Mark Steel on Barack Obama

There's no way of saying this without sounding a bit pretentious, but I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. And the most instructive person I met may have been a frail old black woman in a newsagents, who picked up a newspaper with a photo of Barack Obama on it, and thrust it under my nose.

"See him," she said, "He's in town today – Barack Obama, in town today." And she had such a gleam of pride I wondered whether he was her son. When you're used to British politicians this behaviour seems staggering. Supposing you were the most imaginative person in the world, creator of award-winning science fiction full of planets run by giant centipedes and made out of beetroot, you still wouldn't be able to imagine anyone gleefully grabbing a stranger and saying "She's in town today – Hazel Blears," even if she was their daughter.

More here.See also Gary Younge's analysis here and here.