It looks like Obama will be having two announcement events this weekend, one in Springfield on Saturday and another in Chicago on Sunday. Plus, there’s a party Friday night that you might want to check out. From an internal e-mail…

Obama Presidential Announcement in Springfield

That announcement starts at 9 a.m. outside the Old State Capitol on Saturday, February 10. Tickets will not be necessary. I believe the speech will start later at about 10 a.m.

For Springfield, Dan Shomon and a bunch of folks are hosting a pre-party on Friday, February 9 from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Alamo at 115 North 5th Street (5th and Jefferson). Cosponsors include Amy and Chris Martin, Julie Mirostaw, Julie Foehr, Scott Kennedy, Mia Phifer and others.

No tickets will be necessary and people are asking about parking but who knows.

The Obama presidential announcement in Chicago will be on Sunday, February 11 at 4:30 p.m. at UIC Pavilion at 525 S. Racine. Tickets will be distributed but not required for UIC.

Want to know what an Obama event is like from the crowd’s perspective? This may give you a little idea…

The person who posted that vid noted, “I almost went deaf.”

Meanwhile, Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com takes a look at early polls that show Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama among African-American voters. Blumenthal has a warning for anyone who might think that this automatically bodes ill for Obama…

Yes, he has been covered extensively and is well known to political junkies. But never underestimate how remote most political coverage is to everyone else.

Having polled for one of Obama’s primary opponents in 2004, I can tell you that whatever doubts Illnois African-Americans may have had about Obama prior to the 2004 primary race, they faded fast as he began to run television advertising, move in the polls and receive routine coverage on media outlets (read local TV news) that reached real voters.

He is exactly right about this. Obama’s numbers with black voters weren’t great at all until he started running TV ads and got some other free media bumps.

Tom Bevan adds…

Having watched Obama in the 2004 Senate primary, I agree with Mark Blumenthal that whatever misgivings or doubts African-Americans have about Obama are likely to fade pretty darn quick as he emerges, especially if he acquires the look of a winner with some early momentum.

And on another topic entirely, the Democratic blog AmericaBlog says that Obama “has a lot of catching up to do” when it comes to his Internet operation. He points to how quickly other candidates posted their speeches from last week’s DNC cattle call, but by Saturday…

Obama’s website and YouTube don’t have his speech up there - a substantial missed opportunity with no excuse. When people talk about an “inexperienced candidate” it’s not just the gaffes that they make on the campaign trail, it’s failure to quickly capitalize on opportunity also.

*** UPDATE *** According to The Hotline blog, John Edwards is in Bloomington today, but I haven’t seen anything move on the wires.