Local volunteers for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois are hoping he comes to Hawai'i now that he has likely clinched the Democratic presidential nomination.

Obama, who was born here and graduated from Punahou School, missed his annual holiday visit with family last year because of his campaign schedule. He told local reporters before the February caucuses he wanted to return to the Islands after the nomination campaign was over.

Obama has campaigned in every state except Hawai'i and Alaska.

Last night, in a victory speech in Minnesota — site of the rival GOP national convention in September — Obama dedicated the historic moment to his maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, a retired bank vice president who lives at a Beretania Street apartment.

Obama described Dunham as someone who "poured everything she had into me, and who helped to make me the man I am today. Tonight is for her."

Andy Winer, an attorney and Democratic strategist involved with the local Obama campaign, said a personal visit or campaign stop is on the table now that Obama likely has the nomination. Unconfirmed news media reports last month speculated Obama might visit as part of a biographical tour of his life.

His maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who fought in World War II, is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. Maya Soetoro-Ng, his sister and a history teacher at La Pietra Hawai'i School for Girls, lives here with her husband, Konrad, and their daughter.

Dunham, his grandmother, has declined interview requests. "Thank you for thinking of me," she said yesterday.

"I don't think that they're in a position yet to announce what they're going to be doing as far as plans for the general" election, Winer said of the Obama campaign. "We're certainly hoping that he decides to come out here, though."

Obama would be favored to take Hawai'i's four electoral votes in November over U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee. Hawai'i has been a reliably blue state in presidential elections since statehood. The only Republican presidential candidates who have won here are Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Winer said local Obama volunteers will continue to raise money and build grassroots support. Obama has raised about $1 million in the Islands, which activists believe is unprecedented for a presidential campaign, and helped draw a record 37,500 people to the caucuses.

'HISTORIC DAY' FOR STATE

Local volunteers will also provide some support for the Obama campaign in likely swing states in the West such as Nevada, Oregon and Washington, where there are many Hawai'i transplants. Volunteers made thousands of telephone calls to former Hawai'i residents living in Nevada before the Nevada caucuses in January.

"Hawai'i should be very proud of having a presidential nominee. It's obviously a historic day for the state to have somebody born and raised as one of the presidential candidates," Winer said. "Locally, we look forward to supporting his presidential campaign in any way that we can."

In Hawai'i, Democrats will have to repair any lingering rifts between Obama loyalists and supporters of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Unity was a theme of the party's state convention last month, but, behind the scenes, some emotions are still raw.

"It's going to take some effort on the part of supporters of both candidates to unite after a long and tough primary," said Brian Schatz, the new state party chairman who was active in the local Obama campaign. "What we have going for us, as a party, is that we've had an extraordinary gift of these two candidates that have generated unprecedented enthusiasm.

"If we are able to combine our forces, we're going to see a Democratic president."

Richard Port, a Democratic national committeeman and former party chairman who is a superdelegate, said, for now, he is staying with Clinton. Even on the day Obama captured enough delegates for the nomination, Clinton won the primary in South Dakota.

"It concerns me that she's winning so many of the states when the media has been pounding her," Port said. "I'm going to support the nominee. And if it is Barack, I'm going to support him. But I have real concerns about the current situation."

Obama won 14 of Hawai'i's delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August through the party's caucuses in February. Clinton won six delegates. Obama also secured endorsements of seven of the state's nine superdelegates to the convention. Hawai'i has 29 delegates to the convention in all.

GOP NOT IMPRESSED

Willes Lee, the Hawai'i Republican Party chairman, described the Democratic nomination campaign as divisive and said millions of "voters in his own party don't believe he is fit to be commander in chief."

"Mr. Obama might be able to fool the Democratic Party about his lack of judgment and experience but he won't be so fortunate with the majority of Americans in November," Lee said in a statement. "His policies of raising taxes on small businesses and families are the wrong type of change for America. John McCain is the trusted and experienced leader that will protect our country, grow our economy, and bring the right type of change that Americans desire."

State Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawai'i Kai), said local Democrats celebrating Obama's delegate victory are being hypocritical. He said Democrats backed a bill, which became law after Gov. Linda Lingle's veto was overriden, that would commit Hawai'i to join a compact with other states to elect the president by national popular vote instead of the Electoral College.

Hawai'i's electoral votes would go to the winner of the popular vote, not the winner in the Islands. Hemmings said Clinton won the majority of the votes in the primaries and caucuses nationally while Obama took the most delegates.

He called it a "typical politically correct contradiction" for local Democrats to champion Obama while at the same time backing the national popular vote in electing presidents.

"Obviously, they have created a mess for themselves in their primary elections," Hemmings said. "I'm surprised they haven't tried to blame it on President Bush."

Jacce Mikulanec, a local Obama volunteer and state House staffer, is elated that the nomination campaign is over.

"It seems like this process has been going on for a long time, and now it's finally over," he said. "I think America chose the right candidate. And I think Hawai'i chose the right candidate. I think over the next few days, the party is going to come together, and the country is going to come together."