"Missoula ... I just like saying the word ... Missoula ... lots of vowels, like Obama." -- Barack Obama, April 5, 2008

Not that you needed any more proof that is year's presidential primary season is a crazy one, but here is one more piece of evidence. Less than three weeks before the crucial Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are spending this weekend campaigning in ... Montana.

Yes, the Big Sky State, with its 25 delegates and 3 electoral votes, finds itself -- for 36 hours at least -- at the center of the political universe. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Montana's June 3 Democratic primary could be a relevant event outside of the state.

This all works out quite well for us at our Missoula, Montana headquarters, especially after Clinton and Obama announced late in the week that they both would be making stops here during their quick tours of the state. Barack spoke this morning before 8,000 or so frenzied supporters at the University of Montana. We managed to snag one of the free tickets and witnessed the event firsthand.

Since most of you are familiar with the Obama stump speech, we won't bore by recapping too much of his talk, which lasted nearly hour. We can, however, confirm that having now seen both Bill Clinton and Obama speak in person, Barack blows him out the water as an orator. We never expected to write that.

We also can provide a photo blog of this morning's activities. Check it out after the jump.

We're going to try and make it to Clinton's rally tomorrow morning, which is taking place at an airport hanger in town. But attendance for Hillary's speech is limited to the first 2,000 people, so that may present a challenge.

If it looks early outside the Adams Center in Missoula, that's because it is. Doors opened at 8 a.m. for the 10 a.m. event. We assumed (correctly, it turns out) that not everyone with a ticket would get in, so we arrived at 7 a.m., an hour of the day we are not usually awake for. By the time we got there, the line was well over a city block long. Rumor has it people began getting in line at midnight. Lucky for everyone, the forecast of rain and snow never materialized. If there's one thing worse than being tired and cold, it's being wet, tired and cold.

The Obama campaign certainly knows how to take advantage of a captive audience. Only $15 for a one-size-fits-all XL cotton T. Business appeared to be brisk.

By 7:30, the "line" looked like this, and suddenly we were feeling quite proud of ourself for not pressing the snooze button an extra three or four times. Notice the snow in the background. Did we mention it's April 5th?

Buttons! We resisted. Though we couldn't resist the urge to loudly ask "So when does John McCain show up?" at least twice. Luckily, Obama supporters have a good sense of humor.

It turns out we were among the first 20 percent to get inside the building, where we saw lots of available space on the floor. The thing is, by this time we'd be standing for about two hours, and the seats looked mighty comfortable. So we decided to watch the activities from a sitting position.

Barek!!! Yes we are embarassed for our state...but not so embarassed that we don't feel like sharing.

These three guys were the first ones up on the podium. No one knew who they were, but that didn't stop the crowd from cheering loudly. We thought they were University of Montana students. Turns out they're the people in charge of Obama's Montana campaign headquarters. That's what you call grassroots.

Large and in charge, Missoula's Mayor, John Engen then took the stage. "At a recent press conference at my home, I announced to all those in attendence (my wife, the dog and the cat) that I was endorsing Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States." Surprisingly enough, Engen didn't introduce Obama ... though he did introduce the "Yes We Can" video that always makes us wonder if Obama is in fact running for Jesus.

This guy actually is in college. He's the president of Montana students for Obama, and he also had the really cool job of introducing Obama to the audience. What are the odds this was the highlight of his life? 90 percent? 95 percent?

Turns out the only guy who doesn't need a podium for his notes is Barack Obama. He's got this stump speech down to a science. We'd heard some of the jokes before, but he made sure to add a few for the locals, including his desire to buy some waders for fly fishing. He talked like he'd given the speech a few hundred times, which he probably has. The people we really feel sorry for are the dozen or so print journalists from national outlets, who looked more than a little bored in the press area.

Obviously we don't have a zoom lens, but this still kind of a cool shot. Obama spoke for about 50 minutes, followed by a quick round of hand-shaking and baby-holding. He then was nice enough to make a quick appearance outside in the football stadium, where the overflow crowd had watched the speech on a video screen.