Come 2012, You Can Buy Us A Drink

From the moment Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff first announced that God had spoken to him in a fever dream, telling him that New York should, nay must, host the 2012 Olympic Games, we here at New York Press have been railing against the idea. In editorials, snide throwaway comments, well-considered and responsible economic analyses and our "88 Reasons" list of a few weeks ago, we've tried to get the word out there that beneath the hype and the television commercials and the happy billboards, bringing the Olympic Games to NYC was an extraordinarily bad idea.

When we first started sounding off on the matter, it was a bit lonely. At times we felt like voices in the wilderness-or even worse, like big party poopers. Everyone seemed so excited. Business owners, media moguls, cab drivers-everyone wanted the Games.

But god bless us everyone, at some point somewhere along the line, the idea began to spread. "Yeah," people began to think, "what a miserable idea!"

Maybe it was the mayor's incessant whining as he tried to cram the idea down our throats. Maybe it was the tiresome West Side Stadium debacle. Maybe it was realizing how much it would cost us. And while we'd never admit it publicly, in private we'd like to consider the possibility that just maybe a few of the stories that appeared in these pages had some effect, too. (But we'd only think that to ourselves.)

Whatever it was, it may have done the trick, and no blanket of cheap billboard slogans, no mountain of Bloombergian bullshit, no teeming throng of paid "Olympic Supporters" waving hand-scrawled signs at visiting members of the IOC can change that.

It was leaked last week that as they've toured potential host cities, the IOC's been taking informal polls of the citizenry, just to try and gauge how they feel about hosting the Games. And New Yorkers, true to form as some of the smartest people on Earth, made it awfully clear that no matter what kind of lies Bloomberg might tell, we know damn well the Games don't belong here.

According to the IOC's poll, a pallid 59 percent of New Yorkers had any inkling at all to host the Olympics. Committee members will be comparing that with a much warmer 68 percent in London, an enthusiastic 77 percent in Moscow, an ecstatic 85 percent in Paris, and an absolutely astonishing 91 percent in Madrid. If that many Spaniards want the Games, how could we possibly disappoint them?

The IOC apparently considers these polls very carefully when it comes to making a final decision. If the people hosting the games aren't going to be enthusiastic when the Games show up, why bother?

Better yet, the more an increasingly desperate mayor tries to shove the Olympics and the stadium down our throats, the less likely his chances for reelection. And the less likely the stadium and Olympic plans appear, the more desperately he tries to shove them down our throats. So it's a win-win deal for the city. Only the mayor loses.

Of course it's still too early to gloat, as we won't know anything for sure until July. Until then-keep on cheering, Madrid!