lieberman with 478 votes, Dennis Kucinich with 152 votes and Al Sharpton, who garnered 6 votes.While President Bush was a shoe-in for his party's ticket, some dedicated Republicans came out anyhow to practice their democratic duty. Bush garnered heavy votes in the Republican-dominated county, a total of 2,443 votes county-wide, or 98 percent of all Republican votes that were cast. Local man Michael Callis received 55 votes in Carroll County.Two small New Hampshire communities in the North Country planted the primary seed for the nation yesterday when voters cast their ballots at midnight in Hart's Location and Dixville Notch. Clark won the majority of Democratic voters garnering a total of 14 votes in both towns combined.In the small town of Eaton, Rep. Don Philbrick said turn-out was much higher than anticipated. Philbrick, who didn't have numbers on hand late Tuesday night, said, voter numbers "far exceed anything we expected."