SARATOGA SPRINGS — At Lindey Adewunmi’s first presidential election, she’ll get to cast her ballot for a candidate whose positive outlook energizes her.

Barack Obama also has a similar ethnic background as the 21-year-old Saratoga Springs woman.

Adewunmi’s father is Nigerian and her mother is European-American; Obama’s father was Kenyan and his mother, white.

“I thought that was pretty cool to learn that about him,” she said Thursday night while waiting for Obama to take the stage on TV and give his acceptance speech.

She and other local Obama supporters applauded, laughed and cheered as their candidate’s acceptance speech was televised live from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo.

“It’s an amazingly emotional day for me,” said Elliott Masie, organizer of the Obama Saratoga campaign. “I think it’s a historic day for our country.”

About 150 local Obama supporters gathered Thursday at The MASIE Center on Washington Street to watch Obama accept the Democratic nomination for president. The Obama Saratoga group formed in January, and between 30 and 40 percent of supporters were originally behind Sen. Hillary Clinton.

They’ve been able to put their support behind Obama, Masie said. “There’s not that much difference on a policy level between the two of them.”

Denny Finneran said during Obama’s speech that he likes the Democrat’s health care and education policies. “I think he’s the best thing that can happen to America right now,” the 77-year-old Saratoga Springs man said.

“He wants to see all people succeed. He wants to see a society that doesn’t discriminate against anyone,” Finneran said, echoing Obama’s comments Thursday night about providing an affordable college education to young people who serve their community or their country and equal pay for women, among other things.

Finneran said he has read Obama’s economic report. “I believe that he does have a solution.”

Michael DeChello of Boynton Beach, Fla., attended the party at the MASIE Center while visiting a friend in Saratoga Springs who supports Obama, but he admitted he hasn’t decided yet whom he favors.

“I don’t think he can deliver everything he says. I don’t think McCain can deliver everything he says,” he said.

Derek Bagley and Jackie Shydlowski plan to vote for Obama on Skidmore College’s campus in November.

“I wanted Barack to be president even before he decided to run,” said Bagley, 20, who hails from Chicago, Ill. “He was like the golden boy of Chicago. We all revered him.”

Shydlowski, 21, said attending the party in town was a way to connect to the Saratoga Springs community. “We could have held a party on campus,” the Student Government Association president said.

Not everyone at Thursday’s event can vote for Obama.

“I wish I could vote,” said Max Wallens, 17, of Saratoga Springs. “If I’d been born a month earlier, I’d be able to vote.”

“I’m just here to cheer,” said Guy Ladouceur, 16, of Niskayuna.

Masie, the chief executive officer of the think tank that bears his name, said he got to spend time with Obama at a dinner in New York City recently.

“I talked about upstate and Saratoga. I talked about the kind of jobs we’ll need in the future,” he recalled Thursday.

Two local delegates who were on the ground in Denver felt the historical weight of the day especially strongly.

“Tonight, I think, is the moment that everyone’s really been waiting for. We know that we need change. We know that we can’t have four more years of what’s been going on for the past eight,” said Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton, speaking by cellphone over the din of excitement at Invesco Field Thursday afternoon.

“[Obama’s] already changed America,” said Ron Kim, Saratoga Springs commissioner of public safety and an alternate delegate. “Simply becoming the first African-American to be nominated by a major party has really changed, if nothing else, the way that America looks at itself.”

Stratton was impressed with Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech and Sen. Edward Kennedy’s speech to the convention earlier in the week. “Senator Clinton’s speech was probably the best I’ve ever heard her give.”

He attended the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston but didn’t vote at that one. It’s even more exciting to be there as a voting delegate, he said.

“This is something that I’ll certainly tell my son about and my family, and something that I’ve been able to share with other family members that live out here.” Stratton said some of his family members attended Obama’s speech at the stadium with guest passes.

Kim’s wife and 11-year-old son also were spectators at the historic event, Kim said.

The two spent the week making contacts with other officials across the country. Kim said he spent time with the Asian-American Caucus.

And Stratton made connections with the U.S. Mayors’ Association, which plans to lobby for more federal funds to help beef up local infrastructure and attack crime. “It’s a work trip for me as well as a political trip,” he said.