Obama The PSYOP President?

Senator Obama has proven himself to be an astute student of Information Operations, PSYOP in particular. I saw a June 23 article in the Washington Post, Obama Reintroduces Himself to Voters and there have been other articles in other media all pointing to the Senator’s command of IO. There is also a Washington Post Blog dealing with the ad campaign at: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/06/obama_launches_nationwide_ad_c.html?sid=ST2008062300020

He has done a target analysis and knows that states with the most electoral votes are the targets to shoot at. He realizes that perception is reality as noted in an earlier post where I talked about his Internet trackers.

There are some other PSYOP fundamentals in the Obama campaign as well. Senator Obama is sending an array of messages to either signal his intentions or mask them. The Washington Post article said: “The scope of Obama's first advertising buy sent an unmistakable signal to McCain and the GOP that, at least initially, the senator from Illinois will invest money in states no Democrat has won in years, including Georgia, Indiana and Alaska.” This type of move is reasoned, clever and elegant. If Senator Obama can achieve measureable results in contested areas, consolidate these gains and ultimately prevail it will be because he attacked early on the information front and adjusted as effects were known.

Regardless of Senator Obama’s success in these areas, it will force Senator McCain to take some sort of counter moves thereby diluting whatever other efforts he might have had planned.

The Internet will be an important battlefield for this year’s election and it is pretty clear to me that Senator Obama has done well there, recognizes the nature of the beast and is not afraid to pump money into this medium as well. In fact, yesterday I noticed that there was an ad from Senator Obama on my Linkedin Home Page.

In short, Senator Obama appears to have an understanding of PSYOP and IO. Should he get elected, it would be refreshing to see a Commander in Chief who knows a little more about the pen than the sword.