There they were, the Illinois Democratic Women's luncheon at the Marriott this afternoon.
Congresswoman Melissa Bean told me she was a little surprised that Attorney General Lisa Madigan was going on awfully long in her remarks. Madigan was. That's because she was the only one in the room who had been told that Barack Obama was on his way but she couldn't tell anyone. The signal would be when a security guard walked towards her.
That's when she confessed she'd been blah-blah-blahing until she could say, "Here's Barack!" Obama told the women, who all knew him from way back when, that he was "coming home to all of you to practice my speech." He talked for three minutes, said Madigan, but it took about 12 minutes to get out the door.