Obama Fails to Bring Home Olympic Gold as Chicago Loses Bid
Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama returned to Washington after a 20-hour dash to Denmark in a position rare for him: defeated.
After traveling to Copenhagen to make a personal appeal for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics Games - a first for a U.S. president - Obama returned to face the news that his hometown finished last among the four finalists.
In the first round of voting in Copenhagen yesterday, the International Olympic Committee rebuffed Obama's plea to put the summer sports spectacle in the "city where I finally found a home." Rio de Janeiro was awarded the games, beating Madrid, 66 to 32 in the final round of balloting. After the first roll call, Chicago had 18 votes, Tokyo 22, Rio de Janeiro 26 and Madrid 28.
"This is really the first major caucus loss for the Obama team," said Ken Duberstein, a onetime chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan. "There are limits to celebrity sometimes," said Duberstein, calling the International Olympic Committee a collection of "impervious high muckety-muckety- mucks."
By traveling to Copenhagen for the final selection, Obama, who has been cheered by adoring crowds in Europe both before and after his election, put his popularity to a global test. In doing so, he left himself open to Republican criticism that he miscalculated.
"As Napoleon said, if you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna," said Jim Pinkerton, a Republican strategist. "Same with Copenhagen. He should not have gone unless he had it wired."
International Popularity
White House officials tried to head off attacks that the president's failed Copenhagen excursion was evidence that his international popularity wouldn't translate into policy victories for the U.S.
"In this town you'd be criticized if you did go; you'd be criticized if you didn't go," David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Axelrod insisted the president's legislative priorities, including health-care overhaul, weren't imperiled by Obama's Olympic flameout.
"All he really lost was some sleep and he was more than happy to do that," Axelrod said.
Still, some analysts said Obama's prestige suffered.
"I think to be eliminated in the first round is very embarrassing, to put it mildly," said Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at George Washington University in Washington.
Fourth-Place Finish
The president learned of Chicago's fourth-place finish aboard Air Force One, watching TV alone in the plane's forward cabin when the news broke, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with the president.
Upon returning, he congratulated Rio de Janeiro and extolled the "Olympic spirit," of the Copenhagen competition.
"You can play a great game and still not win," Obama said in the White House's Rose Garden. He offered a friendly challenge to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, saying, "Our athletes will see him on the field of competition in 2016."
"The president is disappointed as you might imagine," said Gibbs. "He feels obviously proud of his wife for the presentation that she made."
'Fits and Starts'
The president's overseas trip coincided with a Labor Department report that showed the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to the highest level since 1983.
Axelrod said the White House anticipates that the unemployment rate, which climbed to 9.8 percent last month, will reach 10 percent. "I think that's likely," he said.
Obama called the jobs report "a sobering reminder that progress comes in fits and starts."
"We're going to need to grind out this recovery step by step," he said.
Republican lawmakers, who had criticized Obama's decision to make the trip earlier in the week, were mostly silent yesterday. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement, "While I am disappointed with the IOC's decision, I look forward to the president returning stateside so that he can refocus his efforts on the growing unemployment crisis that was highlighted by today's monthly jobs report."
The jobs figure, and not Obama's failure to bring home the games, could have greater impact on the health-care debate in Congress, said Duberstein.
"The unemployment number rising may" hurt Obama's health- care push more than "the jobs going to Rio," he said.
Making the case for Rio was the famous Brazilian soccer star, Pele. Chicago's mistake was not sending its own international sporting icon, said Duberstein.
"They should have sent Michael Jordan," he said. "That's the only way it would have been a slam-dunk."
To contact the reporters on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net John McCormick in Copenhagen at jmcormick16@bloomberg.net
Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama returned to Washington after a 20-hour dash to Denmark in a position rare for him: defeated.
After traveling to Copenhagen to make a personal appeal for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics Games - a first for a U.S. president - Obama returned to face the news that his hometown finished last among the four finalists.
In the first round of voting in Copenhagen yesterday, the International Olympic Committee rebuffed Obama's plea to put the summer sports spectacle in the "city where I finally found a home." Rio de Janeiro was awarded the games, beating Madrid, 66 to 32 in the final round of balloting. After the first roll call, Chicago had 18 votes, Tokyo 22, Rio de Janeiro 26 and Madrid 28.
"This is really the first major caucus loss for the Obama team," said Ken Duberstein, a onetime chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan. "There are limits to celebrity sometimes," said Duberstein, calling the International Olympic Committee a collection of "impervious high muckety-muckety- mucks."
By traveling to Copenhagen for the final selection, Obama, who has been cheered by adoring crowds in Europe both before and after his election, put his popularity to a global test. In doing so, he left himself open to Republican criticism that he miscalculated.
"As Napoleon said, if you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna," said Jim Pinkerton, a Republican strategist. "Same with Copenhagen. He should not have gone unless he had it wired."
International Popularity
White House officials tried to head off attacks that the president's failed Copenhagen excursion was evidence that his international popularity wouldn't translate into policy victories for the U.S.
"In this town you'd be criticized if you did go; you'd be criticized if you didn't go," David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Axelrod insisted the president's legislative priorities, including health-care overhaul, weren't imperiled by Obama's Olympic flameout.
"All he really lost was some sleep and he was more than happy to do that," Axelrod said.
Still, some analysts said Obama's prestige suffered.
"I think to be eliminated in the first round is very embarrassing, to put it mildly," said Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at George Washington University in Washington.
Fourth-Place Finish
The president learned of Chicago's fourth-place finish aboard Air Force One, watching TV alone in the plane's forward cabin when the news broke, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with the president.
Upon returning, he congratulated Rio de Janeiro and extolled the "Olympic spirit," of the Copenhagen competition.
"You can play a great game and still not win," Obama said in the White House's Rose Garden. He offered a friendly challenge to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, saying, "Our athletes will see him on the field of competition in 2016."
"The president is disappointed as you might imagine," said Gibbs. "He feels obviously proud of his wife for the presentation that she made."
'Fits and Starts'
The president's overseas trip coincided with a Labor Department report that showed the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to the highest level since 1983.
Axelrod said the White House anticipates that the unemployment rate, which climbed to 9.8 percent last month, will reach 10 percent. "I think that's likely," he said.
Obama called the jobs report "a sobering reminder that progress comes in fits and starts."
"We're going to need to grind out this recovery step by step," he said.
Republican lawmakers, who had criticized Obama's decision to make the trip earlier in the week, were mostly silent yesterday. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement, "While I am disappointed with the IOC's decision, I look forward to the president returning stateside so that he can refocus his efforts on the growing unemployment crisis that was highlighted by today's monthly jobs report."
The jobs figure, and not Obama's failure to bring home the games, could have greater impact on the health-care debate in Congress, said Duberstein.
"The unemployment number rising may" hurt Obama's health- care push more than "the jobs going to Rio," he said.
Making the case for Rio was the famous Brazilian soccer star, Pele. Chicago's mistake was not sending its own international sporting icon, said Duberstein.
"They should have sent Michael Jordan," he said. "That's the only way it would have been a slam-dunk."
To contact the reporters on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net John McCormick in Copenhagen at jmcormick16@bloomberg.net
