Obama: Yes We Can Go to South Dakota!

The generous and eagle-eyed Anna alerts us that Senator Barack Obama is coming to South Dakota on April 4:

High level Democratic Party sources told the Tribune on Friday morning that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama will announce plans later today to speak at the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner April 5.

Sources say Obama, who will to travel to the state after a visit to South Dakota on April 4, will make his first stop in Missoula for a rally at the University of Montana before moving on to Butte for the 30th Annual Mansfield-Metcalf dinner, the Montana Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser [John Adams, "Obama to Announce Montana Visit," Great Falls Tribune, 2008.03.14].

Now those high-level party sources haven't contacted the Madville Times yet to confirm. The Obama SD website says nothing about the April 4 South Dakota visit, and I haven't been able to Google anything out of the South Dakota press on this trip.

But hey: the South Dakotans for Obama group just had its opening press conference yesterday (go, Nathan!). And as has been the case in other small states, Obama beats Clinton to getting an event on the calendar and boots on the ground. According to that Sioux Falls paper, the Clinton website doesn't even have contact information for South Dakota supporters (as of this morning, that's true), and Clinton campaign staff wouldn't even bother to return the Sioux Falls reporter's calls [Jonathan Ellis, "Formal Obama Group Blooms," that Sioux Falls paper, 2008.03.18].

Once again, of the two Dems we have to choose from, Obama is the one acting like South Dakota matters.