Chicago voters are much more enthusiastic about being the home of the George Lucas Museum than the Obama presidential library, according to a new poll by the Chicago Tribune.
The people are excited about the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, with more than six in ten voters saying they would visit the museum once it was built.
Not so much for an Obama museum.
"How many people are going to go to it?" said Kevin Dwyer, a Chicago police officer. "It isn't really the first vacation destination for any families that I know of."
The only opposition to the Lucas museum, which Chicago fought to have over San Francisco, is where it will be located. The plan is to build the museum on public waterfront land near Chicago’s Soldier Field, causing open-space advocates that would oppose building anything on the land to protest.
Only 20 percent of voters think that the lakefront spot is a bad location for the museum, with 32 percent saying that it is a good spot. The most common answer from 43 percent of Chicagoans saying that it "doesn’t matter" where the museum is, they just want the option of "checking out the filmmaker's trove of Star Wars memorabilia" to be part of Chicago.
The question of whether Chicago should try and lure Obama to build his presidential library in the city was much more divisive, according to the Tribune.
Less than half of those surveyed in a Chicago Tribune poll — 47 percent — said they favored the idea of using tax money to attract or build the library, while 45 percent said they opposed it and 8 percent were undecided. There was a gap along racial lines: 61 percent of black voters polled were in support and 60 percent of white voters opposed. […]
Opponents also tended to dismiss claims that the library would be an economic boon for Chicago.
"How many people are going to go to it?" said Kevin Dwyer, 49, a police officer who lives in Beverly. "It isn't really the first vacation destination for any families that I know of."
Star Wars is the greatest space movie ever made, though many have attempted, and failed, to recreate the success of the timeless classic.