Help? Hurt? Neutral? On a personal level, this sounds like hospice - having been through it with a few relatives. That's a rough one.

Obama Leaving Campaign Trail To Be With His Sick Grandmother
AP JENNIFER LOVEN October 20, 2008 at 09:29 PM


WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother, his communications director said.

Robert Gibbs told reporters aboard Obama's plane 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."

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. On Friday, Obama's wife, Michelle, will sub for Obama at rallies in Akron and Columbus, in Ohio, said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Obama was expected to resume campaigning on Saturday, at an undecided location in the West, she said.

"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."

Citing the family's desire for privacy, Gibbs would not discuss the nature of Dunham's illness. It seemed likely that she was close to death, as Gibbs said that "everyone understands the decision that Sen. Obama is making."

It could be a momentous one in his bid for the White House against Republican John McCain, with Election Day just two weeks away on Nov. 4.

In a campaign ad this year, Obama described his Dunham as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland" _ things like "accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated."

She's also the "white grandmother" he referred to in a speech on race.

Obama last visited Hawaii in August, when he spent a week on vacation after he had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination.

Obama Leaving Campaign Trail To Be With His Sick Grandmother

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Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

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Defeating market theocrats since 2001.

The only thing disturbing about this, other than the media raising it as an "issue," is that he isn't staying longer. He's supposed to fly down on Thursday and return on Saturday. If granny's condition is as serious as is implied, then I would expect him to stay longer - even if he maybe scheduled a couple of campaign events while there (Hawaii is, after all, one of America's 50 states and people in Hawaii do actually vote). Then there's this nonsense of his wife and family not going with him.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Because he is running for POTUS. It is an important job. He cannot just bail every time life gets bad while in office. This is one of the few jobs where career has to come first.

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Too bad for him, overall this is insignificant.
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I just realized that came out harsh, "too bad for him", what I was trying to say there was something along the lines of:
That sucks for Obama, illness and death of loved ones is painful. But overall this is insignificant to the election.

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May your paradise always be green, you liberties always be full, and may the ignorance of you enemies not drive you to be pro-nuke.

"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself
into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle."-Winston Churchill

Yes, he's RUNNING for the office; he isn't in the damned office yet! Some things, like family, are a whole hell of a lot more important than being on the campaign trail.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

keeping mccain out of the Oval office is pretty important to allot of us.

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First, I would like to say that this should not be viewed through partisan lenses. It sounds as though Sen. Obama's grandmother may be terminally ill; but I very much hope that this is not the case, and that she recovers fully.

I disagree, however, with the belief that "career has to come first"--before family--regardles of the nature of that career. No career is worth more than one's immediate family. None.

This is not, however, to disparage Sen. Obama for his having not spent more time with his ailing grandmother. I do not know all the details: just how recently her illness took a terrible turn for the worse, being foremost among them.

I agree with Chan and pjohns: family first.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

When your job is something like president, many other peoples' families can depend on you. So--hypothetical--if you had to choose between your immediate family and the families of a million other people, which would you pick?

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.