LAT: Obama ready to unwind in Hawaii
The presidential candidate says he needs a break. A poll indicates half of voters welcome his time off.
By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 7, 2008
ELKHART, Ind. -- Everyone seems ready for Barack Obama to take a vacation -- his family, foreign leaders, even a fair number of voters. After marathon bouts of campaigning, Obama is about to relent. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is heading off for Hawaii on Friday for a break that will be his last before the November election.
Weighing the political risks of leaving the continental U.S. in the middle of the campaign, Obama conceded that the timing was not the best. But he told reporters aboard his campaign plane this week that he didn't have much choice. He's visibly tired. Gray hairs are sprouting.
Perhaps more worrisome for Obama, a new poll shows voters may be tiring of him. So he will fulfill a popular workplace dream: a weeklong getaway on a sunny island. Apart from a fundraising event Tuesday, Obama's plan is to rest, not troll for votes, aides said. Arrangements are being made to accommodate reporters (at a cost of $11,500 each for the week), but the campaign is putting out word there probably will be no real news....
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A spokesman for McCain painted the Hawaii trip as an indulgence. "Americans are facing sky-high gas prices, and instead of Barack Obama taking the initiative to call his allies in Congress back from vacation to carve out real energy relief, he's joining them at the beach," Tucker Bounds said....
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Obama's trip will be a homecoming. He was born in Hawaii and spent a good part of his boyhood there. His 85-year-old grandmother, who helped raise him, still lives on Oahu, as does his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. Part of Obama's vacation will be a family reunion. He said he tries to see his grandmother every year, but put off a trip in 2007 while he battled his Democratic rivals. "So it's been about 19 months since I saw her," Obama said. "She's at an age where it's really important for me to see her."
Then there's the rest of his family: two daughters and wife Michelle, who has voiced worries about her husband's safety on the campaign trail. "Those little girls need a little love," Obama said. "And so does Michelle, I think. So we're going to take the time."...
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-campaign7-2008aug07,0,5641940.story
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