IN BARACK Obama's home base of Chicago, the main activity at the weekend was preparation for the world's biggest victory party.
As the Democrats' political guns aimed towards previously Republican states, there was little evidence that the world's most important election was taking place in the city that is traditionally – and sometimes controversially – regarded as belonging
heart and soul to Mr Obama's party.
Not a single poster or billboard reminded the residents of Chicago that election day was nigh. "What would be the point? Everybody's going to vote Democrat in this city, except for me," said Colin Crombie, a former Scottish policeman who has owned the Duke of Perth pub in North Chicago for the past 20 years. "There's no point in having a contest here."
He has already cast his vote for John McCain because he sees in Mr Obama the product of the Chicago Democratic Party machine, infamous in US folklore from the days when Richard Daley snr, current mayor Richard Daley's father, held office, and the maxim of the city was to "vote early and vote often" – and when people were never too dead to cast their ballot.
Mr Crombie added: "I think people have also had enough of it all. It's been going on so long and it's the same message over and over again."
The only real political activity in the Windy City saw hundreds of volunteers cram into the Illinois Democrats' campaign office in West Lake Street with their mobile phones for "the last push" to call around potential voters to get them out on election day. But, they were not there to help shore up the support for the Obama campaign in Illinois – their target was the neighbouring state of Indiana, where the race is neck and neck, with some polls even putting Mr McCain up to three points ahead.
The simple brief from the organiser, a formidable looking woman in her late 20s, was: "What we want is for you to find people who have not voted yet and are likely to vote Democrat. Put a line through obvious McCain supporters; don't ask them if they support McCain, but you'll be able to tell if they are."
She added: "Here's a script to go through, with questions you will need to ask and the numbers to call."
Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, the hotel suite in West Randolf Street hired out by the McCain campaign to act as the Republican Party's Illinois HQ was abandoned for the weekend, with mail piling up at the door.
The building's African American receptionist, an Obama supporter, said this did not mean the election was won. "Well, the polls look good, but we just can't be complacent," he said. "They (the Republicans] can still come back and take this election."
However, Mr McCain has not forgotten Chicago entirely, repeating allegations in speeches over the weekend about Obama's use of "pork barrel" additions to spending bills to get $1 million for every day he had been a senator to fund pet projects in his home state.
Staff at Mr McCain's No 1 target, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, where he accused Mr Obama of getting $3 million for an overhead projector, were happy to disabuse visitors of the charge.
"This is no overhead projector," said Peggy, a senior employee, as she pointed out a extremely complex piece of equipment in a massive dome to give visitors a graphic experience of the heavens. "Mr McCain really does not know what he is talking about."
Narrated by the Hollywood great Robert Redford, the Cosmic Collisions experience apparently "launches visitors on an awe-inspiring trip through space and time – well beyond the calm face of the night sky – to explore the hypersonic impacts that drive the continuing evolution of the universe".
In the absence of any serious campaign, Chicago is simply getting to party. Mayor Daley has said he expects a million people to turn up at Grant Park, on the shore of Lake Michigan, to cheer Mr Obama's expected win. The TV stations already have their trucks outside and a helicopter is almost permanently circling the site, which has become a mass of marquees and temporary barricades. The nearby Columbia College had a notice up telling students that classes from 3:30pm would be cancelled so they could join in.
