White House race enters cyberspace

THE battle for the hearts and wallets of the American voters in the 2008 presidential election campaign is increasingly being fought on the World Wide Web.

Candidates like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson have signed up on social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook and MySpace.

Obama, still a sizzling hot candidate, has so many friends on one site that they outnumber the population of Subang Jaya three times over.

And online donations, according to The New York Times, are a cornerstone of the fund-raising efforts of Obama, Clinton and former senator John Edwards.

They reportedly raised at least US$28mil (RM96.2mil) through Internet donations in the first six months of this year.

Incidentally, spendings by the 17 candidates are made known to the public to almost the most minute degree. Of all the presidential hopefuls, John McCain spent the most on Dunkin’ Donuts, Obama has the highest Starbucks and pizza bills, while Clinton incurred the most at Ikea stores.

And four days ago, there was much buzz about the groundbreaking debate where voters sent in their questions through videos to YouTube for the eight Democratic candidates.

“You’ve never seen a debate like this before: the candidates answer your video questions,” a full-page newspaper advertisement by CNN and YouTube said. Republican candidates will have their turn on Sept 17.

This online video approach is now seen as a breakthrough, altering the traditional medium even further and giving a voice for citizen journalists out there.

Bloggers, as expected, believe their constant online postings helped change the climate of the campaign.

They are of the view that former Republican senator George Allen (of the macaca – meaning “monkey” in francophone African nations – controversy) would have retained his seat last year had he not been caught on tape for using the slur, and had bloggers not kept the issue alive.

“Although some stories originated from the mainstream media, it’s the blogs that drive the interest on an issue. There is a limited news cycle in the newspapers,” said K. Daniel Glover, the editor of National Journal’s Technology Daily.

In fact, journalists from the traditional medium often turn to blogs to get ideas or quotes, he told a group of foreign journalists during a talk in Washington DC recently.

As Glover put it, he spends a lot of time reading blogs and going through public documents before posting an article.

Bloggers, he said, need to get their facts right.

“If people read it and find that it is wrong, the credibility of the blogger goes down,” he said.

However, he did not think that bloggers, being free-spirited people, would agree to a code of conduct.

“We try to change the way media operates. We want it to be more open and more transparent,” said Matt Stoller, a DC-based political activist and consultant.

“Who’s creating the standards for traditional media?” he asked.

The answer, he said, was bloggers.

Feel free to object, but like it or not, it is all happening online in the race to the White House. Edwards reportedly gave bloggers wide access, as well as opportunities to interview him.

Earlier this year, some of the candidates made the official announcement of their bid for the Oval Office not through conventional means but via videotaped messages on their websites.

In June, Hillary and Bill Clinton made a video spoof of The Sopranos finale in introducing her campaign theme song by Celine Dion.

The song was selected online by her supporters; naturally, the announcement was made on Clinton’s website as well.

As for YouTube, it is both a tool for political capital and a source of embarrassment for the candidates.

Hillary Clinton’s off-key rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner in January has been viewed 1.3 million times. In the archives as well is Edwards fussing over his hair.

So, be there or be square. Otherwise, as they say, you are only looking from the bushes.

Cheers to Long Island and wine

ALL that swirling and sniffing; it was a job for the nose at the tasting room of Martha Clara Vineyards.

Barely a two-hour drive from New York City, the place was crowded mostly with out-of-towners who came for wine-tasting sessions.

There was free tasting of three selected wines; or between US$4 and US$5 (RM13.64 and RM17.05) for four other labels picked by the vineyard.

Martha Clara Vineyards (no, not Martha’s Vineyard, where celebrities go for their summer holidays) is at North Fork on Long Island, one of the main wine regions in New York state.

Faced off with California, New York gets little attention. The Golden State is acknowledged as the Goliath, producing at least 80% of the wines in the United States.

New York, which ranks third after California and Washington state, is all cheers as well. Its wines and grapes industry reportedly rakes in US$500mil (RM1,705) in annual sales.

“The New York wine industry has grown strongly over the past 20 years and is located near one of the world’s major wine markets, and its reputation for quality is spreading,” said Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation.

Thirty years ago, there were 19 wineries in the state. The number has since grown to about 200 now.

According to him, New York made more types of wine than almost any other wine region, with tastes ranging from bone dry to very sweet, and from austere to fruity, with Riesling being a specialty in the Finger Lakes.

The four wine-producing areas here are Finger Lakes, Lake Erie, Hudson River and Long Island.

“Long Island is New York’s newest wine region, and one that is very exciting. Its wines are very elegant, sophisticated, and European in style,” Trezise said in an e-mail interview.

Martha Clara Vineyards' dessert wines are a big hit, according to its manager Christine Nowak.

“We have had very positive response since the vineyard began in 1995. Our wines are equated to the Bordeaux region in France.”

Its best-selling wine is the Old World Meritage, priced at US$39.99 (RM136.38).

Besides wine tasting sessions, which are available daily now that summer is here, the vineyard also offers classes on buying, storing and evaluating wine.

Vineyards offer tasting sessions although they have begun to exercise caution. The New York Times has reported on customers getting intoxicated and behaving wildly.

These are usually fun-seekers turned sour grapes, arriving in busloads, going vineyard-hopping, and wanting to party instead of pursuing fine wines.

To control such crowds, most wineries have stopped offering free tasting, or limited the number of group visitors and the amount they pour.

For bona fide customers, the drive to Riverhead, where Martha Clara Vineyards is, is a pleasant journey.

Farms dot the route, offering sweetcorn, flowers, raspberry, pies and pumpkins. There are other vineyards as well, giving wine-lovers a variety of choice.

A huge sign proclaiming “Welcome to Long Island – wine country” signals your arrival at the right place.

So, still inspired by Sideways, the 2004 hit movie about two men on a road trip to California wine country?

Such a wine tasting trip can be done in New York, too. You would be among the one million visitors who do so every year.

New York winemakers will drink to that.

Mission impossible: Getting a show ticket

IT’S live from New York! ... but there is a long rite to attending all those popular talk shows made here.

Getting the free tickets to become part of the studio audience is a nearly impossible feat as everybody else has the same intention as well.

Fans of Saturday Night Live would queue up at the crack of dawn, even in the dead of winter, for a standby ticket into the studio. No kidding.

Such standby tickets do not even guarantee admission, as these shows tend to overbook their tapings to ensure that all seats in the studio are taken up.

Thus, these tickets are good only if those who have a prior confirmed ticket are a no show that day.

To secure confirmed tickets, you would have to appease Lady Luck for at least one year.

Most of these shows, which invite online applications for tickets, would caution on their websites that there could be an arduous wait to gain access to their studio.

The View, that morning talk show helmed by Barbara Walters on ABC, says there is an estimated 365-day wait for tickets.

Celebrity chef Rachael Ray, who is in head-on rivalry with The Martha Stewart Show, has a one to two year-waitlist to her show.

Then there are the less daunting ones such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which airs on cable. An online booking made on April 5 got me into its June 26 taping. The e-mail reply came with a caveat: “You reserved your tickets with us but you will not be confirmed until we start giving out our studio tickets.”

Others like Anusha Thayagan secured a booking just two weeks prior to the show.

An occupational therapist from Virginia, Anusha checks the website constantly for the available dates to the show as she has been a huge fan of Stewart.

“I watch it religiously,” she said. It was quite a breeze for her to get a ticket for the show unlike someone she heard who purportedly paid US$100 (RM344) on eBay for The Oprah Winfrey Show which tapes in Chicago.

There were at least 50 people already in line when I turned up at 2.45pm that day although ticket holders had been told to come from 3.30pm to 4pm.

The crowd was enthusiastic, not minding the sweltering summer weather as they queued up outside the building where its entrance carries the sign “Abandon News, All Ye Who Enter Here”.

Chilled bottled water was given out to ease the heat and thirst. And, boy, was it a long wait.

It was already 5.25pm by the time ticket holders were escorted inside the studio that looked smaller than what you see on TV. And by then, we had been exhorted at least three times to laugh out loud, to have fun and to answer nature’s call before the taping began.

The message is clear: You should be beside yourself laughing during the show. A chuckle here and there just won’t do.

“We’re on cable. We are too poor to provide the laugh track,” a female staff joked. And of course, CLAP! Loud and hard.

Stewart entertained the audience for several minutes before the show began. This funny man invited people to ask him questions “so that I can pretend to get to know you.”

All sorts of questions were thrown to him from political ones such as his views on Dick Cheney and the controversial attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales, to personal ones like “how do I get bootleg copies of your old MTV shows?”

He pondered for a minute before replying: “China. Look for a guy name Hong. Tell him I sent you.”

The taping began at 6.20pm and 40 minutes later, it was all over. Bruce Willis was the guest that day, hawking Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0).

“It was a good experience. I thought they would have had to do a lot of editing but that’s clearly not the case (as the taping proceeded smoothly, just as how viewers saw it on TV),” Anusha said.

“I wished, though, that they had provided a better waiting area,” she added. There were no seats, so most people stood in the queue while others sat on the floor.

Another show here in Gotham is Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which hands out 75 standby tickets at 9am on the day of the show.

By 8am, a long line was snaking outside NBC Studios. Those who got the tickets were asked to come back again at 3.45pm to find out if seats were available for them when the taping began about half-an-hour later.

I was handed standby ticket No 58 which, predictably, turned out to be a lemon.

Next, the million-dollar question: What about the Late Show with David Letterman?

Standby tickets are available by dialling a certain number at 11am on the day of the show. After labouring several mornings punching the telephone keypad to get through the constantly engaged tone, success was mine.

The number assigned to me was 25. Standby ticket holders were required to come to the Ed Sullivan Theatre later that day.

So did I earn bragging rights that watching the Late Show had been among the Top Ten Things I have done here? Sigh.

Reaching out to Muslims

THE briefing came swiftly, right after George W. Bush announced that he would appoint a special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Karen Hughes, Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, appeared at the Washington Foreign Press Centre to explain the US efforts to reach out to the Muslim world.

Foreign journalists in New York followed the briefing on digital video-conference.

The seriousness of the US administration on the issue was unmistakable, though, as pointed out by a Middle Eastern reporter, the president’s announcement went by without any live TV coverage. (Neither was it front-page news in a number of newspapers here.)

“I think it’s unfortunate if our journalists and TV stations here did not choose to cover that event because I think it is a message that’s important for fellow Americans to hear,” Hughes said, referring to Bush’s presence at the 50th anniversary of a Washington mosque on June 27 when he made that announcement.

She said the United States must work very hard to address the misperception that the West was somehow in conflict with Islam.

“America is not perfect, but it is a place where many devout people of different faiths have learned to respect each other and to celebrate the richness that comes about as a result of our diversity,” she said.

Citing a project called Citizen Dialogue, she said American citizens who were Muslims were sent out to engage in dialogue with communities around the world.

“That has led to a lot of town hall meetings and media interviews. In Malaysia, as a result of an appearance on a TV channel there, a Malaysian TV station is now sending a camera crew here this fall to do a big series on Islam in America,” she said.

Also, for the first time, Hughes said, the US administration had hired people to engage blogs in Arabic.

“I have a couple of employees at the State Department whose job is to get on the blogs and to look for misinformation or rumours and to respond officially on behalf of the US government,” she added.

These two Arabic speakers hold full-time jobs.

“We’ve got very popular websites in Arabic, Farsi, Chinese; in I think six languages. We’ve improved our ability to engage,” Hughes noted.

“You know, the government is not necessarily as fast-paced as the private sector, so it’s sometimes hard to keep up with technology that is changing as dramatically as it is in today’s world. But I think we are improving our ability to communicate.”

There is also a Rapid Response Unit which monitors media from around the world in native languages.

“It really helps inform US policymakers about what is driving news and what the impression of American news and policy is around the world,” she said.

Hughes kept stressing on interfaith dialogues, claiming that Americans have taken it upon themselves to try to learn more about Islam in the aftermath of Sept 11.

She spoke of being touched by a Muslim woman who came to her church and stories about Christians and Jewish colleagues who went to a mosque.

“We are a diverse nation and I think efforts to learn more and to respect the tenets of each other’s faith only enrich us as a nation,” she said.

She said the media should play its part in fostering such ties, especially since many mainstream Muslim voices had no access to the media.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that I hear from fellow Americans, sometimes, complaints that why don’t more Muslim voices speak out against terrorism. Well, they do. But sometimes, what gets covered are the more strident voices, not the mainstream voices,” said Hughes.

“So, I think the media has a role to play in this as well, in making sure that the voices of reason, the voices of non-violence, the voices of respect and understanding, get covered as well as the most strident voices.”

On the OIC, Hughes commended secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu for being a strong voice for reason and tolerance.

“Under his leadership, the OIC has sponsored an international conference on interfaith dialogue in the United Kingdom and it will host a similar conference at Georgetown University here this fall,” she said.

But how sincere is the US government in wanting to reach out to Muslim nations?

Rajmah Hussain, who has met Bush a number of times in her capacity as Malaysia’s Ambassador to the United States, said the US government valued Malaysia’s views as it knew that the country played an important role in influencing other Muslim countries.

The United States, is trying hard to reach out to these countries and it has shown its sensitivity to the needs of the Muslims.

“During Ramadan, the White House would host breaking of fast events. There would be an imam to lead the prayers, besides a prayer room for the Muslim ambassadors,” said Rajmah.

She pointed out that Bush had removed his shoes before entering the Washington mosque and the American women all had worn scarves.

“They were all quite aware of the requirements in entering a mosque,” she said.

Rajmah was involved in the preparations for the mosque’s 50th anniversary as Malaysia is on its board of governors.

All said and done, she said, the United States, having made some mistakes in the past, was indeed serious in wanting to build bridges to the Muslim world.