West Palm Beach, Florida - Democrat Barack Obama will leave the White House trail later this week to dash to the side of his gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, just 11 days before the election.
The Illinois senator will cancel events in midwestern Iowa and Wisconsin and head to his native Hawaii on Thursday, before throwing himself back into full bore campaigning on Saturday, adviser Robert Gibbs said.
Obama's grandmother Madelyn Dunham played an instrumental role in his upbringing and he lauded her as an anchor of his life in his convention speech in August.
"In the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious," Gibbs told reporters on Obama's plane in Florida, declining to give further details of Dunham's condition.
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"It is for that reason Senator Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her. He will be returning to the campaign trail on Saturday," said Gibbs, describing Dunham as "one of the most important people in his (Obama's) life."
Obama has a healthy lead in polls in Iowa and Wisconsin, so cancelling stops in the two states would not seem to pose too much of a risk politically.
He will campaign in Virginia on Wednesday and add a stop in swing state Indiana on Thursday before heading to Hawaii.
Earlier, Obama accused Republican John McCain of launching an "ugly" attempt to stave off defeat as he blitzed the crucial swing state of Florida, where early voting opened on Monday, with one-time foe Hillary Clinton.
"In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over," Obama said in Tampa.
"We've seen it before and we're seeing it again - ugly phone calls, misleading mail, misleading TV ads, careless, outrageous comments," Obama said.
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