May 13--The competition for Barack Obama's legacy is not over until he announces whether his primary residence will be here or in New York.
The ability to shape public opinion does not reside in a library, which will be built on Chicago's South Side. It resides in him.
If Chicago loses him, it loses its broadest shoulders and, aside from part-time resident George Lucas, its biggest celebrity.
Scoff if you want, but I miss Oprah. The Oprah Winfrey Show aired in 149 countries in its final year. Its global platform boosted dozens of Chicagoans and helped launch the careers of interior designer Nate Berkus and chef Art Smith, among others.
Winfrey also reeled in celebrities who might otherwise would have had no exposure to Chicago. She also supplied jobs, filled hotel rooms and gave publicity to local restaurants, especially those that benefited when certain Oprah guests stopped by.
Imagine what Obama's presence could do?
Political and business leaders coming to town to meet with him could tack on a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, a meeting with the Tribune's Editorial Board or a satellite interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe.
Chicago needs such positive exposure. Desperately.
"Chicago is still, at best, a mystery to foreign tourists," brand expert Bobby Calder, of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, told my colleague Kathy Bergen in a March Tribune story headlined "Chicago lacks global allure." "We're still dealing with Al Capone, even in 2015."
At a Tuesday news conference announcing that the library, museum and foundation would be headquartered here, the president's best friend and foundation chief, Marty Nesbitt, made reassuring comments about the President and first lady's plans.
"The president has pledged he will be present" at the foundation, which will be headquartered in Chicago, Nesbitt said. "So I am sure he will be here working. He will be all over the world after his presidency, I'm sure. But he will spend a lot of time working at the foundation."
Let's hope that's true.
While the museum and library matter a great deal to Chicago's South Side, the charitable foundation is what matters to the world. It will execute Obama's post-White House agenda.
Yet Nesbitt on Tuesday also announced the foundation would have "a presence" at New York's Columbia University, the president's undergraduate alma mater. Nesbitt said the president was impressed with Columbia's "intellectual assets" and that the foundation would work on "a way to have a long-term association."
This worries me because, when pressed by reporters, Nesbitt provided zero insight into what such a "presence" would be. Does Obama want to teach a course there? I'm sure it would also be a lot easier to be a celebrity in New York, where everyone's a celebrity. Better flight schedules, too, for someone bound to be a globe-trotter.
Details on the foundation's footprint will matter.
A Nexis database search of stories in "major newspapers" during the last year found 70 references to the "Clinton Presidential Library" in Little Rock, Ark. Meanwhile, searches uncovered 822 references to the "Clinton foundation" and 259 to the foundation's "Clinton Global Initiative," which convenes leaders to make commitments to solving big problems.
Both are based in New York.
"Chicago is not Little Rock," said Rick Jasculca, whose Chicago public affairs firm, Jasculca Terman, helped open both the Clinton and Carter libraries and continues to do advance work for Carter. "A ton of programming opportunities are to come out of the library for an international city like Chicago. That's just not the case in Little Rock. We don't have an analogous situation. We can't make a comparison."
Let's hope I never have to again.
mmharris@tribpub.com
