Ireland is not exactly a “foreign” place in the minds of most Irish-Americans. But in strict governmental terms, in the eyes of the State Department that is, Ireland falls under the remit of foreign policy.

With that in mind, the Barack Obama campaign has moved to reach out to Irish-Americans as part of its effort to build a coherent foreign policy platform that can be placed before voters in November. Washington D.C.-based Carol Wheeler, a longtime Project Children supporter, has been handed this task.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy coordinator for the entire campaign is an Irish-American. Denis McDonough has previously advised Senator Tom Daschle and during the later Clinton years was a Democratic staffer serving the House International Relations Committee. He would have heard plenty about Ireland in that regard although his biography points to Latin America as his special area of expertise during that time.

No matter. Mitchell Reiss was a specialist on North Korea even as he tackled the intricacies of the wee North during his stint as Bush administration special envoy.

As for Carol Wheeler? Her mission will presumably include reaching out to a variety of Irish-American organizations that have both Democrats and Republicans in their ranks, not to mention the purely Democratic organizations such as Stella O’Leary’s Irish-American Democrats who were solidly behind Hillary Clinton.

And of course there’s all those Irish/Obama outfits: the writers and artists for Obama who came out with their manifest a while back as well as “Americans Of Irish Descent For Obama,” “Irish For Obama,” “U.S. Citizens in Ireland For Obama, “Fighting Irish for Obama” and, as revealed in an op-ed in last week’s issue, “Irish in America for Obama.” Begob, it will be like herding cats.