Posted on 10/23/2008 4:29:51 PM PDT by Shermy
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AFP) – Barack Obama on Thursday quit the White House trail for Hawaii and an emotional reunion with his gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother, 12 days before the US presidential election.
Madelyn Dunham, who raised the 47-year-old Obama for much of his childhood, is his sole remaining link with his tight-knit family after his mother died of cancer more than a decade ago.
The Democratic nominee's compassionate leave comes with Republican John McCain searching for a sudden lurch in momentum and new polls showing Obama well positioned in the vital battleground states set to decide the November 4 election.
Obama told CBS television that he decided to make the exhausting journey half-way across the Pacific to see Dunham -- nicknamed "Toot" -- despite the crush of campaign events as he "got there too late" when his mother Ann Dunham died.
"We knew that she wasn't doing well but, you know, the diagnosis was such where we thought we had a little more time and we didn't. And so I want to make sure that I don't -- I don't make the same mistake twice," Obama said.
"My grandmother's the last one left. She has really been the rock of the family, the foundation of the family. Whatever strength, discipline that I have, it comes from her."
Dunham is reportedly suffering from a broken hip and generally failing health.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
So who is keeping tabs on 0be’s whereabouts and visitations while in HI. Is he meeting John Edwards? Is the National Enquirer staking him out?
Broken hip? She’s out of the hospital. General health? That can wait.
I suspect he is going to Hawaii to film his half-hour network presentation, out of the mainland’s eye.
Are McCain people smart enough to tail Obama and see how much time he actually spends with Grandma, and what else he does, and leak it to the press? Doubt it.
Another mystery - why he isn’t running ads with that San Francisco “clinger” clip.
Who knew?
Oh really caring Bambi, anyone else would have started packing the momment they heard the news. Yet you waited how many days? Three or was it four.
Don’t come crying for sympathy with me and do not expect any either. Where is your heart?
Not his only living relative. He has a grandmother in Kenya and two half brothers. No one is allowed to talk to his grandmother in Kenya. Why?
The press corps will be accompanying him as per a story on “The Honolulu Advertiser” website from last night to record “the dutiful grandson”
This article in another Hawaii paper tells a somewhat different story of Christmas 2007 and quite frankly it makes me sick! (Scroll down for the story)
http://www.midweek.com/content/story/midweek_coverstory/08_year_of_obama/P0/
My thoughts exactly, see #3.
It’s sneaky. He vacationed in Hawaii earlier, only spent an hour with grandma. Will McCain’s people clock how much time he spends this time? What else he does?
“...his tight-knit family....”?
Riiiiight. Doesn’t he have a half-brother living in a cardboard shack on a dollar a month in Kenya?
No doubt, he’s going to make sure they get the “right” birth
records to give to the press.
There’s also a sister, Maya Soetero Ng, in Honolulu
“emotional reunion” “tight knit family” HUH?
Supposedly his kids have never met is grandmother and supposedly he spend all of 1 hr with her during his Hawaii vacation.
My employer, who is a Reagan Democrat strongly supporting McCain, has a theory which might seem like tinfoil, but she strongly believes it, and I am afraid she may be right.
She claims that this Hawaii trip is staged so we can see Obama next week weeping over the casket of his dead white grandmother. She feels the woman may even already be dead and held for Obama’s return so the funeral will be the great photo op and play for sympathy. She loathes Obama and puts nothing past him or his people.
The only way to prevent Obama from using his grandmother’s death to exploit sympathy votes is to speak about this openly before it happens, which may help innoculate us from it actually happening. How do we do this without seeming, um, how it seems?
The Kenyan grandmother is not his biological grandmother. She’s a step grandmother. Second wife of grandfather, whom he married late in life.
Cynical? Moi? (See tagline...)
You know...I think I’ll be sick if I hear the “tight knit family” stuff one more time. Let’s see, he admits he didn’t visit his mother before she died, he’s been planning for three days to “rush” to see his dying Grandmother, and he spent what..an hour?...with her last summer. I read that the kids didn’t even see her!
Sorry,...but tight-knit is not what I would consider Obama’s relationship with his ‘typical’ white grandmother
Not his only living relative. He has a grandmother in Kenya and two half brothers. No one is allowed to talk to his grandmother in Kenya. Why?”
Doesn’t he also have a half-sister, Maya???
“...his tight-knit family....”?
Riiiiight. Doesn’t he have a half-brother living in a cardboard shack on a dollar a month in Kenya?””
Junk yard dogs get better treatment in this country.
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