Golf, family outings and quiet: President Barack Obama is taking a 10-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard, an island hideaway favored by the rich and well-connected, before returning to a fierce fall election season.
As they did this time last year, Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia and Sasha (12 and nine) are leaving sultry Washington for the ocean breezes that caress the little island off the coast of Massachusetts.
"The president is definitely going to spend a little time recharging his batteries," said Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary.
No public events are planned. Obama was on a busy campaign swing ahead of the start of his summer vacation on Thursday.
Like last year, Obama will work to perfect his swing at one of the island's golf courses, Burton said.
"There will be some hiking, some time at the beach, some time at the ice cream store -- all the sort of things you do when you?re at Martha?s Vineyard. You enjoy the people and the good food," he told reporters.
But presidential vacations remain at the mercy of unexpected events: last Christmas, a young Nigerian under the sway of Al-Qaeda tried to bring down a US jetliner, disrupting Obama's vacation in his native Hawaii.
Obama's stay in Martha's Vineyard last year was interrupted when Senator Edward Kennedy, the patriarch of a political dynasty and a key supporter during Obama's 2008 run for the presidency, succumbed to brain cancer.
Leaving nothing to chance, Obama is bringing along his anti-terrorism adviser John Brennan, Burton revealed. Two other close aides, Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, also will be on the trip.
The Obamas were criticized last year for having chosen, in the middle of a severe recession, to vacation on a island where houses cost millions of dollars.
Perhaps to avoid nettlesome headlines this year comparing Massachusetts' immaculate beaches to those of the spill-sullied Gulf of Mexico, Obama took his family to Florida last weekend and exhorted his fellow Americans to follow suit.
He put paid to speculation about whether the First Family would brave the Gulf waters after the millions of barrels of oil that have leaked into the region's water by taking a dip with his younger daughter Sasha.
The oil spill, which has finally been plugged, is not the least of the president's worries this year.
Health insurance reform, financial industry regulatory reform, and the anemic economic recovery, not to mention the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, weigh heavily on him.
The pressure is unlikely to ease before November 2, when Americans go to the polls in elections for a third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives.
Democrats control both houses of Congress, but the Republicans hope to rake in more seats and retilt the balance of power. The loss of a majority in either house would considerably restrict the president's room for maneuver.
Visiting five states from Monday to Wednesday, Obama has denounced Republican efforts to block his reforms. Meanwhile, Republicans accuse him of letting the deficit run out of control and of unduly expanding the powers of the federal government.
The opposition also has rushed to attack Obama for supporting Muslims' right to open a mosque near the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, a position taken in defense of religious freedom that could nevertheless cost his party votes in November.
The presidential vacation is scheduled to end on Sunday August 29, when Obama travels to New Orleans to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city and the region.
The trip will be the second this summer for Sasha, who accompanied her mother on a visit to Spain earlier this month, while her sister Malia attended a summer camp.
Copyright 2010 AFP American Edition
