MEXICO CITY, Sept 25, (AP): Many Mexicans will feel a deep sense of loss when folksy, charismatic, nationalistic President Andrés Manuel López Obrador leaves office on Sept 30 - and that’s no surprise. López Obrador himself has spent an inordinate amount of time talking about his own legacy - and his place in history - over his six-year term, something he brings up at almost every one of his marathonic daily 7 am media briefings.

But what legacy will the rumpled, grinning López Obrador leave behind? It is perhaps the main question for a man who is obsessed with history, and one thing appears clear: he has changed the way politics is done in Mexico, perhaps forever. Unlike decades of reserved and distant presidents, López Obrador has built a deep personal connection with many Mexicans.

He has stripped the office of the thousands of presidential guards, limousines and walled compounds that once characterized it, saying "you can't have a rich government with poor people.” "He is a politician who evokes familiarity, he reminds people of a father, an uncle, a grandfather," said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political analyst at Mexico’s Center for Economic Research and Teaching.

That's not a coincidence, either. López Obrador constantly praises the traditional family and says it has saved the country. "He does feel nostalgia for some of the social structures of the 1970s in Mexico and nostalgia for the family,” said Pérez Ricart. Will his legacy be like that of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created lasting institutions like Social Security and home mortgage programs that resulted in an enormous, stable middle class? The Mexican leader stakes his movement on cash social-benefit programs, he likes to compare himself to Roosevelt and many Mexicans think of him with the same fondness that the more patrician FDR inspired in his day.

"I think he's going to be remembered as a president who started big changes, who thought about the people," said Armando López, 60, who works as a street cleaner. Marina Fiesco, an office worker taking a break at a Mexico City park with her 11-year-old son, voiced similar feelings. "I feel he does think about the people,” said Fiesco. "It's not about left or right, a president has to look out for the people.” Part of that connection is that he talks more, and fields more questions, than probably any other leader in the world.