Obama halts campaigning to visit ill grandmother

DEMOCRAT Barack Obama will leave the White House trail tomorrow to head 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, before throwing himself back into full bore campaigning on Saturday, advisor 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 at his August convention.