President Obama has revealed on many occasions that he reads 10 letters every day that have been chosen by his staff from the thousands of letters, Emails and faxes that the White House receives each day addressed to the President. He is said to respond to around 3-4 of them each day. Here's two news articles detailing more information about the mail process in the White House below:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39974
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/31/politics/washingtonpost/main6350078.shtml
I myself have written a few letters and sent a couple of Emails each with a different but important subject or topic to the President addressed to the White House. Not suprisingly, I have received not one response, as probably have many others who have tried to send a meaningful letter to President Obama..and gotten no response or acknowledgement from either the man himself or from his staff.
Dont get me wrong, I believe it is great that any politician takes the time to listen to the views of their constituents. However, its a different story when it is used as a public relations tool. As the article mentions, newspapers have given the story of Obama reading 10 letters each day a fair amount of coverage. Its hard to tell exactly how the letters that reach the President's desk are chosen. Apparently they are chosen depending on whether it is reflected in the news (i.e. the state of the economy, debt, foreign policy, etc.) and whether its a meaningful message or not.
To give you an idea, its sort of like when your sort through your garbage and seperate the recyclables and the other trash. You pick all the recyclable items and put it in the recyle bin so they can be re-used because they are good enough to be re-used. The rest of the garbage just goes in another bin and is never seen or heard from again. That's just my assessment of how the mail sorting process works at the White House. Obviously you'd want the President to read the best of the best of the mail that is coming through each day. Right?
Since Obama only reads 10 letters a day (and only responds to about 3-4 of them a day anyway) you have to feel sorry for all the other people who take the time and spend their good hard earned money on postage to send a letter to the President and end up getting no response at all.
But then again I suppose people should be grateful that Obama takes the time to read his mail. Heck, I dont even know whether George W. Bush read any of his mail (particularly the one's from activists or protester groups and the like).
Overall, if you ask me your better off saving your time and effort and postage and writing to perhaps your local Congressman or Senator than to the President. At least when you right to your local political reps your more likely to actually get a response. Afterall, the President cannot attend to everyone's concerns. Then again, perhaps he should take more time to read more than just 10 letters a day. Why cant the President read more letters when he's on his lunch break or why cant he read a letter when drinking his morning coffee over breakfast?
If I was President or any politician for that matter, then I would always take the time to hear the concerns raised from my constituents, particularly if they go to all the effort to sit down and type a letter and send it through the mail. Heck, I would even read letters when i was on the can if it meant i got a real insight into what my constituents would be thinking or what is concerning them. Afterall, the public always comes first. I remember the old saying "the customer is always right". In this case the public is the customer and when the customer complains or compliments you, then you have to listen to the feedback and respond to the feedback.
I think the President in my view would be better off meeting people on the street, taking time to listen to what they are saying and have a good old chat, rather than sitting at a desk reading words on a couple pieces of paper which has been carefully considered among the hundreds of other pieces of mail before even reaching the President's desk.
But hey, if you want to write to the President by all means go for it. Perhaps you may be one of the lucky few who's letter or Email or Fax actually gets read by the President himself and who know's you may even be really lucky to get a response too, so good luck with that. You know the White House address and the website to send the President an email, so by all means if you want to write to the President and pray you get a response, then go for it.
Either way, all the best of luck to you. And thanks for reading this post.
Cheers. Mr. ?
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