If it's 2020, are we in New Orleans?

San Francisco is beautiful, quite probably No. 1 with a bullet if the members of the International Olympic Committee were asked to rank American cities. But to stage a Summer Games there? Highly unlikely. Pick any of a number of reasons: No stadium. No money to do so. No way that's changing anytime soon.

Dallas has a brand-new shrine of a football stadium with a big ol' Texas-sized video board. The Super Bowl will surely be just fine there.

Seattle -- great city, beautiful scenery. But, among other challenges -- too close to Vancouver, where they just staged the Winter Games, to be considered anytime soon for the Summer Olympics.

As for Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Birmingham, Alabama, where local dignitaries have murmured in recent months about launching a bid for the Summer Olympics -- let's not be ridiculous. Not a chance. Not now and not ever.

In the next few years, it may well be that there's only one city in the United States -- one -- that could win the right to stage the Summer Games.

Because it's the only one that would seem to fit with what the IOC has made abundantly clear -- in rejecting Chicago for 2016 and New York for 2012 -- it's looking for.

New Orleans.

If that sounds crazy -- well, it might just be crazy smart.

New Orleans -- site of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials in track and field, America's party capital, a city with an unbelievably rich history and, as the story could legitimately and appropriately be told to the IOC, a Games-as-catalyst future driven by massive federal regeneration dollars in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

How's that for a compelling narrative? How's that for a convergence of interests?

The 2010 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic team visit to the White House takes place next week. This post-Games visit is something of a U.S. Olympic Committee and Washington tradition. This time, amid the picture-taking with the president and First Lady, senior leadership at both the USOC and the White House would do well to commence a forthright dialogue about when the United States gets back into the Summer Olympic bid game, and how.

Not if.

When.

And, of course, where.

Back to Chicago? It's the Obama home, of course. And its 2016 effort was without question the best bid an American city has ever put forward. Even so, it was summarily booted and Mayor Richard Daley can hardly be expected to jump back in to the Olympic scene with keen excitement.

Bluntly, in the wake of Chicago's first-round exit from the 2016 IOC balloting, it's time for an American re-think of how to play the Olympic bid game to win.

Thus New Orleans, and sooner than later.

Such a play would require a collaborative strategy that is without precedent  in American Olympic history, one that envisions significant roles for the federal government and, for that matter, President Obama.

Crazy?

Maybe.

To be sure, there are a host of reasons to immediately and simply dismiss all of this.

For starters, it's not clear whether this notion has been explored in any meaningful way by anyone in position of real influence in or around New Orleans. The mayor's and governor's offices, along with business leaders in New Orleans, in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast -- they'd pretty much be starting from scratch.

Assuming they got organized, there's this: The Olympic movement turns on relationships. It takes time to develop those relationships. Consider: USOC board chairman Larry Probst has been in the post for 18 months, chief executive Scott Blackmun came on just before the Vancouver Games and international relations director Robert Fasulo recently announced he'll be leaving at the end of the summer.

More broadly, given the complex nature of American federalism as well as the traditional modes by which the American public and private spheres mix in an Olympic context, would a White House-featured bid strategy by its very nature invite political, financial and bureaucratic challenge?

Of course.

But perhaps that's not the salient question.

Instead, it's this: Is there the will, particularly in the White House, to get the Games back to the United States?

Everything else is secondary.

The IOC will select the 2020 Games site in 2013. If (another big if) President Obama gets eight years, not just four, he would still be in office then. And the president has already proven -- lobbying for Chicago last October in Copenhagen in the hours before the IOC's 2016 vote -- that he values the Olympic movement.

The next step: Could an Olympic bid could become, truly, a major White House priority?

One of the lessons of the 2016 campaign is that's what it takes. It has to be a priority at the highest level of the federal government in every country that's bidding.

The Summer Games in particular have simply become too big for the IOC to take its chances on anything less.

This trend started in earnest with the Athens Games in 2004, when the IOC insisted that the Greek government step in to ensure the venues and the metro lines got built on time. For Beijing in 2008, the IOC knew it had the unblinking support of the central Chinese government.

The bid game itself was revolutionized in 2005 when British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared at the IOC assembly in Singapore to quietly lobby dozens of members; London won for 2012. Two years later, at the IOC session in Guatemala, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin took the Blair model one step farther, not only lobbying dozens of members but appearing on-stage the day of the vote as part of Sochi's 2014 bid; Sochi won.

The revelation in Copenhagen was that the Blair and Putin model is apparently no longer enough. Michelle Obama came to town for a couple days and met with dozens of IOC members. The president of the United States traveled overnight to get there in time to take part, along with the First Lady, in Chicago's presentation.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, though, had already shown the IOC a new way. Of course, in Copenhagen Lula lobbied behind the scenes and then took part in Rio's presentation. That was merely the capper. For two years, Lula had appeared seemingly everywhere in the world on behalf of the Rio bid, making it plain 2016 was both a personal and state priority.

The Rio effort was further underscored through the serene appearance in Copenhagen of the chief Brazilian central banker, Henrique de Campos Meirelles. He assured the IOC the full faith and authority of the Brazilian government stood behind the Rio effort, everyone there understanding it would take billions of dollars to complete massive infrastructure improvements sparked by delivery of the Games.

Which, again, is just what the IOC is looking for.

China? The central government spent north of $40 billion to get ready for the 2008 Games. London? The British government budget for 2012 is now roughly $15 billion, tied to widespread regeneration of a section of eastern London. Sochi? The Russians will spend billions to build a brand-new winter resort, and amid an IOC inspection there this week, Putin, appearing via video-conference, said, "On the whole, the work is progressing on schedule. We are discharging the planned financial resources in full and there are no delays."

The reason so many presidents, premiers, prime ministers, governors and mayors from all over the world have in recent years proven so eager to land the Olympics is a phenomenon that points directly at New Orleans. The Games come with a fixed deadline -- that is, you get seven years from the time they're awarded to the opening ceremony. From an urban planning perspective, that means you get the chance to do in seven years what otherwise might take 20 or 30 years, or even more.

The Games could thus accelerate the rebuilding of New Orleans, via federal dollars, in a way that arguably nothing else could.

Crazy?

The only thing crazy is not taking the idea seriously.

Of course the odds would be long. Then again, they're used to that in New Orleans -- before the 2009 NFL season, who predicted the Saints would win the Super Bowl?