Presidential candidate Barack Obama has been consistent in his messaging and communication to get elected as the next US President. In the nomination process as a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party he used the slogan ‘Change… we can!’ to be changed to ‘Change… we need!’ once he was nominated. Although he gained a lot of success with this communication strategy, this is almost certain to lead to a lot of disappointment if he gets elected today.

Basically his campaign is all about change. He wants to do things differently than George W. Bush. Obviously there is a lot of criticism to Bush’s policies over the last 8 years, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US economy and tax policies, the national debt, etc. etc. The result is that a lot of US citizens have extremely high expectations, maybe unrealistic expectations, that the change Obama advocates will lead to the improvement of their personal lives. But will he be able to live up to all of these high expectations very soon? And will change be the same as improvement and progress? Advocating change is easy when compared to implementing it.

My guess is that it will take some time before we will all see the benefits that comes from a change strategy. Governmental institutions need to be shaken up and work differently, laws need to be adapted, changed and implemented and funds will need to be reallocated. Not an easy task for Obama, even if the Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives. Let alone implementing a change in foreign policies and relations, which a lot of European citizens and governments look forward to…

Obama has chosen a strategy that took communications ahead, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. My guess is that, if he gets elected, his focus will be at bringing about change on key internal US affairs. It will probably take some time before we in Europe will experience the change in foreign relations and affairs that so many of us look forward to.