Obamania reaches fever pitch as all eyes follow historic event

THE sky was cloudy but it was business as usual on 125th Street, the lively commercial area of Harlem where street vendors selling incense, shea butter and DVDs ply their trade alongside large chain stores such as H&M.

At first glance, Obamania was not in sight. Except for a sidewalk stall selling Obama T-shirts, there were no other telltale signs.

But chat up the locals, and a different picture emerges in this neighbourhood known as the capital of black America.

“It’s the biggest thing that we have been talking about so far,” said Monica James, during a lunch break from her 12-week course to become a medical assistant.

Though she had no time to spare for the just-concluded Beijing Olympics, “I’m surely going to take a bit of time off in between studies to watch the convention tonight,” she said on Monday, the start of the four-day Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Colorado.

Despite the DNC sometimes being derided as a party for the Democrats to celebrate themselves, most Americans did not want to miss what people like James called a historic event.

Cable networks tapped on the demand for political updates as the country witnessed the first African-American to secure a major party nomination bid for the Oval Office. Thus, no details seemed too small, no news deemed too frivolous.

There was an account of how the Obama campaign searched for weather reports of the past 20 years to be sure of no rain on the day that he delivered his acceptance speech in the football stadium.

Fox News Channel, which devoted almost every other minute to the DNC, provided a “visual timeline” on the hairline of Barack Obama’s running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. The cable network showed images of how his hair (or lack of it) had changed through the years courtesy of hair transplants.

According to The New York Times, he got the news that he was selected as the party vice-president nominee while at the dentist as his wife went for a root canal.

Others remembered Biden’s remarks last year when he described Obama as a “clean African-American”, which led to a mini-controversy then – was he implying that others did not bathe regularly?

Then there was the “Fox Flashback” on the day Al Gore accepted the party’s nomination for the 2000 presidential election.

Nothing escaped the cameras when Hillary Clinton made her speech on Tuesday night. They recorded every expression of hubby Bill Clinton and Barack’s wife Michelle Obama as Hillary addressed the party, while political analysts of all stripes scrutinised every word she said, or rather, what she did not say that night.

Fashion statements were in, too. There was a brief segment on how Clinton’s staff tested pantsuits of different colours against the blue backdrop of the stage. In the end, as everyone throughout the world witnessed on CNN, Clinton wore a striking tangerine ensemble that evening.

Nielsen Media Research estimated that at least 22 million Americans were in front of their TV on Monday night when Michelle Obama was the star attraction. The numbers did not include those who followed the event online.

Viewership went up even higher the following night with 26 million people watching Hillary as she urged her “sisterhood of the travelling pantsuits” to back Obama. A staggering number no doubt.

For comparison’s sake, almost 28 million people tuned in to NBC’s closing ceremony broadcast of the Beijing Games last Sunday, the highest number of any closing Olympics since 1976.

In May, 31.7 million viewers watched David Cook crowned the latest American Idol.

A day after her speech, the Obama campaign sent out a mass e-mail signed merely “Barack” with the subject heading “Did you see Michelle?”

“Michelle was electrifying, inspiring, and absolutely magnificent. You have to see it to believe it,” Barack said in the e-mail, which included a video link of her speech.

If viewership is all in the millions, there has also been much talk about the millionaires in Barack and his Republican rival John McCain.

McCain, to the delight of his enemies and critics, appeared unsure about the number of houses he owned during an interview with a news website.

Depending on who you listen to, the Republican presidential nominee could own four, seven or eight homes. Blogs and news reports have since noted his expensive shoes – a US$520 (RM1,760) leather Salvatore Ferragamo.

Other millions in the news: Obama has raised US$339mil (RM1.1bil) so far for his campaign; McCain only US$136mil (RM460.2mil).

And so, out of this historic DNC are stories which are often incredulous and offbeat, so gleefully reported by media such as the New York Post which ran a column named “Hee Haw”, illustrated with a caricature of the Democrat Party symbol of a donkey.

Head to head before polls

DURING the 1992 presidential debate between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, the senior Bush was so eager for it to be over that he kept looking at his watch.

It was all captured on camera, author Paul Slansky notes in his book Idiots, Hypocrites, Demagogues, and More Idiots – Not-So-Great Moments in Modern American Politics.

Presidential debates provide Americans, in fact, the world, a close-up view of the candidates battling for the White House.

A slip-up here or a boo-boo there can dent the candidate's campaign. Inane remarks and clueless replies will be revisited again and again by stand-up comedians, bloggers and the press.

Slansky pointed out how George W. Bush stated the obvious prior to his debate with Al Gore in 2000 by saying: “I view this as a chance for people to get an impression of me on a stage debating my opponent.”

The first presidential debate for the 2008 general election will take place next month at the University of Mississippi.

Barack Obama will spar, again, with John McCain on Oct 7; their third and final duel takes place two weeks later.

The debates are organised by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a non-profit and non-partisan Washington-based corporation that was established in 1987.

“We’ve done all of the presidential and vice-presidential debates since then,” said executive director Janet H. Brown.

Preparation for the 2008 debates began way back in December 2006, she said, “so there’s about 20 months worth of work that has gone into the plan”.

It is, after all, a huge, live TV production where mishaps must be prevented, although sometimes they are unavoidable.

For instance, a power failure interrupted the debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The sound went dead and “Mr Ford and Mr Carter stood on the stage in silence for 27 minutes”, she recalled.

Other planning entail picking the sites, the dates and the debate format. This year, more time will be given to questions.

The moderator will pose a question and after a candidate replies the moderator will pursue the topic in conversational style with the candidates.

“I think this will help viewers and listeners understand in greater depth the candidates’ positions on important topics,” Brown told a briefing at the Foreign Press Centre.

Moderators picked for the different events are PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer, NBC special correspondent Tom Brokaw and CBS news veteran Bob Schieffer.

Brown listed three criteria for the selection – their extensive understanding of the candidates, the campaign and election issues; their long experience with live, hard news on TV; and their understanding that their job is to facilitate the conversation and to focus on the candidates.

That, basically, ruled out prominent news anchors for the job.

“The reason that we have had an informal policy against them is that they are news celebrities, if you will. In the past, the public has felt as though it was almost like having another famous personality on the stage,” she said.

For the first time, the CPD will also collaborate with MySpace through a new website, MyDebates.org, to engage a wider audience and to have online discussions on the debates.

According to Brown, at least 160 people would file with the Federal Election Commission as candidates for president of the United States in any given year.

Most of these people would want to be included in the debates to gain visibility.

“But when you have election campaigns that go on as long as they do in this country, by the time you get to the last eight weeks of the campaign, which is when our debates take place, the public wants to see a very small group of individuals from whom the next president is going to be chosen,” she said.

How influential or important are these debates to the voting public?

“For several cycles now, exit polls have shown that more people use the debates as an important factor in making their voting decisions than any other single factor,” she said.

This does not mean that the debates will necessarily change the people’s mind about a candidate.

But the surveys, conducted by TV networks, showed that “people rate them as the single most important factor in how they decide to cast their votes”.

Take the 1988 debate when Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis was asked by the moderator whether he would favour the death penalty for the killer if his wife were raped and murdered.

Instead of expressing outrage for conjuring up such a tragic scenario, Dukakis responded without emotion, saying that there was no evidence that capital punishment was a deterrent.

“And with that, any chance of a Dukakis presidency was crushed like a bug,” Slansky said.

Love Lips – all’s not white in the House

THE Love Lips scandal was originally seen as tabloid trash, and thus not picked up by the mainstream media.

But then everybody heard from the horse’s mouth last week when former presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to an extra-marital affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, a “cougar”, as mercilessly labelled by some in the press.

Since the public TV confession, Americans have been fed with stories about Hunter’s endearment for Edwards – Love Lips – and the possibility that her five-month-old daughter is their love child.

Others speculated that a former campaign worker, who admitted fathering the girl, was a loyalist who was trying to protect Edwards.

They poured scorn on how a man, who received a “Father of the Year” award last year, could cheat on his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth Edwards.

“A lying skunk,” said New York Post writer Andrea Peyser.

This was the vain pot, they recalled, who once spent US$800 (RM2,700) for two haircuts in Beverly Hills.

Most editorials were unforgiving. “Sleaze,” one headline blared about the 2006 affair.

One breast cancer survivor wrote to a newspaper, questioning the manner Edwards defended his infidelity when he remarked that the affair took place only after his wife’s cancer was in remission.

(Incidentally, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is known to have discussed divorce terms with his first wife Jackie Battley at the hospital, a day after she underwent cancer surgery in 1980. He married again the following year, to the woman he reportedly committed adultery with.)

The Public Editor of The New York Times pointed out that Edwards’ story of sex and betrayal had been reported in the National Enquirer for the past 10 months; but it received scant attention from the mainstream press, although it had been hot on the lips of bloggers and talk-show hosts.

Following Edwards’ confession, many began soul-searching, why they failed to pursue the story with the same zeal and passion as the National Enquirer.

Bottomline, as someone explained it. The national media was reluctant to “recycle” or follow-up on a story which originated from a supermarket tabloid.

It would seem almost instinctive to ignore or dismiss news which come out from such publications.

Now, the news about Edwards’ adultery is all the rage on primetime TV and the national media.

Columnist Gail Collins, however, named US president Grover Cleveland, who ruled the White House during the 19th century, as her favourite American leader when it came to scandals.

Cleveland was a bachelor when he became commander-in-chief. And at the age of 49, he became the only president to have a White House wedding when he married the 21-year-old daughter of a friend.

But that was not the scandal. Cleveland, apparently, fathered an out-of-wedlock child prior to becoming president.

“The scandal almost cost him the election, and the baby inspired a famous political slogan then: ‘Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha’,” Collins wrote in her column last Saturday.

Infidelity aside, the manner that politicians tried to cover them up makes for compelling reading.

In 1978, Gary Hart was a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but was constantly dogged by talk of his womanising ways.

“Follow me around, I don’t care,” Hart reportedly told the press then.

“I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”

He spoke too soon. Miami Herald reporters spied on him, and eventually news broke that he took a model on a trip to Bahamas on a yacht appropriately named Monkey Business.

A week after photographs showing the model sitting on his lap were circulated, Hart quit the White House race.

For months, Edwards had denied everything. Until last week.

“Human nature being what it is, there will continue to be adultery no matter how many instructive scandals they’re exposed to,” Collins wrote in The New York Times last week.

But they should at least know how to make a decent public confession, she said.

The history of deception, scandals and infidelities always repeats itself. That much is true, at least.

Waiter dishes out revenge in a funny book on tipping

TIPPING. It’s a time-honoured ritual and sacred practice in the United States, and breakers of the rule are doomed to end up as social pariahs. Especially so in restaurants where waiters do not fade gently into the kitchen.

As waiter-turned-writer Steve Dublanica, 40, explains it, waiting on tables is a tough, low-paying job, and wait staff rely on the 15%-20% tips for life-support.

“You’re expected to be a food-allergy specialist, cellphone rule enforcer, eye candy and joke teller,” he says.

Once, a man and a woman spent way too long together inside a toilet. Other diners waited impatiently for their turn, so Dublanica had to knock on the door to check on the couple.

“When did making people stop having sex become part of my job?” he wonders.

Another time he stepped in to rescue a man who was choking on his food. The guy lived, but left Dublanica livid with anger. That customer, who turned out to be a doctor, left him a mere 8% tip.

“Next time, I would let him die!” he fumes in his book, Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip - Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, which made its debut on July 29.

The book, which spells out in detail waiters’ revenge on nasty customers, and tips on tipping, has earned the former waiter quite a bit of public attention.

This newfound fame was unbelievable for Dublanica himself, who spent nine years working in New York restaurants and, in 2004, started a blog to chronicle his misadventures.

“I’m overwhelmed and grateful for the response to my book. If you had told me a week ago that I’d be on the Today show, I would say you were smoking some kind of illegal substance,” he says in an e-mail interview.

These days, he is often asked whether waiters really spit into the food to spite rude customers.

“Actually, very few waiters do it,” he admits. “There are far more elegant ways to get revenge – like telling someone that their credit card has been declined when it really hasn’t.”

“But, it’s okay for diners to think we might spit in their food. Deterring bad customer behaviour through fear is fine by me.”

According to him, waiters in the US are not paid a salary. In New York, tipped workers are paid US$4.60 (RM15.20) an hour, way below the minimum wage of US$7.15 an hour. The tips they earn are also shared among bartenders, busboys and the rest of the staff.

Dublanica stresses that he's always been a good tipper, even before he became a waiter.

“My brother has been in the food business for a long time, even before I waited on tables. He made sure I was aware the tip is 15% to 20%. Now, after all the attention Waiter Rant’s been receiving, if I leave less than a 20% tip I’ll burst into flames!” he says.

According to Waiter Rant, foreigners tend to feign ignorance about the American tipping practice. The worst, apparently, are the Russians and British.

Other categories of tippers include:

> The 10 per center: Diners, usually the old folk, who still think it's the 1950s, and leave a 10% tip;

> The flat tipper: Spill hot soup on them or treat them like royals, their tip is still 15%; and

> The whore: Pretty women who think flirting with the waiter is considered a tip.

In addition to the humour, Dublanica provides some insights into the risque goings-on in the restaurant – about conflicts between waiters and cooks, and how they trade insults.

His book also offers snapshots on life: cheating spouses often go to restaurants at odd hours, New Year's Eve is the best night of the year to make money, and filthy toilets are often an indication of unhygienic kitchens.

What’s next from this ex-waiter who, as a teenager, wanted to become a priest?

“I’m a big detective fiction fan, so maybe I will write a book about a food critic marked for death, or a former waiter turned private detective who saves his pancetta!”

The awesome magic of newspapers

IT WAS Sept 10, 1963, and the simple black and white photograph on the front page of the late edition of Daily News became the defining moment in life for a five-year-old boy.

The picture captured a tender moment, his mother consoling his sobbing little sister who was upset that she could not follow her brother to class on that first day of school, as she was still too young.

That night, his mother brought him along to buy a copy of the Daily News. The boy, David Ng, was thrilled to see his family picture on page one, and with that, an indelible impression formed in his mind of the awesome “magic” of newspapers.

Today, Ng is executive editor of New York’s Daily News, the fifth largest newspaper in the US and the top within the New York metropolitan area, with a daily circulation exceeding 700,000.

As executive editor, he is the No 3 guy, making him one of the highest ranked Asian-Americans in the industry.

In a way, Ng’s story is like a fairy tale come true for poor immigrants who came seeking the American Dream.

His parents arrived from Hong Kong in the 1950s; his father worked as a truck driver and the family of five lived in cramped conditions in a Lower East Side tenement.

“I was born in New York. As a kid, you wouldn’t know much about poverty. As far as I was concerned, life was good,” he reminisced.

He started school not knowing a word of English. “My mother, in her infinite wisdom, had forbidden the use of the language at home. Her rationale was that we would eventually speak English well one day.”

His teacher asked for his mother once, telling her: “Your son doesn’t speak English at all.”

“I know that,” Ng’s mother replied. “That’s why I sent him to school.”

So the teacher taught him by pointing to the blackboard or the book. “That’s how I began to learn English,” Ng said.

A communications graduate of Marist College, Ng has spent 30 years in journalism.

“The biggest story that I have ever seen was obviously 9/11. It was a story that changed lives,” said Ng, who was then assistant managing editor of The Star-Ledger.

Though a true-blue newspaperman, he hoped not to see a bigger story than that ever again.

What does he think of journalists today?

“They are getting younger!” he laughed. “They are so much smarter now, more tech-savvy than I am. They grew up with technology as their second language.”

As executive editor, his duties include the day-to-day operations of putting the paper together. “We are always trying to find a story for page one and writing the headline, which has to capture the reader with just three or four words.”

The competition is especially tough in New York City, the media capital, and where the Internet is changing the rules of the game.

“It is very fast here,” Ng said, snapping his fingers repeatedly. “You have just a microsecond to attract someone walking past the newsstand to buy your paper.”

Daily News and its tabloid rival New York Post are not above calling each other names, as the US newspaper industry faces one of its toughest times with falling circulation, job cuts and declining advertising revenue.

To the Post, its nemesis is Daily Snooze; while Daily News once described the popular Page Six gossip column of the Post as “Page Sick”.

Ng, who smiled when reminded of this, said: “This is New York City. It’s part of the rivalry. Daily News is a brand name here. We are more recognised.”

(Ironically, he worked almost 13 years for the New York Post from 1980).

Daily News has an editorial strength of 350.

He remains optimistic about the future of newspapers in the US despite the bleak analysis everywhere.

“Every year is a tough year. This is not the first time the industry is in jeopardy. We are going through a transition. It is cyclical; it will be difficult, but we will reinvent ourselves,” he said.

That means breaking exclusive stories on the Internet “because you don’t think it will last till the next day”.

News coverage has changed, too. “If a fire breaks out at 8am, it would be all over the TV. I can’t do a story and say there’s a fire. We will have to find a new, fresh angle to it,” he said.

Does he fit into the stereotype image of a screaming editor?

“In my 20s, I was a yeller. But I’m now 50, older and more mellow; and you realise that you don’t get anywhere by yelling.”

He is grateful for his family. He's married to a Scot, and they have two daughters, aged eight and 14.

His life, he said, had been shaped by the education that his parents had given him. Nothing in his background would have suggested that he would be a “success”, if not for them, he said.

It is his hope that he had answered whatever doubts his parents might have in taking the decision to leave Hong Kong for their children’s sake.

So for what he has become today, the byline goes to his elderly parents.