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Obama: "My Grandmother's The Last One Left"

(CBS)
From CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic:

(INDIANAPOLIS) Barack Obama heads to Hawaii this afternoon to visit his beloved grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. Dunham has become seriously ill, prompting the Democratic nominee to leave the campaign trail just 12 days before the election. This morning on CBS' "The Early Show", Obama told Harry Smith that he it was important for him to see his grandmother while she is still alert.

"My grandmother's the last one left," Obama said.

He also expressed regret for not being by his mother's bedside when she passed away in 1995.

"Yeah, got there too late. You know, I mean, it was sort of like this, in the sense that she had a terminal illness. We knew-- she wasn't doing well. But you know, the diagnosis was such that we thought we had a little more time, and we didn't," Obama said, "And so I want to make sure that I don't make the same mistake twice."

Obama spent much of his childhood in Hawaii and was raised by his mother, Ann Dunham, with help from her parents, the ailing Madelyn and the late Stanley Dunham.

Obama was supposed to be campaigning in Wisconsin and Iowa today, but his events were canceled after he got the news about his grandmother. Instead, he has will attend a rally at the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis before taking off for Hawaii.

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