The expected Democratic illuminati are at the Obama town hall event.

Conspicuously not here: Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, one of the swing votes that brought President Barack Obama to Raleigh today. Her office cited a conflict, namely that the U.S. Senate is in session.

Here are some of the folks who are here (apologies to those we didn't recognize or spot).

* N.C. House: Reps. Deborah Ross, Pricey Harrison, Verla Insko.

* N.C. Senate: Sens. R.C. Soles, Bill Purcell, Dan Blue, Tony Rand, Charlie Albertson.

* Governors: Jim Hunt (a spokeswoman said Beverly Perdue will be here as well).

* Wake County Commission chairman Harold Webb.

* Democratic Party chairman David Young and John Crumpler, a Raleigh businessman and Obama fundraiser.

* Possible candidates for U.S. Senate against Sen. Richard Burr: N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and lawyer Cal Cunningham.

Update: Post now reflects that Hagan was not in Raleigh because she was working in Washington. 

Harold H. Webb, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners and a former Tuskegee Airman, will have prime seats at the presidential inauguration next week.

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies invited those still living among the flyers who trained as part of the famed segregated unit in World War II, Michael Biesecker reports.

After being drafted out of N.C. A&T State University as a freshman, Webb served two years as a mechanic and gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps before gaining acceptance at Tuskegee. He was training to be a bomber pilot when the Japanese surrendered and the war ended.

The distinguished record of the all-black Tuskegee airmen during the war helped persuade President Harry Truman to desegregate the U.S. military in 1948.

Webb, 83, had planned to go to the Obama inauguration anyway. He has previously attended the inagurations of presidents Kennedy, Carter and Clinton.

But as a former Tuskegee Airman, he will be a honored guest sitting with former members of Congress in the terrace below the podium where Obama will be sworn in.

"It is an honor to literally have a front row seat to history being made," Webb said in a county media release. "I view the location of our seats as symbolic, because Obama stands on the shoulders of my fellow airmen and other trail blazers that helped pave the way for desegregation and ultimately, his place as the first African-American president."

Who's in the crowd at Barack Obama's Raleigh event?

Several big-name North Carolina legislators, judges and candidates are at the Kerr Scott Building to hear Obama speak.

Hampton Dellinger, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, is sitting with his father, former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger.

Other notables include U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, who has campaigned for Obama, Reps. Dan Blue and Ty Harrell, former state Auditor Ralph Campbell, Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Willis Whichard, state appeals court judge Jim Wynn and former UNC Board of Governors Chairman Brad Wilson.

Another endorsement for Barack Obama came this afternoon, a little by accident.

Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb, squeezed past Dome in a crowded group of young Democrats to shake hands with John Edwards.

Dome, who covered Webb back when we were WakePol, asked if he was going to endorse in the Democratic presidential primary.

"Later," he said.

We asked who he would endorse.

"Obama," he answered.

While he didn't say how much later, Dome had expected he meant more than three seconds, but the cat's out of the bag now.

Two of Webb's Democratic colleagues on the county board, Lindy Brown and Betty Lou Ward, endorsed Clinton at a speech at Wake Tech.