Top GOP Senate Candidate In Illinois Not Saying Whether He Supports Obama’s Chicago Olympics Bid
GOP Rep. Mark Kirk, who’s said to be the national GOP’s top candidate for Senate in Illinois, is declining to say for now whether he supports President Obama’s trip to Copenhagen to bring the Olympics to the largest city in Kirk’s home state.
We asked the Kirk campaign early yesterday afternoon where he stands on Obama’s trip for the Olympics, which if successful could shower economic benefits on the city but has been roundly attacked by many Republicans and conservatives as a needless distraction for the President.
Kirk campaign aides told our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that they were uncertain of his position and would get back to us with an answer. They have yet to do so.
Kirk voted to secure the Olympics but hasn’t said where he stands on Obama’s trip abroad to make that happen, and the controversy surrounding Obama’s pitch, which the president makes this morning, would seem to put Kirk in a delicate spot.
The games could be an economic boon to Chicago, and while residents are divided, city officials are eager to secure them. But opposition to Obama’s trip is widespread among Republicans and especially conservatives, who already are lukewarm on Kirk because of his support for cap and trade and abortion rights, among other things. Kirk is facing a primary from his right.
If the Kirk campaign gives us an answer, we’ll let you know.
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Well done, Greg. Put the republicans in a spot and make them take a stand. The repugs’ olympic poutrage is beyond belief and ridiculous to the core.
Keep up the good work.
Color me cynical, but I think this is primarily a smokescreen for diversion of billions of Federal taxpayer dollars to Chicago.
Athens said hosting the games there would cost $1.6 billion. It ended up being about $16 billion. Beijing predicted $1.6 billion but current estimates say that’s more like $30 to $40 billion. And the 2012 games in London, originally expected to cost less than $5 billion, may now come with a price tag of around $19 million, Zimbalist noted in a paper he co-wrote with the University of Alberta’s Brad R. Humphreys.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/10/02/economic-benefits-of-hosting-olympics-are-few/
Uhmmm considering the pretzel Kirk twisted himself into over the climate change bill, I can’t wait to see how he tries to pacify both the wingnuts and his constituents on this one LMAOOOOO
.
New nickname for Mark Kirk might be “Baby Mittens” lol
So, in your world, it was alright for New, York, Atlanta, L.A., Salt Lake City, etc, to host the Olympic Games, but not Chicago. By the way, they put in their bid for the games, long before the current political situation in Washington had emerged.
Oh no, Chicago might be after some federal funds. They must be stopped, because we can not afford that, after the Republicans pissed up to 2 trillion down a rat hole in Iraq.
Yes, I can see how frugal they really are.
Hey Chicago Olympics, right wingers want you to keep your hands off Federal Dollars, they have all been promised to their Robber Baron friends on Wall St.
Do any of you guys know the recent history of cities that have hosted the Olympics?
Virtually all in the last 30 years have lost money. Ya know? Gone deeply into the sea of red ink? Don’t take my word on this, find out for yourself. It’s really easy to do an internet search to find out fact from fiction. There ain’t gonna be no economic boon.
The citizens of Chicago are divided on this because they know that money sorely needed for schools and other social and infrastructure projects will be diverted for what is basically a pie-in-the-sky hope for an economic bonanza, and they would rather be safe than sorry.
Any economic analysis that perports to show an economic benefit would have to include huge Federal subsidies, which means that the rest of the U. S. would be paying for benefits used only by the people of Chicago.
Can any of you possibly call this situation fair and equitable?
Congressman Kirk.
AKA
Mark Windsock.
Way to press Baby Mittens on this Greg. As you know, I’m in Illinois and though campaigns have been quiet, it’s always nice to watch them squirm early. My thoughts right now are this senate seat stays Democratic. We might lose the governor but not the senate seat.
My wife thinks American’s are crazy.
I think she’s right.
Who on earth besides this f’ed up country wouldn’t want the Olympics in their country? What a bunch of partisan losers.
Any one notice how much money Right Wingers squandered in Iraq. It would have payed for hosting the next fifty Olympics, in a row. Isn’t it a bit late for those right wingers to start pretending that they believe in fiscal restraint.
Hundreds of Billions for their Wall St. Robber Baron patrons, but not a penny for the Olympics. That is the new watchword of the Right Wingers.
When will Republican opposition become invalid? They oppose EVERYTHING — literally — that Obama says or does. How can you have any credibility when your default position is to say, regardless of the issue, “If Obama’s for it, I’m against it.”
There something deeply troubling and detrimental about knee-jerk opposition. It may or may not be good for Republican short-term political gain, but it is without a doubt detrimental to our nation. This nation is strengthened by substantive political debate, which does not include things like attacking the President of the United States for lobbying for the nation to host events that will boost our economy and international stature, or attacking the President for encouraging our nation’s kids to stay in school.
I guess, in today’s politics one never jumps the shark. Absurdity has become a virtue, and nationalism for the United States of America that soundly elected Barack Hussein Obama a scourge for many Republicans who prefer to dwell in “their” America.
Repugs talking about fiscal responsibility, “schools and other social and infrastructure projects” must rank as the top oxymoron and height of hypocrisy.
@freehold – Cynical? I’d say. In a pointedly anti-Obama manner. The portion you excerpt from the WSJ omits the income side and their link to a document on that doesn’t work (encoded). The reality here is that if Obama did NOT act to promote the Chicago site, the WSJ would be on him for irresponsible refusal to help out a part of America in need of incentive. That’s the game they play.
Cities fight aggressively for such events. Undoubtedly, such fights are driven primarily by the sectors of the business community which hope to profit. It would surprise the hell out of me if the WSJ has ever previously derogated a city’s attempts to land such an event.
Not sure if you’ve visited Vancouver. In ‘86, we hosted the world Expo on comm and transport. That’s a different sort of event but I’m not sure how those differences might be relevant here. In that case, Vancouver was changed in profound and very valuable ways which I don’t think anyone now regrets. We (I still feel attached) are, of course, hosting the winter olympics this winter (Glenn Beck’s Mayan calendar notwithstanding) and I don’t know how it will turn out in terms of costs/benefits.
But I shall defer on this matter from here on out to Mitt Romney (unless he lies through his teeth which I expect).
Europe host the next Olympics, and guess what; they are trying to get the following ones also.
I guess it really is no surprise that the Republicans are against the USA hosting the Olympics, since the Republicans are fully behind outsourcing every job they can, to other nations.
Rio wants them, and Europe wants them, for two times in a row. Look which continents are feeling confident in their futures, and look at how negative The Right Wingers are about their own country.
The Republicans are acting like traitors to their own country. William Bennett said that he is rooting for Rio to get the games.
Here is the amazing part about what Bennett said. He stated that Chicago is just fat people, that eat too much.
Who the hell stole William Bennett’s mirror.
He is a giant tub of lard!
And, sorry Greg (reasons obvious), but this piece by Yglesias ought to be here (even if OT, again)… http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/waposts-continuing-contempt-for-its-readers.php
Will thinks by using 15 letter words will magically make his writing non-fiction.
WaPo is complacent in the destruction of the planet. People should be pissed.
When will Republican opposition become invalid? They oppose EVERYTHING — literally — that Obama says or does. How can you have any credibility when your default position is to say, regardless of the issue, “If Obama’s for it, I’m against it.”
There something deeply troubling and detrimental about knee-jerk opposition.
Perhaps you could remind me of the frequent support that Democrat’s offered to Bush?
My overall assessment is that “If Bush is for it, I’m against it.” would characterize Democratic views then as well as “If Obama’s for it, I’m against it.” characterizes Republican views today.
Peripherally (very) relevant on economics ideas…Brooks wrote a column the other day suggesting that the decline in Americans’ saving were a consequence of moral decay. Not surprising he’d perceive the world in this manner as, from the neoconservative viewpoint, signs of moral decay are everywhere (among the peasantry, that is). Kristol’s mommy’s obsession with “virtue” (its presence or absence among the peasantry, of course) being a zipper-gluing, flag-loving case in point. Krugman responded by showing the curious and near 1 to 1 relationship between that decline in savings and the advent of Reagonomics.
Today, Yglesias tries to get his noggin around what’s going on here… http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/reagonomics-and-debt.php
President Obama should fire General McChrystal now.
The General is trying to usurp the role of his commander in chief.
He is doing so, in public forums.
President Truman fired General MacArthur for behaving similarly to what General McChrystal is now doing.
Read what the General said yesterday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/asia/02general.html?ref=politics
The President needs to rein in the war brass. If he lets McChrystal get away with this, then more generals will feel free to challenge his authority.
freehold – what a dishonest pos you are. What shrub stood for is destruction and hence the opposition worldwide. What this president stands for is complete opposite and hence the support worldwide.
What a dishonest POS.
@freehold – generalization aren’t sufficient here (as a technical guy, you ought to know that). You have to take some specific things to make comparative measurements. Obama hasn’t been in place very long so that’s a tad tough. But you could, for example, investigate the number of Bush judicial nominees approved/stopped by Dems and contrast with the number approved/stopped by Republicans while Clinton was in office.
When President Bush took office, Ted Kennedy showed that he was willing to work with the new President. He did so, on the President’s no child left behind bill, and Ted helped to get it passed. Of course, the President then turned around and refused to fund it, like he had promised to do.
Show me one Republican leader, that has been willing to work with President Obama, to the same extent that Ted Kennedy did with President Bush, right after he became President.
Liam, he’s not only undermining the CIC, he’s also undermining the CENTCOM commander, Petraeus according to that article by putting pressure on him.
Here’s what I don’t get about this Afganistan debacle now that some serious assessments have finally been done to determine what it would take to stabilize the country after 7 years of dicking around.
I heard estimates that it would take somewhere around 400k military/police to stabilize that country. If I remember correctly, Afgan had something like 80k troops prior to the Soviet invasion. Their govn’t is right now is pretty much corrupt and would be unable to sustain anywhere close to that number without massive infusions of money from the U.S. and the international community.
If the goal of 400k is unattainable, what does McChrystal think another 40k are gonna do?
Mike,
Afghanistan has a population of 33 million people, most who can not read or write. It has no natural wealth, such as Oil, or minerals.
It has a annual GDP of just under one billion dollars. Pause and take that in for a moment. One Billion Dollars Annual GDP for 33 million people.
They can never afford a national army of 400,000, which McChrstal estimates they would need to be able to resist the Taliban.
So we will have to do all the fighting, and then pay for equipping and paying the salaries of 400,000 member Afghan army, for every.
One Billion Dollar GDP, with no natural resources. It is a stone age tribal wilderness, and I don’t care how many times we look into our McChrystal Ball, we can not wave a wand, and morph it into a modern self sustaining nation.
Now for the Cherry on Top. Karzai is corrupt. He rigged the election, and his brother is the Drug Lord of Kandahar province. So we have no good guys to fight for, and it is not really a country, so why should we stay there for a hundred years, and pay for every thing that they need.
What would be the payoff. The Taliban are a shower of rotten ********, and so is the Karzai regime. Thank you very much President Bush, for installing that corrupt weasel, and for letting him have a free hand with his corruption.
Greg:
We asked the Kirk campaign early yesterday afternoon where he stands on Obama’s trip for the Olympics, which if successful could shower economic benefits on the city…
I don’t know what Kirk’s position is, but it is far from certain that hosting the Olympics is a net economic benefit.
From a report on “What Can Beijing Expect from Its 2008 Games?”:
“Economic impact studies confirm these expectations by forecasting economic benefits in the billions of dollars. Unfortunately these studies are filled with misapplications of economic theory that virtually guarantee their projections will be large. Ex-post studies have consistently found no evidence of positive economic impacts from mega-sporting events even remotely approaching the estimates in economic impact studies.”
And…
“In reality, data and anecdotal evidence strongly suggest the Olympics had a significant crowding out effect on the rest of the tourism industry [in Atlanta]. Table 3 shows convention attendance in Atlanta, which had been increasing steadily over the previous ten years, fell ten percent from 1995 to 1996. hotel occupancy rates fell from 72.9% in 1995 to 68% in 1996 despite the Olympics. Macroeconomic indicators in Georgia and Fulton County show no discernible break in the pattern of per capita income growth or unemployment rates (State of Utah 2000). Due to the disruption caused by the Olympics, hotels and restaurants that would be expected to benefit from increased tourist traffic were actually hurt. “In other parts of town, many hotels and restaurants reported significantly lower than normal sales volume during the Games. Even shops and resorts in areas up to 150 miles away reported slower than normal business during the summer of 1996″ (French and Disher 1997, p. 390).”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4127/is_200510/ai_n15705690/?tag=content;col1
Edit.
This site’s software censored: shower of rotten b@stards.
This is what you get, when you hire the Church Lady to write your software program. Well, isn’t that special!
Edited version.
Mike,
Afghanistan has a population of 33 million people, most who can not read or write. It has no natural wealth, such as Oil, or minerals.
It has a annual GDP of just under one billion dollars. Pause and take that in for a moment. One Billion Dollars Annual GDP for 33 million people.
They can never afford a national army of 400,000, which McChrstal estimates they would need to be able to resist the Taliban.
So we will have to do all the fighting, and then pay for equipping and paying the salaries of 400,000 member Afghan army, for every.
One Billion Dollar GDP, with no natural resources. It is a stone age tribal wilderness, and I don’t care how many times we look into our McChrystal Ball, we can not wave a wand, and morph it into a modern self sustaining nation.
Now for the Cherry on Top. Karzai is corrupt. He rigged the election, and his brother is the Drug Lord of Kandahar province. So we have no good guys to fight for, and it is not really a country, so why should we stay there for a hundred years, and pay for every thing that they need.
What would be the payoff. The Taliban are a shower of rotten B@astards, and so is the Karzai regime. Thank you very much President Bush, for installing that corrupt weasel, and for letting him have a free hand with his corruption.
Bernie — That Yglesias thing is very good, if somewhat painful to read. Thanks.
Kirk is courageously waiting for the Olympic committee to make its decision before he gives an opinion. If Chicago gets the nod, he’s all for it, if Rio wins, Obama was wrong to go to Copenhagen.
@freehold – generalization aren’t sufficient here
Fair point. I had actually thought about NCLB as an example (as you noted), but was going for brevity.
But I was really responding to the absolutism in the previous comment (and as so vehemently expressed by amk).
Just think of all the poly sci thesis topics available in 10 years based on detailed analysis of all this stuff
Freehold
“Perhaps you could remind me of the frequent support that Democrat’s offered to Bush?
My overall assessment is that “If Bush is for it, I’m against it.” would characterize Democratic views then as well as “If Obama’s for it, I’m against it.” characterizes Republican views today.”
Here is a partial list of Bush policies and who voted for them: Iraq, Bankruptcy Bill, Warrantless Wiretapping, Protect America Act, $163 Billion on Iraq, FISA……
Cramer, Davis, Ross, Salazar, Boyd, Bishop, Marshall, Barrow, Bean, Boswell, Moore, Chandler, Melancon, Peterson, Taylor, Etheridge, McIntyre, Pomeroy, Boren, Holder, Sandlin, Davis, Tanner, Matheson, Cuellar…..
And my favorite Hypocrisy Watch Bill: Government Funded and Secured Flood Insurance (Socialist??) I brought this up last week. As usual the Republicans value property and profits over people. Which Dems voted for it just to name a few: Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln etc…..
fh – fake sophistry cannot hide true dishonesty.
Those making comments about McChrystal and insubordination should read Spencer Ackerman on this in today’s Washington Independent. The NYT misrepresents the comments he made in London completely.
well, chicago is out in the first round itself. Guess the wingnuts will celebrate now.
I won’t celebrate, but I will counter that I think South America should get a shot at hosting its first Olympics.
I don’t think much of the notion that world leaders should have to kowtow to the IOC to land a sporting event. Just seems like a bad precedent that should be beneath any leader.
Again:
When President Bush took office, Ted Kennedy showed that he was willing to work with the new President. He did so, on the President’s no child left behind bill, and Ted helped to get it passed. Of course, the President then turned around and refused to fund it, like he had promised to do.
Show me one Republican leader, that has been willing to work with President Obama, to the same extent that Ted Kennedy did with President Bush, right after he became President.
“Does This Mean the IOC Is Racist?”
John J. Miller: The Corner