Bad news for the people of Hawai'i who believe that Barack Obama's heart pumps with Island blood.

Obama may have been born and raised in Honolulu, but the folks in Chicago some 4,200 miles away claim him as a native son from Hyde Park who represents them in the U.S. Senate.

Obama, they say, only rarely speaks of Hawai'i and never mentions plate lunches or shave ice, and doesn't even flash the shaka or say "howzit."

"We consider him ours," said state Sen. Terry Link, a fellow Democrat who plays golf and poker with Obama. "He's very much an Illinoisan, as far as we're concerned. We embrace him as our favorite son. He's Illinois true and blue. We're going to steal him from you in every which way we can."

Just try telling that to Hawai'i state Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), an early supporter of Obama.

"In the Hawaiian language, when we say, 'Where are you?' there are several ways, including 'What land do you belong?'" said Hee, a former chairman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. "There's an intrinsic belonging to Hawai'i in that question. When you look at Barack Obama, Illinois may be his home. But he belongs to Hawai'i."

Denny Jacobs, a retired Illinois Democratic state senator, was another member of the regular, after-hour legislative poker games that Obama and other state senators called "The Committee Meeting." It was only after Obama had been playing poker for more than a year that Jacobs heard him make off-hand references to Hawai'i.

"When we were down there in January and it was a blistering 2 degrees below zero, he would sit there and say, 'You know, if we were in Hawai'i we wouldn't have this problem,'" Jacobs said. "He never really talked about the Hawaiian cuisine, mainly just climate-related stuff."

Ouch.

When he brought his family back to Honolulu in August for a weeklong vacation, Obama told a crowd of supporters at Ke'ehi Lagoon about his plans and his cravings.

"How's everybody doing today?" he asked. "Howzit?"

"I'm going to get a plate lunch," he said. "I might go to Zippy's. I might go to Rainbow Drive-In. I haven't decided yet. Get some Zip Min. I'm going to go get some shave ice. I'm going to go body surfing at an undisclosed location. I'm going to see my tutu — my grandma — and I'm going to watch my girls play on the beach, and once in a while I might go into the water. But mostly I'm going to watch them."

'THIS IS HIS HOME NOW'

When he's back in Hyde Park, Obama likes to eat at a handful of restaurants in the upper-middle-class, primarily liberal neighborhood around the University of Chicago, sometimes called "The Southside Dining Experience."

There's no Spam musubi or Korean chicken to be found at the Calypso Cafe, where Obama orders the jerk tilapia or sauteed rainbow trout.

"We're one of his most favorite places," said assistant manager Matt Bagnola. "He doesn't expect any different treatment. He knows that he'll have to wait for a table if we're busy."

Reminded that Obama spent his formative years in Honolulu, Bagnola quickly responded, "He wasn't involved in anything like the Senate in Hawai'i. Once he got here, he started working with the people. He's so connected to everybody here. He's able to talk to people who live in $3 million houses and people living on the street who don't even have houses."

Obama is a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan and, to a lesser extent, a Chicago Bulls basketball fan, Link said.

Not the University of Hawai'i football team?

"Not so much a football fan," Link said. "The White Sox are definitely his true fascination."

Obama even got to throw out the first pitch when the Sox appeared in the 2005 World Series.

"Being the White Sox fan that I am, it broke my heart that he got to throw out that pitch," Link said.

Link and Obama were both elected to the Illinois Legislature in 1996 and sat next to each other in the chamber and had adjoining offices, then began playing poker and golf together.

"When you sit down with somebody and you hang around with somebody," Link said, "you would think they would say, 'I'm really Hawaiian.' But it never really came up in conversation. He didn't denounce Hawai'i. It wasn't like he was saying, 'I can't stand Hawai'i, it's a terrible place.' But as far as he was concerned, he was from Hyde Park, Ill.

"This is his home now. Nobody ever felt like he was a stranger, an outsider, except for that weird name of his."

CHICAGO'S PRIDE

If there was any doubt, Link said, just look at Obama's plans for election night on Tuesday.

Diamond Head? Kapi'olani Park?

"He is going to have his election night at a place called Grant Park, an outdoor park in Chicago," Link said. "The tickets are free but you've got people throughout the entire state trying to get tickets to get there. We had the pope there. He will outdraw the pope.

"That's how excited the people of Illinois are of him. He's bigger than Oprah, bigger than Michael Jordan. He's bigger than any famous athlete or celebrity that ever came out of Chicago."

Other Obama friends and supporters in Chicago are more open to the possibility that Obama can really claim two homes, one in the Midwest and one in the Mid-Pacific.

"We take pride when he says he considers Chicago, Ill., his home, but I know his roots," said Emil Jones Jr., president of the Illinois Senate and the man Obama has called the godfather of his political career. "The people in Hawai'i are rightfully proud of him, too. He's still Hawai'i-an."

Jones first met Obama in 1985, when Obama was a community organizer trying to reduce high school dropout rates in Chicago.

Obama and others in his group "didn't just state the problem," Jones said. "They had recommendations for the problem and I went to the state board of education and got some funding for the dropout problem.

"He was a little pushy," Jones said, "but I happened to like this young man."

It wasn't until more than a decade later, when Obama wrote his first book following his election to the Illinois Senate, that Jones realized Obama came from Hawai'i.

"We never discussed that," Jones said. "I knew he had a funny name but I never questioned his name or where he was from. That wasn't important to me."

But Jones now realizes that Obama's upbringing in Hawai'i set him along a path toward so much success.

As Obama's wife, Michelle, has said, "You can't really understand Barack until you understand Hawai'i."

"Absolutely," Jones said. "Those were his formative years. That culture enabled him to be the person that he is."