Does Obama have that Kennedy appeal?

DENVER - Munching on ham, eggs and a bagel, Tom Jolly sat at a quaint diner in the city's downtown area reading a newspaper and anxiously waiting to hear Barack Obama deliver his nomination speech.

Jolly, 64, a Michigan native and registered lobbyist in Washington who follows Senate Democrats, is an open supporter of Barack Obama.

After learning more about him several years ago from a Chicago friend, later meeting him in Washington and reading the junior senator's autobiography, he was quickly sold.

"My first hero was Bobby Kennedy in '68," he said. "It didn't last very long - I've been waiting for someone like him ever since."

Although he's a neophyte to national politics, a junior senator who hasn't completed his first full U.S. Senate term, there's been an outpouring of support statewide and abroad for Obama. But the reasons why he's garnered "rock star" attention vary greatly from one supporter to the next.

The Daily Herald asked people in the Illinois delegation and on the streets of Denver to weigh in.

Dean Salter, a 38-year-old Londoner, was in Denver for business this week. He said many United Kingdom residents want to see an Obama presidency.

"Judging from the Bush years and what that's actually brought, which we all know, I think people see that it's exactly the same with (GOP nominee John) McCain, so I think it's a fair assessment that the UK is for Obama," he said.

Bo Baribeau, 25, of Denver, is an undecided voter and plans to wait until the presidential debates before he chooses between Obama and McCain. While Colorado has historically voted Republican, Baribeau said he believes the support for Obama here may make the state this year's Ohio or Florida.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley believes Obama's "whole approach to people" is what attracts such an outpouring of support in such a short amount of time.

"It's not just with the words and all his wonderful speeches, but his action," Daley said. "I think he's going to roll up his sleeves and you'll think he's like Franklin Delano Roosevelt."