Conservatives are sometimes slaves of tradition. There is good reason for this, my father's favorite saying being "Old things are best."

And there is no better tradition on primary day in New Hampshire than staying up until midnight to get the results from the first town to vote in the first in the nation primary of New Hampshire. The town with the colorful name of Dixville Notch (evoking Hawthornesque images of quaint New England villages) is allowed by state law to begin voting at the stroke of midnight.

All 18 of the town's eligible voters trudged to the polling place and cast their ballots. The results have reverberated around the country as a harbinger of what might be happening statewide later tonight:

Demcorats

Obama - 7
Edwards - 2
Richardson - 1

Hillary shut out? Can this be happening? Are the Dixville Notch voters telling us something important? Or do they just want the voting over with so they can go to bed?

Republicans

McCain: 5
Romney 2
Giuliani - 1

Huckabee blanked! Maybe the Reverend at the local church overslept.

Needless to say, the results don't tell us anything we don't already know - at least about Dixville Notch. And that is, tradition can be taken too far sometimes.