Then Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama walks the beach with his daughters Malia, 10, left, and Sasha, 7, during his vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, August 12, 2008.
Health Care reform allowing, President Barack Obama will leave behind the detritus of legislative guerrilla warfare and a blizzard that froze the nation's capital to head for vacation. He is going home to the place he was born: Hawaii.
The state remains proud of its native son, no matter how many national debates he may spark. Nevertheless, Obama will be coming home to a state struggling with the sour taste of recession. Although a forecast this month by University of Hawaii economists predicted that the new year will bring improvement, unemployment hovers at 7% and, for the all-important tourist trade, visitor arrivals are down 4.2%. Perhaps worse, at least among the parents of 170,000 public schoolchildren, is the national scolding Hawaii received by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan after Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle closed schools on Fridays to deal with a projected budget deficit of $1 billion.
"Barack Obama is still a subject of considerable admiration and pride in Hawaii, although his political luster has dimmed a little, as one might expect," says Jerry Burris, a long-time political columnist and the co-author of The Dream Begins, a book about the influence Hawaii had in shaping Obama. "When he was first nominated and elected, you heard nary a peep out of local Republicans and other conservatives about our native son. That's changed and now they are willing to criticize him."
Obama's family visit, like last year's, does not include any scheduled public appearances. Instead, the public will have to rely on the kind of chance encounters that made Obama as much a neighbor as a celebrity: taking in the Honolulu Zoo with his children, walking on the beach with his wife and playing pickup basketball with old friends. Sabina Yi, owner of Kokonuts Shave Ice & Snacks in Honolulu's Hawaii Kai, has a photograph on the wall of the day Obama stopped by last Christmas to buy a treat for his children. "We're all wishing that he'll stop by again," Yi says. "We call what he ordered: Obama's Special Shave Ice. Lemon lime and cherry flavor. People come in and ask for what he ordered."
Of course, Democrats are thrilled by the homecoming, no matter how private it is because Obama is good for business. "It's great for tourism because the president of the United States has his pick of locations," says Brian Schatz, chairman of the Democratic Party in Hawaii. "That he chooses Hawaii says a lot that it is a wonderful place to visit."
In Hawaii, the state's most famous local is such a beloved figure that people wear T-shirts that brag about his surfing prowess. Obama is the only President with his name on a Nobel Peace Prize and his face melded with an image of Elvis Presley playing an ukulele in the movie Blue Hawaii. "This is a vacation place and not a retreat for Obama," says University of Hawaii political science professor Neil Milner. "On his past visits, he would visit his old haunts and because of the way Hawaii is, you can't be secluded like former president Bush would be on his ranch in Texas." The locals have their cameras ready.