Dozens of local volunteers and campaign staff members worked late into the night on Friday preparing for today’s visits from Democratic presidential candidates and U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“We’ll be here as long as they need us,” said Obama supporter Emily Miles, a 25-year-old elementary school teacher from Bangor. She and her husband, Ben Miles, a 26-year-old pharmacy resident, arrived at the Bangor Auditorium at 3:30 p.m. Friday to set up for Obama’s “Stand for Change” rally at 2:30 p.m. today.

Early in the evening a buzz of activity filled the University of Maine’s Student Recreation and Fitness Center in Orono. At 9:30 a.m. today, about 1,500 people are expected to fill the seats on the floor of the gymnasium and about 225 may watch from above on the indoor track as Clinton conducts her “Solutions for America” town hall-style meeting.

UMaine first-year student Whitney Jandreau, 18, of Presque Isle said she would attend the event in support of Clinton.

“Watching Senator Clinton’s crew set up for tomorrow, I feel amazed, like I’m watching this woman’s, this amazing woman’s, dream come true,” Jandreau said. “I have gone through experiences where it hits me that this is sadly still a man’s world.”

As hired vendors in Bangor assembled a small center stage for Obama and bleacher-style seating around it, about 10 local volunteers and campaign staff members painted brightly colored signs to distribute at the rally. Attendees will not be allowed to bring bags or signs of their own into the auditorium for security purposes.

Valerie Janicki, a 21-year-old Veazie resident and student at Eastern Maine Community College, painted a sign that read, “Veazie for Obama.” She said she set up an information table at EMCC on Friday to educate students about her favorite candidate and ask them to vote for him in the Democratic caucuses on Sunday.

“In the next four years, we [college students] need to pay attention to who is our leader because that’s when we’re going to enter the work force,” Janicki said.

Tom Battin, a 49-year-old self-employed consultant from Bangor, said he is most attracted to Obama because of the candidate’s claim to being “not that far from normal.”

“I like to think that I have an instinct for a good politician,” Battin said.

After University of Maine staff worked for two hours to cover the basketball court of the Student Recreation and Fitness Center, volunteers and campaign staff for Clinton took over, setting up a center stage much like the one planned in the Bangor Auditorium.

Elsewhere, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, was scheduled to speak at an informal rally for Bowdoin College students at 6 p.m. Friday. Her visit to Brunswick was sponsored by the groups Bowdoin College Democrats and Bowdoin Students for Hillary.

aravana@bangordailynews.net

990-8133