The White House has been often described as a bubble contained by the hundreds of advisors, government employees and elected officials who filter for the president the information about what’s happening beyond the walls of the mythical building.
Right after being sworn in as president, Obama decided he would escape from that bubble every night, reading the letters sent by his countrymen — his umbilical cord to the people in the street.
During his very first hours as president, Obama ordered his consultants to pick ten letters, faxes or emails every day, among the almost 20,000 ones the White House receives daily. Ever since then, at 8 p.m. every night, a small lilac package arrives at the Oval Office so the president can end the day reading about Americans’ experiences, problems and dreams. Following the president’s directions, the chosen letters must be representative of the total received, and they are not censored or edited.
In a recent meeting, Obama made fun of how faithful his subordinates are to these instructions, given that “half the letters I receive call me an idiot.”
A great team
A team consisting of dozens of volunteers, interns and White House’s employees spend the day reading the more than 5,000 letters, 4,000 faxes and 10,000 emails, as well as nearly 2,000 phone calls. Each employee reads between 200 and 350 communications a day, picking three of them that really caught his eye.
Mike Kelleher, Director of the Presidential Correspondence, receives about a hundred letters from his employees, and he’s the one who chooses the big ten.
The letters are classified by topic, so the evolution of citizens’ concerns can be tracked. Normally, current affairs influence the volume of every topic. For instance, in November last year, half the letters were about the war in Afghanistan, and in February half of them were about health care reform. Between 6 and 10 percent of them comes from fans who either encourage or support him.
The White House tenant not only reads the letters in the privacy of his bedroom, sharing some of them with Michelle, but takes a few to meetings, reviews them on board Air Force One, or distributes letters among his advisors or cabinet members.
As stated by his advisors, from the total, Obama personally answers about fifteen letters weekly. The rest are answered by White House staff, using one of the more than a hundred templates designed for each type of message. And, Kelleher does not allow his subordinates to write any answer without his supervision.
The link with the people
The American people have a very special relationship with their president, an emotional link that in some cases becomes intimate. This may explain why he receives not only strictly political messages or desperate calls for help, but personal confidences, or even homework sent by kids.
In the last few months, while the health care discussion was mounting in a crescendo, the letters took center stage in the White House communication strategy once more.
After the Democrat debacle in Massachusetts, just when the bubble created around the president by a handful of advisors was being blamed for the failure of Obama’s presidency in newspapers, he started to use the personal stories behind the missives in meetings.
As the president said, he found the determination needed to boost the health care reform, which many saw as dead, in the suffering expressed in the letters. Using these stories he was able to personalize what was often an abstract discussion and get the missing votes.
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