CHARLOTTE, N.C. • Barack Obama called the last day of his presidential race “bittersweet.” He carried himself with the confidence of a candidate who sensed victory after an intense, two-year campaign and learned that the woman who helped raise him wouldn’t get to see the outcome.

As the first black Democratic presidential nominee began Monday in a Florida hotel room, he got word that his grandmother Madelyn Dunham had died at the apartment in Honolulu where he lived with her as a child. He went ahead with his campaign plans, grieving privately for several hours before breaking into tears in front of 25,000 people gathered in the rain for a rally at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

“She’s gone home,” Obama said as the rowdy group of supporters grew silent and tears ran down both cheeks. “And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side.

And so there is great joy as well as tears. I’m not going to talk about it too long because it is hard for me to talk about.”

Obama’s grandmother was a central part of his story, and he interrupted his campaign last month to visit her as her life neared its end.

“Toot,” as he called her in an abbreviated version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, raised a young Obama for several years in Hawaii while his mother lived in Indonesia.

He told the North Carolina audience that Dunham inspired his campaign by her lifetime of hard work and sacrifice.

“In just one more day, we have the opportunity to honor all those quiet heroes all across America,” Obama said. “We can bring change to America to make sure their work and their sacrifice is honored. That’s what we’re fighting for.”

Obama’s wife, Michelle, also choked back emotion as she remembered her grandmother-in-law during a campaign stop in Littleton.

“Say a prayer for Toot and thank her for raising Barack Obama. I think she did an amazing job,” Michelle Obama told about 2,500 people gathered in a high school gym.

“This is an emotional time for us,” she said. “We were hoping she’d hang in there, but she didn’t. But she knew what was going on.”

It was Michelle Obama’s third solo stump appearance in Colorado this fall. She has also traveled here with her husband, most recently introducing him Saturday at a rally in Pueblo.

After talking briefly about Dunham and family, Michelle Obama repeated common campaign themes, saying Americans are struggling financially and are seeking change.

She asked supporters to “do whatever it takes” to deliver Colorado’s nine electoral votes to Obama.

“If you’ve already voted,” she said, “go help others. That’s our task tomorrow: Find the new voter.”

Barack Obama’s election eve schedule reflected his confidence that victory could be in his grasp. While John McCain rushed around to seven states for last-minute campaigning on Monday, Obama didn’t appear before voters until after 11 a.m., the first of just three events for the day, in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

Before that, he did radio interviews from the hotel room, then he headed out in sweat pants and a ball cap for a 45-minute workout at a gym.

“What is the one thing at this point that has you a little bit concerned?” syndicated radio host Russ Parr asked.

“You know, I feel pretty peaceful, Russ, I gotta say,” Obama replied. “Because my attitude is, if we’ve done everything we can do, then it’s up to the people to decide. And the question is going to be who wants it more. And I hope that our supporters want it bad, because I think the country needs it.”

Obama’s supporters were nothing if not fired up. About 9,000 came to his event in conservative-leaning Jacksonville, Fla., while across the state in Tampa, McCain drew less than 1,000.

By now clad in suit and tie, he told them: “I have just one word for you, Florida: ‘Tomorrow.'”

Actually, he had a lot of words for them – recapping his long campaign and looking to the future – once he quieted their screaming. Sensing victory, the crowd was exuberant.

On the eve of the election Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin paid an eleventh hour visit to hundreds who packed into the Jet Center in Colorado Springs on Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. Photo by Bryan Oller, The Gazette

Bryan Oller