This is Change: Our Obama Rally in The Tracy Press!

Manuel Zapata (left), Maryanne Alford and Brandon Hines join the rally at 11th and East streets today. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press

Written by Jennifer Wadsworth Wednesday, 05 November 2008

Tracy Democrats marked President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory with spontaneous celebratory rallies Tuesday that continued today — like the one late this afternoon near Tracy High School.

For the paltry group of mostly teenaged Obama supporters, the Illinois senator’s victory bolstered their faith in their own power to affect change.

“I definitely know that we made a difference,” said Brandon Hines, 18, a first-time voter and Obama fan who celebrated the Democratic victory by waving pro-Obama signs with about a dozen other young adults to passing drivers on 11th Street today.

“The world is changing and it’s incredible to be voting in really the most historic election.”

Most of San Joaquin County’s voting public agreed with Hines and the street side group of young Democrats.

Of the 169,914 votes cast Tuesday in the county, 53.8 percent supported Obama and 44 percent were for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. In absolute numbers, that’s 90,851 county votes for Obama and 74,318 for McCain.

As of the last count today, 63.3 percent of the 268,476 county voters cast a ballot Tuesday. Voting officials originally predicted as much as 80 percent of registered voters would turn out on Election Day. More than half had already voted by mail, and others took absentee ballots in person to the polling places.

Results remain unofficial for the month following Election Day.

Tracy High School senior Chantel Smith — who joined the group on 11th Street today when she spotted them after school — screamed in excitement when she heard the major news networks announce that Obama was a shoo-in for top office.

“I feel like things will be different now,” she said, crouched behind a poster emblazoned with glittered letters spelling out the word “hope.”

“I feel like a lot of stuff will change,” she said. “And I think that some people are scared of that change.”

For some, the election of the nation’s first black president even inspired tears of joy. And as much as it encouraged the youngsters who put on today’s rally to believe in future change, to older voters it represented the culmination of years of hard-fought battles to overcome institutionalized racism.

Toni Beckham, 58, cried even this morning talking about the historic victory.

A member of the Tracy African American Association, the Tracy resident said she remembers watching TV news reports of police brutality toward black America during the Civil Rights marches in the 1960s.

“For a lot of us, we had the thought that never in our lifetime did we expect this to happen,” she said. “Early on, I, like I’m sure millions of other African-Americans when Obama first announced his candidacy, didn’t believe he could do it.”

But as he started gaining ground after the Iowa Caucus, she said she began to let herself hope.

And though she’s proud to see a black president in office, she said his ability is what earned him her vote.

“He did not interject race into his campaign at all,” she said. “He won on his own terms. He’s a president who happens to be black.”

• Contact Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth at 830-4225 or jwadsworth@tracypress.com.

Young adults rally at the corner of 11th and East streets as they celebrate President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential race. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press