Obama's Olympic Bid: Risky Even if He Wins
When Barack Obama arrives in Copenhagen on Friday, he might be forgiven if he mistakes the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting for just another social call in his old Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. A number of the President's closest friends, biggest fundraisers and longtime political supporters will be making the trip as well.
Even before he committed to become the first U.S. President to attend such an event, the Chicago Olympic effort was already being substantially orchestrated by the group of people who are most responsible for supporting Obama's rise to the White House. And while the White House denies that the substantial overlap between Obama's personal and political network and the Chicago 2016 organizing committee played any role in his abrupt decision to reverse himself and attend the Olympic meeting in Denmark, the potential conflicts of interest have raised eyebrows.
Two of the 13-member board of directors for the Chicago 2016 committee who plan to attend the Copenhagen meeting, John W. Rogers Jr. and Marty Nesbitt, are close Obama friends, having worked for his presidential campaign as a member of the campaign's national finance committee and campaign treasurer, respectively. Several other friends and important campaign advisers, including investment banker James Reynolds Jr. and Hyatt hotel heir Penny Pritzker, are expected to attend the Copenhagen meeting as well. Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser and close family friend, quit the Chicago 2016 board when she formally joined the White House, but she has promised "unprecedented" government support for the Games.
"To say Barack and Michelle and others like Rahm [Emmanuel] aren't more interested in Chicago than Cincinnati just isn't credible," says Allen Sanderson, a sports economist at the University of Chicago. "It's just like saying that Obama wouldn't be more interested in his own daughters than two kids picked at random at the Sidwell Friends School."
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs went to great pains on Monday to assert that Obama saw the trip to Copenhagen as an official duty, not a personal one. "If it had been Los Angeles, I think the notion that the President would have done less because it was a different U.S. city just doesn't hold a lot of water," Gibbs said. He later added that none of Obama's friends would be flying to Copenhagen aboard Air Force One, though at least one might return on the official presidential jet.
Though Gibbs spoke of the economic impact of the Games as a boon for the entire nation, outside analysts expect most of the economic benefits to be focused in Chicago and the surrounding area, where many of Obama's biggest boosters are heavily invested in the real estate and tourism industry. Estimates for the economic stimulus of the Games vary widely, from $4.4 billion in an independent study by Anderson Economic Group to $22.5 billion, according to a number circulated by the Chicago 2016 committee. Yet if the cost of the Games exceeds expectations, as happens with most Olympics, local taxpayers may find themselves saddled with much of the expense.
By deciding to travel to Copenhagen, Obama has opened himself to two political dangers. Much of the focus thus far has been on the diplomatic peril: It could come as a harsh setback for the world's most influential leader to find himself rebuffed by a 2016 Olympic award to Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo. But even if Obama is successful, he faces a long-term danger of being associated with any potential mismanagement, overspending or outright corruption that occurs over the next seven years in the run-up to the Games.
On Monday, Gibbs said that Obama is confident that the city of Chicago, which has been plagued by what prosecutors have described as a "pay to play" culture, can responsibly oversee the multibillion-dollar building project. "Not only is he [confident], but [so] is the U.S. Olympic Committee that picked Chicago over [other] cities," Gibbs said.
Under the plan put forward by the Chicago 2016 committee, as described in a report by L.E.K. Consulting, the city council would play a major role in making sure the billions of dollars for new Olympic facilities are spent appropriately. This may be an ambitious goal; since 1971, 30 members of the Chicago city council have been sent to jail, largely as a result of corruption investigations. In a sign of the incestuous nature of Chicago politics, L.E.K — which concluded that taxpayers would be mostly protected under the Olympic plan — disclosed in its report that it is seeking a major city contract for concessions at O'Hare International Airport. (Any potential conflict was dismissed as irrelevant by the Civic Federation, which requested the report.) "Historically, the city council hasn't had a great record of transparency," says Valerie Leonard, a community activist in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, which would host cycling events if Chicago wins the bid. "I don't have confidence that's going to change."
The larger Chicago 2016 advisory committee — which has hundreds of members, including celebrities like Michael Jordan — is also populated with a number of close friends and major supporters of Obama's presidential campaign. The personal friends include Eric Whitaker, who works at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Michelle Obama's former employer, and who has been a frequent visitor at the White House. The group also includes several members of two of Chicago's wealthiest and most supportive families, the Pritzkers and the Crowns, heirs to the General Dynamics company. Both families were early supporters of Obama's political career.
The city council and the bid committee have thus far rebuffed efforts to require the Olympic committee's work to be subject to freedom of information requests, according to the University of Chicago's Sanderson. Nor has there been any action on Sanderson's proposal to ban members of the advisory committee from seeking Olympic contracts. One bid-committee member, Michael Scott, has served as a consultant for one of the developers that is vying to build the $1.2 billion Olympic Village. Scott has also consulted on a condominium project near the proposed location of the village, though he has denied to the Chicago Tribune any conflict of interest or financial gain.
But as the President prepares to depart for Denmark, his advisers say he does not share those concerns. Obama is scheduled to leave for Denmark late Thursday, make his case in private and public meetings with IOC members on Friday, and then board his plane to return to Washington just hours before voting on the host city begins.
— With reporting by Sean Gregory / Chicago