HONOLULU -- With a running mate to pick, a convention speech to write and any number of attacks to counter, Barack Obama's agenda this week contains a surprise or two.
"I'm going to go get some shave ice, I'm going to go body surfing in an undisclosed location, I'm going to see my Tutu -- my grandma -- and I'm going to watch my girls play in the beach," he told a huge crowd shortly after landing in Hawaii on Friday.
Yes, the presumptive Democratic nominee is taking a vacation, a weeklong respite from the hectic schedule he's maintained for the better part of a year. An extended primary fight with Hillary Rodham Clinton afforded him few opportunities for downtime, and he took only a long weekend to catch his breath before beginning his general election campaign against John McCain.
"I'm beat," Obama conceded at a press conference in Florida last week.
With the start of the Summer Olympics, the campaign and the candidate saw an opportunity for a holiday and took it.
"During the middle of a campaign you always worry about taking some time off, but I've been going pretty much straight for 18 months now," the Illinois senator said on his campaign plane last week. "I have not seen my grandmother, who I usually have seen every year.... And those little girls need a little love. As does Michelle."
The whole Obama family flew together on Friday, along with two family friends. And after a welcome rally near the Honolulu airport, Obama did head straight to visit his maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. On Saturday he took in a round of golf, and Sunday, he visited childhood friends for a barbecue.
But there are a number of indications that this will be a working vacation. As Obama was rounding the Olomana Golf Links course Saturday morning, his campaign issued a statement on the conflict between Russia and Georgia that said he had spoken with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Obama will hold a fundraiser here Tuesday. And the presence of campaign advisers indicates that there will be time for planning his running mate rollout and convention speech.
Plus, the campaign is sensitive about having the candidate seen really relaxing. When cameras captured Obama putting on the golf course, the traveling group of reporters who make up what is called the "protective pool" was pushed farther away in its parking lot staging area to prevent any more pictures. The campaign has taken steps to limit access to the candidate and his family when they are on the beach, hoping to avoid a repeat of the famous picture of him splashing through the ocean on his last trip here in 2006.
When asked about the limited access and cautious approach, a staffer countered by asking whether the national media was more interested in paparazzi-like shots or legitimate coverage. The campaign is keenly aware of the potential pitfalls a candid photo could bring. The Boston Globe reported on just this topic last week, saying that for 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, vacation shots "have been the harbingers of political disaster," specifically a windsurfing trip that became fodder for Republican attack ads.
Coincidentally, Obama was in Boston with Kerry on the day that story ran. And when he was given a Hawaiian-style Red Sox shirt as a gift during a fundraiser, he made light of the matter.
"It is a very attractive shirt," he said. "Although I think the advice of Boston Globe was, 'Do not wear aloha shirts.' So obviously you did not read that before getting these gifts."
Whatever the fallout may be nationally, Obama's visit has created excitement on the islands, where he grew up and attended high school, and where his half-sister and grandmother still live. Local television newscasts provide regular updates as to his goings-on. The two major newspapers in Honolulu featured his visit prominently in both their Saturday and Sunday editions, with several pages of coverage inside. And one of them, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, is encouraging its readers to submit any candid photos they might be able to catch.
That will be hard, with no other public events scheduled. There's no reason for Obama to campaign much -- Hawaii's electoral votes have been reliably Democratic since it became a state, going for the party's nominee in all but two elections.
Blue Hawaii, indeed.
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