President Barack Obama is briefed daily on Chicago’s prospects for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and next week will use meetings with foreign leaders to bolster his adopted hometown’s hopes. That’s the word from senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, his go-to person on the Olympics and one of eight White House staffers working to bring them to Chicago.
Jarrett, in an interview Friday in her West Wing office, called Chicago’s bid “spectacular” and said Obama’s upcoming meetings at the United Nations and at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh were “two venues that present a very good opportunity for him to advocate.”
Obama’s emissary, First Lady Michelle Obama, will arrive in Copenhagen on Sept. 30, Jarrett said. That’s two days before the Oct. 2 vote in which the 100-plus member International Olympic Committee will choose among Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.
As the first lady’s schedule is drawn up, it’s all about retail politics, Jarrett said.
“It is important that we work tirelessly to demonstrate, just as the athletes do when they compete, that we’re prepared to work down to the last second. Our intent is to meet with as many individual members of the IOC who we think we can swing to our side.”
Jarrett, who leads the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport, ducked a lingering question: Will the president attend the closing argument for Chicago 2016? “What I can tell you today,” she said, “is it is presently not on his schedule.”
She heralded Michelle Obama for her “authenticity, persuasive passion and love for Chicago and everything it represents.”
Hinting at how the first lady might cast herself before the IOC, Jarrett said she embodied the Olympic movement as a product of the working-class South Side and Chicago Public Schools, a woman who “worked hard, disciplined herself, and played fair.” She said the first lady demonstrates that anybody — regardless of gender, ethnicity, and nationality — can compete on a level playing field.
There are more than a dozen IOC members from Africa, and they are a special focus for the Chicago bid because they are thought not to have an allegiance to any of the rival cities. To that end, key members of Congress — including Illinois’ Bobby Rush, whose district takes in proposed Olympic venues — hosted a reception Thursday for Africa’s ambassadors to the U.S. “I think they were wooed,” said Jarrett, who attended the gathering.
She said a recent Tribune/WGN poll, showing only 47 percent of Chicago residents supported Mayor Richard Daley’s Olympic plans, was outdated in the wake of a 49-0 vote by the City Council to sign the host-city contract for the Games. Jarrett said she addressed public sentiment Friday with Lori Healey, president of Chicago 2016, and both felt it would shift upward.
Jarrett just told the online magazine Around the Rings that Chicago could deliver games on time, on budget and free of corruption. She said in the interview that she was “very confident” that would happen because the right checks and balances would be in place.
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kskiba@tribune.com
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