in an effort to help governor neil abercrombie win his primary election challenge, i took to the streets yesterday canvassing for my very first time.

i’ve been hesitant to do it previously mostly because i’m not particularly keen to talk randomly to people i’ve never met before. the idea of knocking on doors and disturbing people at home has always filled me with fair amount of anxiety. though some of you may not believe it, i’m actually pretty anti-social by nature.

over the years, i’ve forced myself out of my comfort zone in an effort to improve this particular aspect of my personality. and while i’ve gotten better at it for sure, it’s still not a trait that comes naturally to me. i’m not sure that it ever will, but i nevertheless continue to do what i can to push forward through just some of my various anxieties. canvassing neighborhoods is no exception.

governor abercrombie is in a tough primary fight against state senator david ige, who has been chair of the senate ways and means committee. i don’t particularly have anything against ige, personally, i don’t believe he’d make a good governor. his campaign strategy so far seems to be that he’s not Abercrombie and maybe that’s a fine strategy to tap into the general discontent that exists toward neil, but it doesn’t say anything, really at all, about the type of governor he’d be.

…but that’s not what this post is about. i’ll try to write more on my thoughts about the primary governor’s race in another post. for now i want to return to yesterday’s canvassing experience….

there were just a few of us out yesterday and i was paired with bill, a seasoned campaigner, which was good. i let him take the lead and watched him on the first several residences we stopped at, then it was my turn. i was nervous, for sure, but with each door i knocked on, each person i talked to it got a little easier.

it a lot of cases, people weren’t home. we also had a lot of apartment buildings on our list, so we couldn’t knock on those doors, obviously, though did call up from the entries for a couple of the buildings. no body was willing to let us into the building, allow us to drop off our fliers, or talk to us, but everyone was, for the most part, polite.

the same went for those houses where someone came to the door. we got a couple of people who told us they are supporting abercrombie, which was of course nice to hear. in one instance, the woman who answered the door apologized and said she’s a republican. i gave her a flier anyway. all in all, it was a good experience and i’ll feel more comfortable when i do it in the future.

i’m still more comfortable with simply sign waving and other non-interactive campaign activities, but now that i’ve canvassed, now that i know i can do it, i’ll be more likely to accept invitations to do it again.