Harlem for Obama 08'

Today I canvassed for the first time in my life .I volunteered for the Obama campaign and went out to the famous 125th street in Harlem. It was a very exciting experience. The goal of the campaign was to get people to vote for Obama in New York in the primaries on 'Tsunami Tuesday'.It was extremely cold . But people stopped by to listen take reading material and ask questioins. What was deeply captivating to me was the conversations that arose from the passerbys. The first one was a woman who claimed that she was a republican and she kept on asking ' what do you say when someone asks you what Obama stands for?' She kept on asking questions such as 'what has Barack done for the community in New York? ' what is he doing about housing in Harlem ?and she went on and on firing question after question. The responses she got were also equally interesting; one of the core members of the campaign responded to her and told her about Barack's record in Illinois and how he worked at the grassroots level organising .Someone else told her that he didn't vote for the war from the beginning but most importantly was one response that was that it is more important to listen. To listen to the peopl's voices and find out what their needs are and if there is something that you don't have an answer to say 'I don't know'. They then gave her pamphlets to read on Obama's stand on the policies and the aggresive woman was pacified and she looked very satisfied with the way the campaaigners handled her .
It was a very interesting exchange.