ELKHART, Ind. — Everyone seems ready for Sen. Barack Obama to take a vacation — his family, foreign leaders, even a fair number of voters.
After marathon bouts of campaigning, Obama is about to relent. The presumptive Democratic nominee is jetting off for Hawaii on Friday for a break that will be his last before the presidential election in November.
Mulling the political risks of leaving the continental U.S. with the presidency up for grabs, Obama conceded the timing is not the best. But as he said aboard his campaign plane this week, he doesn’t have much choice. He’s visibly tired. Gray hairs are sprouting.
Perhaps more worrisome for Obama, a new poll shows voters may be tiring of him. So the presumptive Democratic nominee will fulfill everyone’s workplace dream: a weeklong getaway on a sunny island.
Apart from a fundraising event Tuesday, Obama’s plan is to rest, not troll for votes, aides said. Arrangements are being made to accommodate reporters (at a cost of $11,500 for the week), but the campaign is putting out word that there is likely to be no real news.
“During the middle of a campaign you’re always worried about taking some time off,” Obama said, while standing in the aisle of his campaign plane. “That’s the nature of the job. I’ve been going pretty much straight for 18 months now. … So we’re going to take the time.”
Obama has been keeping a relentless schedule. He took time off in the Virgin Islands in March but leapt right into the general election campaign after defeating Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in June.
Fortified by daily workouts at the gym, he looks fit. But his face seemed drawn as he addressed a town hall meeting Wednesday, the toll of a week spent parrying Republican Sen. John McCain’s charge that his antidote to the energy crisis is tire inflation.
Politicians who have crossed paths with Obama have urged him to relax. During his dash through the Middle East and Europe last month, he was admonished by British conservative leader David Cameron: “You should be on the beach.”
Voters might not be sorry to see him disappear for a spell. A Pew Research poll released Wednesday showed that 48 percent believed they’d been hearing too much about Obama. Only 26 percent had the same feeling about McCain.
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