Obama May Risk Prestige to Growth Chicagos Bid to Host Olympics
The trip would mark a rare example of a U.S. president using his prestige abroad to attract an event with billions of dollars in construction, tourism and advertising at stake. Chicago is competing with Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.
The timing may be difficult politically because an October trip would mean Obama is out of the country just as Congress is likely to be debating his domestic priority, a health-care overhaul that could affect 17 percent of the economy. It also carries the risk he could return without delivering a victory.
“We have not made a decision yet,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, who is also from Chicago. “You can be certain that we will be well represented in Copenhagen.”
Regardless of whether he makes the journey, Jarrett said the president will seek to convey to the Olympic Committee how important the bid is to him personally and to the U.S.
“We are confident that we can make that as clear as crystal,” said Jarrett, who is directing the White Houses effort.
For now, Obama and his advisers are guarded about sharing their strategy with rival cities, she said.
Want to Win
“Telecasting our last, home-stretch strategy doesnt seem to be prudent,” Jarrett said. “We want to win. Were not interested in coming in second, third or fourth.”
The presidents time is considered a valuable commodity, possibly complicating travel. “He has an awful lot on his plate,” Jarrett said.
The prestige of his office is also a form of capital, and any trip would have to be weighed against the cost of coming home empty-handed, said Ken Duberstein, a chief of staff to president Ronald Reagan.
“You dont want to put the president in a position where hes going to go to Copenhagen and not come back victorious,” said Duberstein, a onetime chairman of the ethics committee for the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Video Appeals
The president already has recorded four video appeals for Chicago, the most recent in early July in which he asked African sports leaders for their support. Later that month, he raised the games in the Oval Office with Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccers international governing body, who is also an IOC member.
Patrick Ryan, chairman of Chicagos bid committee and founder of insurance company Aon Corp., said his team is preparing one final pitch to the committee with an Obama appearance, and the other with him staying in the U.S.
“Its going to be decided very much at the end,” Ryan said. “And if he comes, hell be a positive factor.”
Jarrett, meanwhile, is planning to travel to Copenhagen and is coordinating with Cabinet members and politicians from neighboring states, both Republicans and Democrats, who are backing the effort.
Obama may be the best pitchman of all. He has proven popular outside the U.S., restoring opinions of his nation to levels not seen since before George W. Bush took office, according to a Pew Research Center survey release on July 23. A July Bloomberg Global Poll of financial investors and analysts found that Obama has a 73 percent favorability rating.
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