Obama On Space

The day before presidential primaries that could finally determine the standard bearers of the two major American political parties seemed a good day to note one tactic the Barack Obama campaign seems to be using. For weeks or months now, an ad for Sen. Obama, which is also a link to his website, has been extremely prominent on SPACE.com.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is curious. Space policy has not been a major issue in this long campaign-- Sen. Obama certainly hasn't pushed it. Indeed, what little he has said about the subject has not been encouraging for those seeking a robust manned space program. He has said he might delay the Moon-Mars program for five years as one step in getting the federal budget under control. How wedded he is to that approach is unclear. How useful cutting an agency's budget that is currently less than one percent of overall federal spending would be is also open to question. The impression given by Sen. Obama, and Sen. Clinton, and Sen. McCain, is that they haven't given space policy much thought.

Fair enough. But then, what's the deal about Obama's smiling face being displayed so prominently for so long on SPACE.com? It"s entirely possible, of course, that Sen. Obama has no idea his campaign has such a link on that website. It's also possible that his campaign didn't particularly target SPACE.com. Perhaps that ad is simply part of a larger "media buy" the campaign made. Still, matching campaign message with campaign ad strategy probably makes more sense.