Running for political office in Hawai'i takes more than a Reyn's shirt and a Web site. It takes the humbling endurance of showing up to every community event, great and not-so-great, and meeting people where they live. There are miles of sweaty hands to shake, ponds of sweaty hugs to accept, and hours of face-breaking make-nice chit-chat. Workin' it takes so much work.

On Friday, Duke Bainum learned he would run unopposed for the District 5 seat on the Honolulu City Council. Saturday morning in the hot August sun, there he was grinning and glad-handing at the Palolo Pride festival like he had a race to run. The emcee introduced him between senior citizen dance groups and wished him luck, like maybe he still needed it even though Mufi Hannemann's friend Kirk Caldwell is no longer in that or any other race and the third candidate withdrew his name.

Saturday evening, Bainum was back in the valley, wife and toddler son in tow, for the Palolo Hongwanji Bon Dance. He's sure campaigning for something. Or against something. Surely after being so gone for so long, he has something to prove — like that he lives here.

The Palolo Pride event is salt-of-the-earth. Ride attendants are likely to let little kids get on without scrip because they can't bear to disappoint them. Kids walking up to the fishing game can see all the prizes and the people behind the sheet waiting to pin them on to the end of the poles, but it's still magic. The big excitement is when the emcee reveals that the band's old-fashioned washtub bass has new-school amplification hidden inside.

Ditto the bon dance, where it takes five minutes to stand in a nonexistant line to buy a souvenir towel because the old-timers are too busy talking story with friends to collect money.

It's a personable, face-to-face throwback world in contrast with the remote, edited realm of online social networking.

Hannemann arrived at the bon dance minutes after Bainum, but there was no beef, not even of the teri stick variety, which ran out early in the evening. Shucks.

Hawai'i is still a place where showing up for a community fair in a hot treeless park or taking a couple of turns around the bon dance circle means something — maybe even something more than online campaigns or Internet aspersions. A two-minute howdy-do at a homespun neighborhood event is the sort of thing that can build a lifetime of loyalty. Or erase a shadow of suspicion. Clearly Bainum knows that, because the dance he was doing was even more fervent than anything in the obon circle.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.