post xml payload with urllib

[brad]

Has anyone sent an xml payload via post using urllib? I'd like to do 
something like this:

logon_request = """<LoginRequest>
   <password>"the_password"</password>
   <user>"the_user"</user>
</LoginRequest>"""

logon = urllib.urlopen("https://127.0.0.1/api/version/xml", logon_request)
print logon.read()
logon.close()

127.0.0.1 expects xml via a https connection post.