Having been from Illinois, where I had to live for most of my adult life, here is who Obama is.
He is an Illinois politician (i.e., corrupt, like Daley just not caught yet), a socialist who has leveraged his "work" in the worst parts of Chicago for this political limelight, and the worst parts of Chicago are still just exactly that - the worst - in spite of his earnest efforts, which of course had nothing to do with resolving the real problems in Chicago. He is a student of Saul Alinsky, trained in the streets, and a master of the "move the masses" that Alinsky favors. Obama has an agenda a mile long, of which we only see the tip of the iceberg at this point. He is about as Christian as my easy chair, and his concern for the average Joe about as real as Hitlery's Southern accent.
He is dangerous for what is known of his past and for being from Illinois. He is also, like most of the current candidates, much more dangerous for what we don't know about them, who they have sold out to, who they really represent, what it is they want to do to us (not for us).
That is Barak Obama - in a nutshell.