Wooing Va. Before Heading to Hawaii

Visit to Ill Grandmother Next for Obama

Democrat Barack Obama swept through Virginia yesterday trying to overturn nearly half a century of presidential history, continuing a march through red-state America before taking an unprecedented break from the campaign trail to visit the ailing grandmother who helped raise him.

With an ear-splitting rally in the Richmond coliseum and a late-afternoon speech at a chilly park in Leesburg, Obama promised to deliver the Commonwealth in the Democratic column for the first time since 1964.

"I feel like we've got a righteous wind at our backs," Obama told tens of thousands gathered on the rolling hills of Ida Lee Park. It was his eighth day of campaigning in the state since securing the Democratic nomination in June.

He was joined by two Democrats who helped revive the party in Virginia, former governor and Senate candidate Mark R. Warner and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

They presented Obama as a pragmatic "unifier" who would fix a broken government in Washington, the same kind of message that has led to Democratic success in the state.

"We need a president who will look at any good idea, doesn't matter whether it's got a "D" or an "R" next to it," Warner said in Richmond, echoing a theme of his campaigns. "We need a president who will ask us to step up not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but first and foremost as Americans."

Kaine said Obama would replace an administration "that can't respond to a hurricane or manage a war, or manage an economy."

And the Democrats referred to a statement that McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer made this weekend in which she said Obama might do well in Northern Virginia, but that Republican rival John McCain would prevail elsewhere, the "real Virginia, if you will."

Obama told the Leesburg crowd: "I know some people don't think so, but this looks like the real Virginia to me."

Obama will head today to his home state of Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother in what is an extraordinary departure from the campaign trail with 12 days left in the race.

His advisers said he did not hesitate to make the trip when his sister called with the news. But the move has caused mild anxiety among his aides, eased somewhat by polling that shows him maintaining a lead over McCain.

Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, suffered a broken hip and possibly a heart attack, people close to the Obamas said, and is recovering at her apartment in Honolulu after a hospital stay. Obama's sister, Maya, is caring for her. Dunham will turn 86 on Sunday.