Somewhat under the radar, the White House is making strenuous efforts to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago in 2016. Obama has put an unprecedented amount of presidential clout into securing the bid. He's assigned one of his closest aides, Valerie Jarrett, to the task (as a member of the Obama inner circle, former Chicago businesswoman, natural-born diplomat and fixer extraordinaire, Jarrett was made for the role). He's already recorded two separate videos pitching Chicago to the Olympic bigwigs.
It's working, apparently. There is, quite simply, no more potent and attractive brand in the world right now than Obama's, and the Olympic committee is as keen to be associated with it as everyone else. In Olympic terms, America has had its Susan Boyle moment, going from least-likely to win to near-favourite following Obama's election (I suppose this makes Obama the equivalent of Susan Boyle's singing voice, but maybe we should leave that analogy there).
Why is Obama so engaged on this - far more so than previous presidents? No government money is at stake (it's an American rule that all money for sporting events must be raised privately) and it's not as if he hasn't got a few other things on his plate.
Well, it's his home town, of course.
But it's not just that. Think about the political choreography. If he
wins a second term, as he expects to, he will be in his last months in
office and focusing on his legacy by the time these games come around.
That means he wants to go out surfing a wave of patriotic good feeling. A
national celebration of America's prowess as a sporting nation and as a
host would be an unmatchable opportunity to create that feeling, and the narrative of the departing president taking his leave in the town where it all began would be irresistible.
This isn't simply a feel-good ego trip. Obama's political legacy is intimately bound up with who succeeds him. The better that Americans feel about him and about themselves in 2016, the more likely they are to elect a successor from the same party (let's call her Hillary). As you'll recall from last year, there are only a few key events during general election season, the conventions and the debates foremost amongst them. An Olympic Games would add an extra, possibly defining element, that would most likely benefit the incumbent's party (Nate Silver brings the data to support this hypothesis).
Obama wants the 2016 Olympics to be the moment when he passes the presidential torch to his anointed successor.
I don't fully buy it. The Lake Placid games and the "Miracle on Ice" were early in 1980 and Jimmy Carter, an incumbent president, barely made it out of his primary. In fact, if there was any surge of patriotism in 1980, it probably benefited the challenger Reagan who inspired such feelings if not pandered to them. (Springsteen had his lawyers tell Reagan to cease and desist from quoting Born in the USA during the 84 re-election.)
That said, Obama parallels Reagan in his optimistic and patriotic tones. If the country is doing well in his final year, the Olympics in Chicago might compound good feeling for Obama. Above all, I think he adores his adopted hometown and wants to help them.
Incidentally, Obama took advantage of the Michael Phelps games in China to vacation.
Posted by: Birchbeer | May 15, 2009 at 05:50 AM