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Culture of Corruption Handcuffed Chicago’s Olympics Bid

His name is Daley and he’s stomping in the sand.

Not in Rio, mind you, but at Oak Street Beach.

It took more than 100 years, but Chicago’s long-standing culture of corruption, kickbacks and graft finally doomed the City on the most visible international stage since Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906. Packingtown and its homegrown President were sent packing by the IOC and Mayor Richard J. Daley doesn’t like that at all. 

Daley said this to reporters when the Second City finished fourth: “It’s already in this hemisphere, with Rio, and it would not make sense for an American city to try again in 2020.”

Already in this hemisphere? This is coming from a mayor who shuttered at the idea of the Bears playing in Schaumburg or Gary, Indiana. Had he thought it would have helped, Daley would have reversed the flow of the city’s main tributary and renamed it Rio de Chicago.

Ironically, one of the many books written about Daley’s father and his political machine was titled “Don’t Make No Waves; Don’t back no losers.”

The International Olympic Committee must have ordered a few copies.

“This was not a political gamble,” a dejected Daley said after Chicago first round elimination.

He’s right: Chicago doesn’t gamble. The fix is always in. Only this time it backfired - big time.

See, the city’s broad-shouldered image for propping up backroom deals and politically greasing the skids for everything from airport booksellers to stadium deals for the Sox and Bears swayed the IOC so much that it swiftly eliminated the City that Works in the first round of its Final Four competition. Chicago as a whipping boy for the IOC, the all-of-a-sudden moral compass of athletic competition? Ouch.

After widespread reports of graft gripped the IOC following revelations about the wooing of the games to Atlanta and Salt Lake, is it any surprise the committee shied away from a city and state that practices such under-the-table deals so unashamedly on a grand scale, on a daily basis?

Can you blame the IOC for not wanting to award a prize as grand as the Olympics to a city that propped up a corrupt governor who tried to sell the President’s Senate seat; routinely employs patronage lifeguards at city parks that do not have swimming pools; and can’t come to an agreement between the Mayor and his self-appointed City Council members on who exactly should make financial decisions regarding the Olympic Games?

For all of its grumbling about being the “Second City”, Chicago has been more than content for several decades in allowing the focus of the national media to steer clear of the city’s shortcomings when it comes to conducting politics fair and square. The Machine purposesly avoids national political office because the local pols can’t project what they feel is their birthright to strong arm foes into submission on such a grand scale.

Barack Obama overcame his Chicago connections and snubbed the local political establishment by successfully running for President despite being reared and nurtured in a political machine that has for a long time discouraged ascension to national office.

The events at the 1969 Democratic National Convention pushed Chicago into a dark cave from which it has taken it 40 years to emerge. Now it’s time for re-entry. The egos have landed.

While Rod Blagojevich brought national attention to the Chicago way, Richard J. Daley was praying that a successful Olympic bid would be the cure to re-focus the national spotlight that is now shining into Chicago’s back alleys. He now stands alongside Jane Byrne, who failed to bring a Formula 1 Grand Prix race to Chicago during her time in office.

Now the only sports streak in Chicago longer than the Cubs’ World Series drought is it’s Olympic desires, going on 112 years and counting. Chicago won its bid for the 1904 games but succumbed to pressure from St. Louis, which feared the games would interfere with the World’s Fair and threatened to conduct a rival sports competition. Chicago also lost its Olympic bid to Helsinki in 1952. 

First St. Louis, then Helsinki, and now the girl from Ipanema. Perhaps the Machine needs more grease.

© 2009 Teflon Don Sports.