For the last 21 months, she has followed the odyssey of his presidential campaign like a spectator on a faraway balcony.
She underwent a corneal transplant to see him on television. She reluctantly agreed to film a political advertisement when he urgently needed to reassure voters about his distinctive American roots. She told him during one of their frequent telephone conversations that it might not hurt if he smiled a bit more.
And on Friday, Senator Barack Obama spent the day here saying goodbye.
At the Punahou Circle Apartments, a place of his own childhood, Madelyn Dunham, his grandmother, lay gravely ill. For weeks, Mr. Obama has talked to doctors and tracked her condition. When she was released from the hospital last week after surgery to repair a broken hip, he received word that he should not wait until after the election to make what he believes is most likely a final visit.
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“One of the things I wanted to make sure of is that I had a chance to sit down with her and talk to her,” Mr. Obama said Friday on the ABC News television program “Good Morning America.” “She’s still alert and she’s still got all her faculties, and I want to make sure that — that I don’t miss that opportunity right now.”
“She is getting a sense of long-deserved recognition at — towards the end of her life,” he added.
As Mr. Obama flew west across six time zones on his way here, he stayed in the secluded front cabin of his campaign plane. He read, slept and briefly talked with a handful of aides who came along. The knot in his red tie was loosened as he walked down the aisle of the plane to stretch his legs, but he kept his distance from a small group of reporters who accompanied him.
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In only one campaign commercial, made during the primary race, can Mrs. Dunham be heard speaking. Her osteoporosis was advanced, and she hunched so severely that it was hard for filmmakers to capture her spirit and words of support for her grandson.
In August, as he prepared to accept the Democratic nomination, Mr. Obama delivered a long-distance message to her in a televised speech.
“Thank you to my grandmother, who helped raise me and is sitting in Hawaii somewhere right now because she can’t travel, but who poured everything she had into me and who helped me become the man I am today,” Mr. Obama said. “Tonight is for her.”
It happens in politics. If Obama becomes Jimmy Carter II after a honeymoon in a few weeks they will be non-entities. Backstabbers aren't rewarded in the long run. They are not respected in the new party (especially when they don't really believe in Democrat party politics) and they won't be forgiven from the party they left. There's even a small chance that Obama won't win.
My mom does. Saturday is girls night out this week, so I blame the scheduling conflicts amongst me and my friends for the reason I was home tonight to be bored enough to watch Larry King.
