Blaming Obama for the Olympic debacle is a stretch by any means, although party politics always seems to get in the way of things.
Even in Madrid, there are some hard-line righties that want the head of Madrid's mayor Gallardon, even though that bid was supported by President Zapatero (Left), President Commundiad de Madrid, Aguirre (Right) and the afore mentioned Gallardon (center Right).
There are 3 important lessons to learn from this years voting.
1. Any city that doesn't get at least 80% support from their voters should be automatically eliminated. In fact, a referendum should be held to evaluate if the public really wants the Olympics. Fort this reason it was totally correct to knock off Chicago, although in fairness, it should of been Tokyo in the first round.
2. Speaking geographically, make it a written rule that the Olympics cannot repeat in the same continent. Here is one aspect that Gallardon could be rightfully criticized. Paris, Rome and Moscow did not submit bids because they correctly concluded that 2020 would be a more realistic date.
3. Flying in for 2 hours to support a bid is not the way to do things correctly, and the Obama team erred in that.
General consensus was that Madrid had the best bid but lost out to Lula's world map. Sadly, so true.
Finally, there have been some posters, including rcade, that have criticized Olympic committee as being unfair, biased or down right money grabbing thieves. On what bases do this critics make such strong allegations without any tangible proof? If anything, giving the games to Rio proves the opposite.
Crisis
