the presentation was crap. that's what you get for hiring your cronies to make powerpoints and them overcharging you for it! truth be told, chicago had nothing to offer. when asked directly by the IOC, the representatives danced around questions and never really gave anything of substance. painfully unprepared.
Obama's answer was basically that he and his family deserved to be able to walk out of their Chicago home to the Olympics. It was awkward and uncomfortable.
transcripts of the Obama''s pitches: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/president-obama-michelle_n_307637.html
he really doesn't sell chicago at all. you can insert any city in the US (kind of) in place of chicago and it would be the same speech.
That's because Chicago is pretty much the same as anyplace else. There's nothing particularly interesting about the current city, and it's got no history aside from the stockyards, and really, who wants to go to the stockyard museum and see the simulated cow butchering exhibits? It's not beautiful or scenic, the weather isn't very pleasant in the summer. It's not an up-and-coming city (Beijing, Rio), nor is it a city with past glory (London, Athens). It's just sort of there. The one thing I can see going for it as host of a big festival like the olympics is that the city is wall-to-wall with junk food, so they wouldn't need to put up quite as many corn dog stands as they would other places. barfo
