EVERY time he does something as president-elect that could be construed as presidential,
Barack Obama has been saying, “We only have one president at a time.” But Mr. Obama
will soon be doing something before his inauguration that has long been the province of
presidents: appearing in a public service campaign.
The ServiceNation.org campaign that features Barack Obama is to raise awareness
during National Mentoring Month. A print advertisement featuring Mr. Obama has
been created to promote the idea of becoming a mentor to a child. There may also
be a companion video clip that could be watched online. The campaign, produced on
behalf of ServiceNation.org, is timed for National Mentoring Month, which has been
observed each January since 2002. The print ad presents a photograph of Mr. Obama
above the headline “Be the change. Mentor a child.” There is also an excerpt from a
speech Mr. Obama gave in Colorado in July, which begins, “We need your service,
right now, in this moment — our moment — in history.” The appearance by Mr.
Obama in the campaign is indicative of his highly visible presence since being elected
the 44th president on Nov. 4, with a public profile more prominent than is typical
for presidents-elect. The mentoring campaign will appear as images of Mr. Obama
continue to turn up on commemorative coins and plates; the covers of magazines, books
and DVDs; and plaques, T-shirts and posters reproducing the front pages of newspapers
that reported his election. There are even Obama dolls, Christmas ornaments, coffee blends
and mouse pads — a veritable cottage industry of merchandise that has been called Obamabilia.
Still, Mr. Obama is not the first president-elect to appear in public service advertising. In
December 1992, Bill Clinton filmed a commercial that encouraged drinkers to have a designated
driver, which was made available to broadcast television networks to run from Christmas to New
Year’s Day. The precedent is no coincidence, because the same person helped line up the
presidents-elect for both campaigns: Dr. Jay A. Winsten of the Center for Health Communication
at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Winsten’s efforts on behalf of designated drivers, which
began in 1988, took place through his role as director of the Harvard Alcohol Project. His efforts
on behalf of mentoring, which began in 1997, are being made on behalf of, yes, the Harvard
Mentoring Project. The idea is that encouraging mentoring is “a public health effort,” Dr.
Winsten said, just like “substance-abuse prevention or violence prevention.”The genesis of
the decision to feature Mr. Obama in the ad campaign, Dr. Winsten said, was the frequency
with which he discussed public service during the presidential campaign. “I would say volunteer
service’s moment has arrived,” Dr. Winsten said. That opinion was echoed by Alan Khazei,
chief executive at an organization called Be the Change, which is overseeing ServiceNation.org
along with the Harvard School of Public Health and other organizations like City Year and the
Points of Light Institute.Mr. Obama has said that “service will be a central cause of his presidency,”
Mr. Khazei said. “This is the right idea at the right time.” Mr. Khazei also cited the plans by Mr.
Obama; Joe Biden, the vice president-elect; and their families to perform community service on
Jan. 19, the day before Inauguration Day, to mark Martin Luther King’s Birthday. As a result,
it was “not a hard ask,” Mr. Khazei said, to request Mr. Obama take part in the mentoring campaign.
“I passed it on to people in the transition I know,” he added, “and they passed it up the chain.”
In asking for Mr. Obama’s participation before he becomes president, “we’re not trying to step on
anybody’s toes,” Mr. Khazei said. “This is something above politics, beyond politics.”
Waiting until Mr. Obama became president was not feasible, he added, because by then “you’d
lose two-thirds of the month,” a reference to National Mentoring Month starting on Jan. 1•
Mr. Winsten said that Newsweek magazine had agreed to run the print ad pro bono, adding
that other publications were also being asked to accept it. The presidents who have appeared in
public service campaigns while in office include Ronald Reagan, for causes like the Red Cross
and savings bonds; George H. W. Bush, the United Negro College Fund; Mr. Clinton, crime
prevention; and President Bush, the White House’s USA Freedom Corps. Former presidents
have also been featured in public service ads. For instance, Mr. Clinton joined with his predecessor,
Mr. Bush, in a campaign from the Advertising Council in 2005 to raise money for tsunami relief.
