(IOC's announcement of the winning country for the 2016 Olympic games.)
(Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod says President Obama is disappointed that the International Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago's bid for the 2016 games.)
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The real story behind the battle over the 2016 Summer Olympics
On Friday in Copenhagen, the International Olympic Committee got Chicago's best shot. President Obama flew in to stump for the city's bid for the 2016 Olympics, joining Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. It wasn't enough: Chicago lost out in the first round of voting, a shocking defeat for the odds-on favorite to win the 2016 games.
Back in the Windy City, not everybody is disappointed at Chicago's loss. Despite more than 50 community meetings and a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign aimed at winning over the city through inescapable advertising, the city's Olympics gambit started to lose favor as the IOC's announcement approached. A recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll pegged public support at 47 percent, down from 61 percent in February.
Why the grumbling? The bid's most visible opponents have spent years howling that the Olympics will breed graft and political corruption and bleed an already cash-strapped city dry. Chicago 2016's supporters, by contrast, have argued that the Olympics will improve the city's standing, create jobs, and boost local morale. The debate here wasn't best understood as an honest disagreement over what's best for Chicago. Rather, the rhetoric was indicative of a more fundamental clash: the eternal battle of jocks vs. nerds.
For two years, wonks like Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader and Tom Tresser of No Games Chicago have denounced Chicago's Olympics gambit as poorly conceived and wasteful. These stalwarts of the city's nerd opposition have couched their arguments in numbers, rules, and historical precedent, hoping to persuade the Games' supporters through tireless skepticism.
Joravsky, Tresser, and their ilk have noted that the city of Chicago hasn't completed a significant construction project on time or on budget in recent memory. On that account, the predicted $3.3 billion cost of the Games can't be taken seriously. It doesn't help that the city's finances are a mess. Chicago's budget deficit has soared from $200 million six months ago to an estimated $500 million next year, and the city has been laying people off and forcing municipal employees to take unpaid furloughs. The Second City's recent parking meter boondoggle, in which it sold its meter stock to a private firm for $974 million less than its estimated value, shows it is incapable of executing a project on the scale of the Olympics, the nerds say.
The anti-Olympians also point out that the Olympics won't bring nearly as much money to the region as Chicago 2016's supporters allege. Research from an independent consulting firm estimates the Olympics would bring $4.4 billion in economic benefits to the area, much less than the $22 billion figure Mayor Daley has been promoting. Daley and the bid committee also promised Chicago taxpayers would not be on the hook for covering cost overruns. Yet during a trip to pitch the Chicago bid to the IOC in Switzerland this last June, he agreed to sign a contract guaranteeing the city will cover any losses incurred by the Olympics.
According to that recent Tribune/WGN poll, 84 percent of Chicagoans oppose the use of public funds for the Olympics. Yet nearly 50 percent of city residents support bringing the games to the Midwest. The pro-Olympics crowd has been won over by the jocks of the Chicago 2016 bid committee, a group led by Aon Corporation CEO and part-owner of the Chicago Bears Pat Ryan. The jocks have offered a much simpler message than the nerds: The 2016 Olympics represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show the world how fantastic Chicago really is. The Summer Games, they argue, will boost tourism and improve the city's global standing.
Though the Chicago 2016 committee has produced a detailed plan for the IOC that lays out the logistics of paying for and hosting the Games, its message to Chicagoans has emphasized emotion. A recent Huffington Post article by bid chairman Ryan has no numbers. Rather than explain the committee's financial plan, Ryan simply calls it "strong" and cautions readers from throwing in with the naysayers who are too afraid of the scale of the Olympics to take them on. Translation: "Shut up, nerds. The Games are going to be awesome!"
The hard-to-refute fuzziness of concepts like "the world stage" and a city's "global profile" resonate with large segments of the public. They also drive nerds into a rage by giving them no data to refute. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the two sides are talking past each other, appealing to their constituencies by speaking different languages.
We see this same jocks-vs.-nerds conflict play out every time a pro sports team threatens to skip town unless the taxpayers cough up money for a new stadium. The opposition to these arena grabs typically consists of good-government types who argue that the alleged economic impact of the new building is greatly inflated—and wouldn't that money be better spent on education? The jocks play to municipal pride and the desire for the beloved local team to stay in town. And usually, though not always, the stadium gets built.
Who in America has the power and the bona fides to end this perpetual jock-nerd standoff? If anyone can do it, it's President Obama. With his professed fondness for comic books and his prowess on the basketball court, he speaks both nerd and jock. And having agreed at the last minute to fly to Copenhagen to stump for the Games, he put himself at the center of the dysfunctional local shouting match.
In the end, even the so-called "biggest celebrity in the world" couldn't win over the IOC. Now that he's lost out in his bid to bring the Olympics to his adopted home town, he can turn to less intractable matters—health care reform, Afghanistan—than the country's jock-nerd crisis.
Many Chicagoans hope city loses vote Friday
The Mayor, the President and Oprah Winfrey may hope to return to Chicago from Copenhagen with the 2016 Olympic Games, but some around town hope the International Olympic Committee deems the Second City the second city.
As in second to Rio de Janeiro. Or Tokyo. Or Madrid.
The opposition is not as visible as the "We Back the Bid" signs plastered across town. But in a city all too familiar with stories of public corruption and problems with public services, there is serious concern the games can only mean more troubles — and bills — for residents.
"I know it's going to cost us money somehow," said Joseph Patrick, a 51-year-old stay-at-home dad. "The government doesn't have a job (so) the only place they can get money is from us."
A new Web site — Chicagoansforrio.com — is the talk of the town and features the game “Match the Olympic host with its estimated budget overrun.” About 170 protesters marched outside City Hall on Tuesday night, many insisting that no matter what organizers say, the games will push people from their homes, lead to more corruption and raise taxes.
"I don't believe anything the city and the 2016 committee says," said Larry Rivkin, who grew up in Chicago.
At least one person was later arrested for trying to interfere with workers erecting Olympic symbols in a downtown plaza.
It's not that the bid does not enjoy wide support. Laid-off laborer Dennis Ries, 45, said the Olympics would bring jobs. Resident Molly Mason, 53, sees the games enhancing tourism and public transportation.
"There's no downside, only upside," Mason said.
Others note protests routinely accompany Olympic bids.
"The Olympics always galvanizes all sorts of opposition," said A.D. Frazier, chief operating officer for the 1996 Atlanta Games.
In Chicago, though, the opposition seems to be getting stronger.
A poll released this month by the Chicago Tribune showed residents almost evenly split, with 47 percent in favor of the bid and 45 percent against; that's a drop from the 2-1 support the newspaper found in a February poll.
The 2016 bid committee said its own poll last week shows support from 72 percent of Chicagoans. But even that segment has concerns.
Seconds after saying the games in Chicago would be "thrilling," Susan Blaine was wondering what tens of thousands more riders will do to an already overwhelmed public transportation system.
"A Cubs game turns my commute to chaos," said Blaine, 51. "You're belly button to belly button."
For others, concerns about taxes have only intensified since Mayor Richard Daley flip-flopped in April, telling the IOC he'd sign a contract promising the city would take full financial responsibility for the games after long maintaining he wouldn't.
"For a lot of people that was definitely a major moment, when they said, `Wait a minute, we're going to be ... on the hook financially for a very large amount,'" said Anna Tarkov, who writes The Daily Daley blog and opposes the bid.
Organizers have tried to allay such fears, but it can be a tough sell at a time of headline-grabbing corruption cases, the biggest one involving former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — a Chicagoan accused of trying to sell President Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder.
"I just think that the history of corruption sets the stage for a brutal series of events like misuse of funds and insider dealings," said Brian Hayes, 53, of Chicago.
Frazier, of the Atlanta Games, doesn't think the opposition matters to the IOC.
"They will probably be disappointed if there wasn't anything," he said.
Members of a group called No Games Chicago hope he's wrong. They're headed to Copenhagen to tell the IOC that Chicago is in such financial straits that it cannot afford the games and is such a hotbed of political corruption that it doesn't deserve them.
"We are bringing materials to back up our claim that Chicago is not fit to host the games," said Tom Tresser, an organizer for the group.
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Sources: Slate, IOC, Whitehouse.gov, Huffington Post, MSNBC, AP, Google Maps
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