FLASH: Michelle will fill in for Barack Obama

Michelle Obama will fill in for husband Barack Obama on the campaign trail while he is tending to his convalescing maternal grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham. --link to Guardian of the U.K.


Photo: Obama with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, at his high school graduation; released by his campaign, October 21, 2008.

Barack Obama is withdrawing from active campaigning for 36 hours, beginning late Wednesday, continuing into Friday. He will visit his grandmother in Hawaii. On Friday Michelle Obama will substitute for him, at campaign appearances in Akron and Columbus, Ohio.

OUT OF COLORADO: In matters pertaining to the John McCain campaign, his campaign has confirmed reports that the campaign will withdraw from Colorado. Real Clear Politics reports (in its aggregation of polls), as of October 21, PM, Obama leads in that state by 5.4 percentage points.
As Obama has reminded us, we cannot be sanguine about the Democratic momentum, and races have narrowed toward election day.
Nonetheless, a Democratic presidential victory in Colorado would be highly significant.

This would be the first Democratic victory in Colorado --in a two-way race-- since 1964.

The McCain campaign already conceded Michigan at the beginning of this month, and has withdrawn campaign operations from that state.

Send blessings to Obama's grandma Dunham

This in from the wire services, from Associated Press, October 20 evening, by Jennifer Loven:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama is cancelling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly ill 86-year-old grandmother.

Campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday that Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise him, was released from the hospital late last week. But he says her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious.

Gibbs said Obama would return to the campaign trail on Saturday, though he was unsure where.

Obama events originally planned for Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced with one in Indianapolis before he makes the long flight to Hawaii.