The move to Obama's headquarters puts the Windy City squarely at the center of American politics for the first time since it was the scene of a Democratic Party meltdown at the 1968 convention. Then and now, it's a city whose central political feature - top-down machine control - is one legacy Obama has taken from his allies in the reigning Daley family. His campaign has been a model of leak-free discipline and clear lines of authority from the candidate and his guru, Chicago-based David Axelrod, through his campaign manager David Plouffe and a tight-knit staff.

Dean's Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, has won the affection of state party officials by dispatching paid organizers to supplement state party staff in every state in the country, and has worked to update databases of voters. But it has been outmatched by the muscular Republican National Committee - which benefits from control of the White House - in fundraising and communication. In those latter areas, the RNC - in a mirror image of the Democratic side - has filled gaps in Senator John McCain's smaller organization.

Now, Obama's large, deep-pocketed effort seems set to absorb and transform the committee's key functions, and to reshape it after its own model, and largely on its own turf-though Obama's former Iowa state director, Paul Tewes, will remain in Washington to oversee the party's fundraising and media operations there. Obama's aides credit part of their success to the Chicago location, with its relative isolation from the national media.