Obama suspends campaign to visit ailing grandmother in Hawaii

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Barack Obama will suspend campaigning for 24 hours later this week to visit his ailing 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, his campaign announced last night.

Robert Gibbs, one of the senator's top aides, told reporters aboard the campaign plane that Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was very ill, and that Obama had decided to cancel events Thursday planned for Madison, Wis., and in Des Moines. Instead, he will head to Honolulu Thursday, after a morning event in Indianapolis.

Dunham, who helped raise Obama in Hawaii, is one of his closest living relatives. Gibbs declined to provide details about her illness, citing her privacy, but said that Obama's visit was an indication that it was "very serious." Gibbs said Dunham was at her home, after being released late last week from the hospital.

"Senator Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life," Gibbs said in statement. "Along with his mother and his grandmother, she raised him in Hawaii from the time he was born until the moment he left for college. As he said at the Democratic National Convention, she poured everything she had into him."

Obama has long made spending time with his grandmother - his mother's mother - a priority, visiting her nearly every year around the Christmas holiday. A question that seems unanswerable at this point is whether her condition is serious enough that she might not see him win the presidency, if he does.

Gibbs said Obama would return to the campaign trail Saturday, and his campaign said he'd likely campaign in the West. Obama's wife, Michelle, will campaign in his place in Akron and Columbus, Ohio, on Friday.

SCOTT HELMAN

New polls out yesterday show that key parts of John McCain's strategy - using Joe the plumber to try to paint Democratic rival Barack Obama as an incipient socialist and emphasizing Obama's ties to "domestic terrorist" William Ayers to portray him as a radical - are not hitting home with voters.

But one survey suggested he is having some success separating himself from President Bush.

McCain said in last week's final presidential debate and in every stump speech since that he is not Bush, and if Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have run four years ago. Now, 52 percent of likely voters said they believe McCain would mean mostly different policies than Bush, compared with 44 percent two weeks ago, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll.

In an ABC News/Washington Post survey, 60 percent of likely voters nationwide said that Obama's relationship with Ayers was not a legitimate issue in the presidential race, while 37 percent said it was. Ayers led the Weather Underground during its bombing campaign against government buildings, and two decades later served with Obama on two nonprofit educational boards.

And in Suffolk University surveys, 80 percent of likely voters in Missouri had heard of Joe the plumber, but only 8 percent said that made them more likely to vote for McCain; 68 percent of likely Ohio voters said they recognized Joe, but only 6 percent said they were more likely to vote for McCain.

FOON RHEE

WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain reported yesterday that his campaign spent $37 million in September, leaving him $47 million in public money for the rest of the campaign.

McCain's monthly financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows he spent nearly two-thirds of his money - $22.5 million - on advertising as he tried to keep up with Democratic rival Barack Obama's ad blitz in battleground states.

McCain is participating in public financing, which limits his spending to $84 million between early September and Nov. 4. But he has received significant help from the Republican National Committee, which raised $66 million in September and reported $77.5 million available cash as of Oct.1.

McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, predicted that by Election Day the McCain campaign and the RNC will have spent nearly $400 million for the two-month fall campaign. He downplayed the impact of Obama's money on the lead Obama has in the polls. "The lack of money in Wall Street has had more to do with the outcome of this last month politically than the money in Barack Obama's bank account," Davis said.

Obama, who is not participating in public financing, raised a record-shattering $150 million in September. The Democratic National Committee said it raised $49.9 million last month and had $27.5 million in the bank at the start of October.

ASSOCIATED PRESS