New York ? “I voted for Barack Abooma!” bragged Davita Randall the other day. One should perhaps forgive the mispronunciation. After all, she and her brother Davin, also an “Abooma” enthusiast, are only in kindergarten.

No, they can’t actually vote, but the Randall twins of Elk Grove, Calif., are excited about this election nonetheless. As is first-grader Alex Taylor, who discussed the race animatedly with his mother all the way to their New York City polling station on Super Tuesday – only to see Mom vote another way.

“I voted for Hillary Clinton,” says Mom, aka Sandy Radnovich. “That wasn’t his candidate. But I told him, this is what America is all about: free choice.”

We already know young voters are showing interest and passion in this 2008 race. What many adults are noticing, though, is that such passion is also infecting much of the too-young-to-vote set, from teens on down, in ways rarely seen before.

And perhaps the Obama campaign should look into getting that pesky voting-age thing changed. Because, maybe not surprisingly, the youthful Illinois senator who’s energized enormous crowds of young voters seems to have the affection of the much-younger crowd, too – at least in Democratic households.

“I’ve noticed a very, very strong interest on the part of supporters of Barack Obama,” says school director Elizabeth Bergstein. “One kid’s been campaigning for Obama for weeks.” And she’s really talking young: The students at her Broadway Presbyterian Church Nursery School, just south of Harlem in Manhattan, are just 3 and 4.

Kids at her school, she says, “are very engaged in it. Some wear stickers or pins. Or they’ll shout, ‘Obama!”‘

The preschoolers even held a straw poll on Super Tuesday. No Clinton, no Obama, no John McCain or Mike Huckabee – the contest, meant to introduce kids to the idea of voting, was between SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder. (SpongeBob won.)

In Alex Taylor’s first-grade class in a nearby public school, a poll was taken for real candidates, and Obama won, Alex’s mother says. Six students did vote for Clinton – all girls, she says. And if her son was disappointed in his mother’s voting choice, well, at least he could identify with Dad, who voted for Obama.