Barack Obama as a college student in the 1980s with grandparents, Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham in New York City (AP Photo/Obama for America)
by Christi Parsons and John McCormick
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Barack Obama will suspend his presidential campaign for part of two days this week to return to his native Hawaii to be at the side of his gravely ill grandmother, a campaign aide said Monday.
Madelyn Dunham, 85, was released from a hospital late last week and returned to her home in Honolulu with a health condition the aide described as "very serious."
Obama's decision to cancel campaign events "underscores the seriousness of the situation," senior aide Robert Gibbs told reporters during an evening flight after a campaign event in Orlando.
As the Illinois Democrat recounted in his memoirs, Dunham, his maternal grandmother, acted in many ways as a surrogate parent.
At one point in his youth, Obama left his mother and sister, who were living in Indonesia, and returned to Hawaii to attend private school and live with "Gramps" and the grandmother he called "Toot."
"She poured everything she had into him," Gibbs said of Obama's grandmother.
Read the full story in today's Tribune.
Comments
In fairness, I think it should be said that Obama is going to suspend his part of his campaign. I'm sure that ads will continue to run and that others will continue to campaign on his behalf, so the entire campaign is not being suspended any more that McCain's entire campaign was suspended before the first debate. (Of course, considering that McCain appeared for an interview with Couric during his "suspension" of his campaign, it can't even be said that McCain suspended his part of his campaign, but that's a different story.)
Posted by: My Aunt Fanny | October 21, 2008 9:59 AM
Now there are some dangerous looking terrorists.
Posted by: TheLeninSisters | October 21, 2008 6:30 PM
yes his Grandmothers vote should count; she was truely his cornerstone in his life, who helped mold him to the "Wonderful" careing person that is he is! Making President Obama the greatest ever.. Our prayers & thoughts are with him & his family in the GREAT loss of his grandmother.what a honor it would have been to have met her.
Posted by: Katherine & Elwood Burrill | November 5, 2008 7:32 AM