The first entrants of a Democratic Party rally at USC will stand for three more hours, awaiting a speech from President Barack Obama.
Several hundred people have already entered Alumni Park in the middle of the university's campus and dozens more are filling into a crowd now twenty feet deep on opposite corners of the steps Obama will speak from.
The skies remain gray and sobering, leaving the crowd quiet as music plays over their heads.
President Obama's get-out-the-vote blitz is en route to L.A. The president, who has been making his way down the West Coast, has high hopes of picking up Democratic voters along the way. Despite the rain, a few hundred people lined up as early as 6 a.m. to get a prime spot at Friday's rally.
Scott Andereck, a teacher at Manual Arts Senior High School, brought his AP government class to see President Barack Obama, hoping the event would inform his students on politics and government.
"They are all very interested," Andereck said. "It's a living classroom. You can't pass it up."
Andereck said the president has done an excellent job considering the tough road laid out for him since his election.
Kevin Caballero, a 17- year-old student in Andereck's class, said he hopes to hear the plans Obama has to turn around a troubled economy and an explanation as to why people are still struggling.
"Maybe it's going to be a few years for us to finally see a change," said Caballero, an Obama supporter.
Rosalind Montgomery, a 49-year old Riverside County resident, drove to USC Thursday, slept in her car and lined up at 6:30 am to catch a glimpse of the president and hear him speak.
"This time I was set on it, I'm going to see him," said Montgomery, who missed a chance to see Obama several years ago in Orange County due to massive crowds.
"I think all the Democrats need to get out and come together. We can not let the tea party and the republicans take over," said Montgomery, who sported a button displaying a picture of Obama and the words "victory: November 4, 2008."
Montgomery said she doesn't want the republicans and tea party elected because they hold radical views that would hurt African Americans such as herself.
"They want to repeal the civil rights act they want to repeal minimum wage, and interfere with medicare. They don't understand the constitution," she said.
University officials are expecting as many as 30,000 at USC’s Alumni Park on Friday. The event opens at 11 a.m., and the President will speak at approximately 1:55 p.m. Visitors should come early, as the President’s arrival is wreaking havoc with traffic patterns. The presidential motorcade will be heading to Glendale after the rally, and freeway closures are likely.
The rally at USC is just one of a number of appeals the President has made to reinvigorate younger voters, who carried him to victory in 2008. Obama recently hosted a town hall discussion on MTV and he has traveled to a number of universities, including Ohio State University.
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2010/10/obamas-usc-rally-brings-young-and-old-all-over-california
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