As you might have guessed I’ve been watching the Olympics in
spite of the horrendous coverage. So of
course I get to enjoy the many commercials, among which have been some
political ads.
There’s one praising Romney for his work on the 2002 Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City. Contrary to the commercial and popular
belief, the 2002 Winter Olympics were never in danger of not being held. Two of the people running it were dumped
because of what was called a scandal (it was just business as usual for the
Olympics in any city but it made the news so there had to be some outrage) and
Romney was brought in to run things.
But the International Olympic Committee had already said
that they were committed to holding the Games in Salt Lake City. There was never any question that they would
be held there and on time.
They did need some more money and Romney was good at getting
that. So good that he managed to get
$1.3 billion in US tax dollars. Of that,
almost $1.1 billion went for development around Salt Lake City not directly related to the
games. In other words: $250 million for
the Olympics, $1.1 billion for developers in the Salt Lake City area.
Romney may have done a good job running the games – where,
by the way, he told the athletes that they were only there because of all of
the support they got from other people in their lives. He may have done a good job, and from what I
can tell he did what he was hired to do, but the 2002 Winter Olympics were paid
for by US taxpayers.
Mitt Romney did what he seems to be very good at – spending
other people’s money and taking a lot of credit.
Yes, I know that the commercial is not from Romney’s
campaign but is from his supporters.
That doesn’t change the facts. He
ran the Winter Olympics, great, it’s not like he invented water or something.
Also yes, I am very Olympics focused at the moment which is
why the other political commercials haven’t even registered with me.
Further, at the time I thought he did a good job, but let’s
not get too excited.
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