Chicago - In Chicago's Hyde Park district, Barack Obama is more than a candidate for president: he's "just a nice guy" who stops to say hello at local sporting events or who gets his hair cut at the same neighbourhood barber.
It's a diverse, left-leaning enclave, home to both white and black affluent professionals, and surrounded by working class and poor minority neighbourhoods on Chicago's South Side, with overwhelming support for their favourite son, the Democratic presidential nominee.