Obama Leaving the Campaign Trail Due to Grandmother’s Health
Just seen on MSNBC via The Rachel Maddow show, Senator Obama is leaving the campaign trail due to his grandmother’s failing health:
Obama to take break to see sick grandmother
He is scheduled to fly to Hawaii Thursday and Friday to visit herFrom The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly ill 85-year-old grandmother, his spokesman said.
Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday that Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise him, was released from the hospital late last week. But he said her health had deteriorated “to the point where her situation is very serious.”
Obama was expected to resume campaigning on Saturday, though Gibbs was unsure where.
Obama events originally planned for Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced with one in Indianapolis before he makes the long flight to Hawaii.
Gibbs said it was still being decided whether surrogates would fill in for Obama. His wife, Michelle, for instance, was not accompanying him to Hawaii.
“Senator Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life, along with his mother and his grandfather,” Gibbs said. “Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Sen. Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her.”
Senator Obama has consistently said how much his grandmother means to him since she essentially raised him during a large portion of his childhood years. I know this is a tough situation for him. I sincerely hope his grandmother’s health stabilizes and improves.
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12 Responses to “Obama Leaving the Campaign Trail Due to Grandmother’s Health”
Thank you for this post, T-Steel.
This is very sad news.
It says something about Obama that he is setting aside his campaign for his grandmother. Given the scale of a presidential campaign machine at this stage, this is no small disruption. Obama has lost so many people in his life, at a remarkably young age. Very sad.
I wish him and his family all the best in this time.
Unfortunately I kept surfing the Net, and came across scum on some right-wing sites saying appalling things about this story.
I will not post any links, folks here can find them if you like.
I am shocked and sickened. As someone who has lost family this past year, I cannot believe this.
I'm sorry. I don't even know why I am writing this. T-Steel, you can delete it if you like.
Just shocked at the comments. They have no human feeling whatsoever. Unbelievable what partisanship does to people.
I've seen some of those right wing sites. It is disgusting but these days, it's par for the stinking course.
I agree Marlow about how much it says about Obama that he would stop in his tracks right before the election and go to Hawaii. I haven't been to the right-wing sites but I really don't understand how someone could make anything out of what this is— a man who loves his grandmother putting his ambition aside to spend time with her when she's gravely ill.
It humanized Obama for me and at the same time made me admire him even more.
Cue up Rush Limbaugh tomorrow mocking Obama's white grandmother. Or calling it a stunt. Or saying that she's faking it like Michael J. Fox in 2006. The right wing never fails to amaze me.
Anyway, thoughts and prayers are with Obama. I hope his grandmother makes it through.
I agree with you, Kritt, it is a big deal for Obama to put a campaign machine the size of his on hold for a day or two.
And yes, it does humanize him. You see pictures of him and her together. You can see how proud she is of him.
“It is disgusting but these days, it's par for the stinking course.”
You are right. There was glee at Tony Snow's passing.
But this was a nice old lady, for god's sake. Why does she deserve this hate?
I find this very very upsetting. It is just not right.
Best wishes to Obama and his family. Hopefully she will pull through.
Yes, I agree with you, T-Steel, Marlow, kritt and elrod… this is sad news about Obama's grandmother and I wish her well (and her loved ones). It does say something about Obama's strong family values to be taking time off this massive and important campaign to visit his grandmother. I won't bother to look for the scummy right-wing sites, but I know I'll read about them.
Thanks, all!
Marlowecan, I want you to know that I appreciate your thoughts — on this and many other issues. Especially after I made the jump to endorsing one candidate over the other you, more than any other here, have challenged me to constantly rethink things and appreciate my own biases. That's a good thing. I don't always agree with you, but I think we can both agree that people are people, and the distance between us all tend to be exaggerated, at least until the real chips fall.
SB, Marlowe, TS, and Elrod
My hope is that like the other scummy attacks, this one blows up in the GOP's faces and Obama gets the sympathy vote. (But I also think celebrating when an opponent dies of terminal cancer is waay over the line -tho I had a lot of criticisms of Snow when he was on the job) What could be more unamerican than attacking someone's sick old grandma?
One gets the impression that this is Obama's last parent, though I've never read his books. Father was gone as long as he's known. Mother when he was an adult. And when Obama talked about being raised by his grandparents, he usually mentioned his grandmother.
I wish the family well.
Ricorun, thank you for your kind words.
Yes, I agree that it is important to treat people as people, regardless of politics or the other tags which are prone to exaggeration and stereotyping. Always good to interrogate ourselves. . .I too have done a lot of that this year.
Kritt . . . I was actually stunned when I saw some of those things about Obama's grandmother on those sites. Yes, there is a total lack of human feeling in attacking a sick grandmother.
But unlike Snow et al. – which were bad enough – she is an “innocent” in a way.
She becomes a target only because Obama loves her, and she means a lot to him.
Taking joy in her condition and Obama's pain is a new low in this already low, dishonest campaign.
I continue to hope for the best for Obama and his family in this regard.
Having just heard about Obama's love for his grandmother (greater than his ambition to win this election), I was going to post that I hoped that the McCain campaign (or the right wing) would not use this sad ocasion as another opportunity to attack and demean Obama.
Halas, after reading Marlowecan's first comment, I realize that such has already started.
What an unbelievable shame
Dorian de Wind