Obama Steps Away From the Campaign Trail

With only days left, Obama is taking time off the campaign trail

With just over a week left before the elections, Sen. Obama should be blazing the campaign trail, but as hard as it may be to believe, some things are more important. The New York Times followed the democratic presidential nominee as he spent one of the last days leading up to the election in Honolulu, visiting his dying grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. Dunham, turning 86 this sunday, as has been spotlighted in the media more than once leading up to today, was and is, a major part of Obama's life. Raised by her as a child, the Senator has been keeping close tabs on her progress, checking up with doctors daily and doing his best to keep in touch. Released from the hospital last week after hip surgery, doctors expressed their medical opinion to Obama, letting him know that it may not be best to wait until after the elections to make what may be his last visit to Dunham. Whether or not it was the best idea at this point in the race for the whitehouse, Obama didn't care, the trip was nonnegotiable. “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.” Something, sadly, Obama did not have the chance to do before his mothers death in 1995 and did not want to make the same mistake again.

McCain Visits Colorado

Visiting Denver today, Sen. McCain did his best to woo voters in the battleground state that currently has his opponent Obama at the top of the polls. The Senator from Arizona made it a point to express that only a republican in the White House can serve as a check on Democrats in Congress. The LA Times quoted McCain as saying, "The answer to a slowing economy is not higher taxes, but that is exactly what is going to happen when the Democrats have total control of Washington."

Opinion

The news following the campaign trail seemed a bit thin today and other than Obama's visit to Hawaii, nothing made it across the spectrum of papers. I would think, so close to the election day, that the papers would be covering the campaigns more than ever. At the same time, it seems that, at this point in both campaigns, it is a bunch more of the same. The only thing that did standout, was Obama's break from campaigning. Otherwise, it was McCain still behind in the polls and struggling to get "back in it," and more talk about taxes. The papers worked with what they had and the coverage shows that. The Washington Post really didn't have much more to offer.

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