Obama visited the Cowboy State for the first time as a presidential candidate to return fire directed at his campaign. And to give residents of Casper, Wyoming, a show - something the normally politically quiet state hasn’t seen the likes of in some time.

Responding to criticism from his Democratic rival about comments his now-former foreign policy advisor made to the BBC, Barack Obama said, “Now, I just have to mention this because I don’t want anybody here to be confused.” Clinton had quoted Samantha Power at an event earlier today, who had told the BBC that while Obama has given a timeframe for withdrawal in Iraq, it would depend on the situation at the time.

To clear up the confusion, Obama defiantly said, “If it has been up to me we would have never been in this war. It was because of George Bush with an assist from Hillary Clinton and John McCain that we entered into this war. A war that should have never been authorized, a war that should have never been waged. I’ve been against it - 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8. And I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don’t be confused.” He continued, “Don’t be confused when Senator Clinton is not even willing to acknowledge that she voted for war. She says she voted for diplomacy despite the title that said authorization to use US armed forces in Iraq. So I don’t want to play politics on this issue because she doesn’t have standing to question my position on this issue.”

Obama also brought up that pesky “red phone” ad that may have cost him votes in Texas - part of what he calls the “politics of fear.” “I mean, what do people think I’m going to do? I’m going to answer the phone,” he said as the crowd laughed. “And I will find out what’s going on, and I won’t be, and I won’t be browbeaten into launching a war that wasn’t necessary, I will get all the information about what crisis is taking place, and I will exercise the same judgment that I have shown over the last several issues ranging from, ranging from Iraq to Pakistan to all the other issues that are going to be so critical for the next president to deal with.”

If Casper wasn’t awake by the end of his animated town hall, he definitely got their attention (and that of his traveling press corps) when he brought up the experience issue - something that has plagued his candidacy from the beginning. “Senator Clinton and Senator McCain, they say, ‘We’ve got all these years of experience and this and that and the other.’ Look who’s run the best campaign. Look who’s managed this campaign from scratch. You know, that’s worth taking a look at. Look at what we’ve built from scratch to compete against people who have been building this thing for 20, 30 years, and we’ve done just fine.”

Obama heads to Laramie to hold a rally on the campus of the University of Wyoming before returning to Chicago later tonight.

Hillary Clinton’s congressional supporters say Senator Barack Obama needs to make it clear that senior foreign policy adviser Samantha Power is no longer a part of his campaign, after the Pulitzer Prize winning author and professor called the NY Senator a “monster.”

“She is stooping to anything,” Power said in an interview with the Scotsman. “The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.”

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz  told reporters on a conference call that those comments don’t reflect the politics of hope. “For either the candidate or his senior advisers to degenerate into negative personal attacks and name calling, which was clearly the result of frustration and anger over his result on Tuesday, was below the belt, out of bounds, and not appropriate for an adviser for a campaign to be president.” She called Power’s remarks “school kid name calling.

New York Congressman Gregory Meeks said the interview reflected “the worst kind of politics,” calling Power’s words “political character assassination.”

“I think Senator Obama needs to now stand up and take some action, and the only action there can be is to say this person can no longer be in his campaign,” he said.

Communications Director Howard Wolfson defended his own claim that the Obama campaign was “imitating Ken Starr” — the Clinton special prosecutor who is a villain in Democratic circles and is associated with what many considered a witch hunt in the 1990’s.  That comparison, he said,  “was a reaction to the Obama campaign’s attacks on Senator Clinton, post their losses in Ohio and Texas.”

“I did not say that Sen Obama was like Ken Starr. And I think there is a difference between engaging in the kind of ad hominem attack that team Obama has been running since Ohio and Texas. So no I do not think they are the same thing.”

He added, “I can tell you this: had I or anyone else on this campaing referred to Senator Obama using the word that Samantha Power used, we would not be on this campaign this morning.”

A London-based newspaper interviewed Samantha Power, an Obama foreign policy advisor yesterday, during which the Pulitzer Prize winning author called Hillary Clinton a “monster,” before quickly trying to retract the statement. According to the paper, Power is quoted as saying, “She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything.”

Back in December, when a Clinton campaign staffer said Obama’s past drug use would be fodder for the Republicans, Obama disavowed the tactic of digging around in the personal lives of his rivals. The underdog candidate pledged, “I have been very clear to my campaign, I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down personally. If I find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired. And I have been absolutely crystal clear about this and I have been clear about this for a very long time. And, you are free to talk to my campaign manager who’s around here somewhere for confirmation of that. That’s not what I believe in, that’s not who I am. And frankly just from a practical political perspective, it’s contrary to the kind of message of change that I’ve been talking about in this campaign .”

While the “monster” comment doesn’t fit neatly into this pledge, one wonders if it is “contrary to the kind of message of change that [Obama's] been talking about in this campaign.”

This morning when asked to clarify Power’s comment, the campaign forwarded a statement from Power. “These comments do not reflect my feelings about Senator Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired. I should not have made these comments and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms.  I apologize to Senator Clinton and to Senator Obama, who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics.”