The Obama difference
WASHINGTON – There is perhaps no one quite like Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who appeared Wednesday here on the South Lawn of the White House to declare of the Obama Administration, in the version of the English language the mayor prefers, “This administration done so much on behalf of our city.”
If the mayor isn’t always an exemplar in the application of the present perfect simple tense, let not his glitch obscure the fact that he is as keen a professor of politics as any elected official in the United States.
This, too, is what the mayor said Wednesday of the race for the 2016 Summer Olympics, “It’s a tough journey. This is like a political campaign. That’s what it is, really. It’s a political campaign.”
It is, indeed, a political campaign, one that wraps to a close in just over two weeks, with the International Olympic Committee’s 2016 vote on Oct. 2 in Copenhagen, the IOC choosing between Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
It’s a close race. “This is a tough vote,” the mayor said. “Everybody is equal.”
It’s an exceedingly close race. Anything could make a difference. And one person, alone, might make the biggest difference – President Obama.
As Dick Pound, a longtime IOC member from Canada and the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, put it in an interview earlier this week in Chicago, where he was delivering a speech, “If you have a popular and transformational leader and you don’t use him, you’re not maximizing your chances. To the extent that the mayor and Pat Ryan,” the Chicago 2016 bid chief, “can twist the presidential arm, they should do that. I think it could make a huge difference.”
So watching the president, and the First Lady, and the mayor, and a gaggle of kids and Olympic athletes who had gathered on a pleasant late-summer afternoon on the South Lawn to tout Chicago’s 2016 bid, the aim to underscore the president’s commitment to the bid amid a historic alignment of state, local and federal interests, it’s not clear that sending the First Lady in his stead to Copenhagen is all that could possibly be done.
To be perfectly clear:
This is no knock on the First Lady, who is extraordinarily capable. She said she would be “honored, deeply honored, to have the opportunity to travel to Copenhagen to make the case for my hometown.”
Nor is it a knock on Valerie Jarrett, the senior White House aide and former Chicago 2016 vice-chair who is also due to go to Copenhagen on behalf of the president. She is also immensely capable.
It’s simply an express acknowledgement that there is no one like Barack Obama.
He is the president of the United States– and thus if he was there in Copenhagen in person to say the White House backs the bid, there would be no room for debate. That was the strategy that London used via then-prime minister Tony Blair in 2005 to win for 2012. It’s the strategy that Sochi used in 2007 to win the 2014 Winter Games, relying on Vladimir Putin, then the president and now the prime minister of Russia.
“Chicago has put together a fantastic bid,” Blair told the Chicago Tribune earlier this week, “but it’s not for me to start supporting one bid against another.”
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is going to be in Copenhagen. So, too, the king of Spain, Juan Carlos, a 1972 Olympian in sailing. Japan has invited Crown Prince Naruhito and incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Beyond all of that, there’s this – Obama has a way about him that is magnetic. You saw it throughout the campaign last year. You saw it in Grant Park on the Chicago lakefront on election night. You saw it as well Wednesday on the South Lawn.
His story is, in essence, the thing that underpins the core not just of the American dream but of so much of the Olympic enterprise as well – the idea that anyone can do anything, if you just believe.
Listen to the president speak Wednesday on the South Lawn, and imagine the possibilities if he were to appear in Copenhagen.
“Sixteen days away – we’re just 16 days away from the deciding vote on which world city will host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympics Games.
“So let’s get right down to business here: The United States is eager to welcome the world to our shores. This nation would be honored to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games and to serve as host to thousands of athletes and millions of visitors from around the world. And within this great country of ours, there is no better city than that of Chicago, Illinois.
“Now, I may live in Washington these days. I love Washington, D.C. And our house here is a little bigger than the one we’ve got in Chicago. But I’ve called Chicago home for nearly 25 years. It’s a city of broad shoulders and big hearts and bold dreams; a city of legendary sports figures, legendary sports venues and legendary sports fans; a city like America itself, where the world – the world’s races and religions and nationalities come together and reach for the dream that brought them here.
“In Chicago, old and new exist in harmony. It’s a city rooted in an industrial past that laid this nation’s railroads, forged this nation’s steel, rebuilt itself after a great fire and reversed the course of a mighty river. And it’s also a city of bustle and gleaming promise that Mayor Daley has pledged to make the greenest in America. And that’s why I think that one of the most exciting parts of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is that all of the plans being made in Chicago exist within minutes of the city center; easily accessible to commerce and culture, parkland and water – because we don’t want these venues to be far-flung, all over the place. We want to host these Games where we live and work and play.
“We want them in the heart of our proud city – the city that opened the way westward in the 19 th century, that showed the way skyward in the 20 th century and that is leading the way forward in the 21 st century. So Chicago is ready. The American people are ready. We want these Games. We want them.”
Last week, the White House, in a statement on 2016 plans, quoted the president as saying he couldn’t commit to Copenhagen “at this time” because of the urgency of health-care reform.
He said Wednesday on the South Lawn, “I would make the case in Copenhagen personally, if I weren’t so firmly committed to making – making real the promise of quality, affordable health care for every American. But the good news is I’m sending a more compelling superstar to represent the city and country we love, and that is our First Lady, Michelle Obama.”
“He is absolutely committed to the bid,” Jarrett said later in the afternoon, in an interview in a White House library, of course meaning the president.
“But you have to understand that at this particular moment in time, every moment counts for the president to get health-care reform for our country. This is something our country has been hungry for for 50 years.
“Every American can tell you a tragedy involving their own family. One that involved a pre-existing condition. Or they lost insurance. Or they worked in a small business that couldn’t afford to cover them. Or their feet were dragged trying to get approval from their insurance company.
“Health care is an absolute domestic crisis in our country and everyone knows every day is vitally important. It was unprecedented for the president to give the speech he gave to the joint session of Congress last week. That was an indication of how extraordinarily vital it is to see this through right now and, unfortunately, the [2016] competition lands right in the middle of this process.
“As he said, of course he would love to be in Copenhagen. Right now, given what’s going on in health care, he thinks it would be better for Michelle to go, given her unique ties to Chicago.”
Right now – that’s not two weeks from now. So perhaps the door is open just a sliver.
Or maybe not, in which case the fate of the Chicago bid may well hinge on some majority of IOC voters accepting in full the explanation and the passion that Valerie Jarrett made plain Wednesday in the library.
Because, as the mayor put it perfectly – this is like a political campaign.
Indeed, that’s what it is.
Really.