Here’s the latest report from our friend in the Tarheel state:

O.K., so they announce on Friday night that Barack will be in Wilmington on Monday, speaking at University of North Carolina-Wilmington on Monday. In order to attend, you need to go to Democratic headquarters to pick up a ticket.

I head out on Saturday morning. Long lines (good) extending two blocks to get the tickets. But the reason for the lines was people have to register their name, provide phone number, e-mail address, etc. What a pain in the ass. There’s no way they did this ticket thing earlier in his campaign or their campaign would never have gotten off the ground.

Tickets were already gobbled up (Democratic headquarters opened at 8:30; I arrived at 10 a.m.) by the time I made it to the door. That’s pretty impressive because Trask Arena holds 5,000 people. The local TV stations pick it up with a general theme of he’s like a rock star, actually using that phrase; people want to go see him and are very disappointed to find they can’t. “Just like a real rock concert!” says the newscaster.

Hillary quickly announces she’s having an open-air gathering on the riverfront Sunday night to get to know the people — “I just hope the people of Wilmington will want to see me as much as I want to see them!” Barack does cell-phone interview with the lead local news station (Fox affiliate) for late-night news and comes off good. “People are concerned about health care, the war, gas prices, not distractions from real issues.” Hmmm. What distractions?

Beautiful weather on Sunday, big turnout (5,000 people) for Hillary Sunday night. She speaks in front of the battleship and indicates she’ll be back next Saturday to mark the launching of a nuclear submarine called the U.S.S. Carolina in Wilmington (apparently giving us fair warning to lock up our valuables). Her talk is a real snooze, average age of the audience is about 69; average profession is retired schoolteacher. Many of them actually do doze off as she deals with controversies like end of grade testing to show her mastery of the issues we typical folk all discuss at the dinner table before paying our bills. Her moment of passion: “Come debate with me, Barack Obama! Anytime, anywhere!”

She actually did have a few good lines about peace and prosperity in the ’90s. But the truth is a good half of the crowd had left by the time she was done dealing with Q & A, perhaps due to it being an outdoor setting, not so much due to the quality of the candidate.

Of the 5,000 people in attendance about 50 are black, but the organizers put stars on several and ask them to sit behind Hillary in the crowd, I guess so they show up on the TV cameras. Then on Page 1 in the Wilmington Star News the next morning there’s a picture of an African-American from Asheville of all places saying Hillary really impressed him; not sure yet how he was going to vote.

Onto Barack’s speech at Trask Coliseum. Yep, I know it’s sold out. But I figured they were just doing that to get our names and bother us with phone calls; there’s no way they’d turn away an undecided voter wearing a White Sox shirt. Doors at Trask Coliseum were due to open at 11 am. I showed up at about 12:30. His speech was due to start then, but in reality it wound up being about 35 minutes late. As expected, they were giving out tickets at the door. Lot of no-shows. Place was crowded, but there were some seats in the balcony.

The star treatment for Barack events goes to tough-looking women who have that blue-collar look. While waiting in line, an Obama representative comes up and asks the lady next to me if she would want to sit in the area right behind Barack. She knew what they were up to (”I guess I look blue-collar”); chuckled and agreed. They don’t ask her husband to come with her! As it winds up, the majority of people they place behind Barack to show up on TV today are white women, none under age 40. The crowd is about 50 percent African American and the rest are college kids.

In my section, I was the only one in my demographic: white male, age 47. It’s not to say there weren’t white women there, but very few beyond the college age. I did see one white blue-collar male in attendance in our section: a policeman on guard duty patrolling the aisle. I recognized him as the scary dad from one of my son’s old Little League teams. He specialized in murder investigations, making me suspect that the senator from Arizona will have his vote.

Obama’s stump speech was excellent, blasting McCain’s plans to eliminate the gas tax this summer (”That’s not a solution, that’s politics as usual.”), talking of the urgency of now in terms of environmental issues — he went into some detail about water availability as one problem looming ahead for the world. The junior senator from Illinois promised to hold the speech to 20 minutes, but it went on for about 35 and nobody minded. Totally energized the crowd. Then he took a series of questions from the audience. One question was from an 82-year-old woman. Barack quickly offered her the vice presidency, which drew a big laugh.

It didn’t even strike me until I turned on the TV tonight that Rev. Wright wasn’t even mentioned once during either of the two candidates presentations. Amen!

Thanks to M.D.