"Dear President Obama": The President Reads 10 Letters a Day from the Public, With Policy Ramificati

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The letter to President Obama came from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job. He was able to find work, but the new gig came with one-third the pay; the family is struggling to make their mortgage payments.

The letter from the Arizona woman illustrated a policy conundrum, recalled senior adviser David Axelrod. President Obama read it, and absorbed the lesson.

"She said they had made all their mortgage payments, but were running out of money," Axelrod said. "And they were told they could not renegotiate unless they were delinquent in their payments."

Before President Obama's housing speech last week, he'd made copies of his letter and "sent it to his financial team and said, 'This is the kind of person our housing plan should help," Axelrod recalled.

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Every day President Barack Obama is handed a special purple folder. The folder contains ten letters, and every day President Obama takes time to read them.

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/dear-president.html

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Thank you Mr. President. Keep doing this!

[glowing]

1. That is the problem.. they won't help unless your behind.. and once your

behind, its awful hard to negotiate anything with a voice on the other end who doesn't give a shit.

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd. He really is listening-how fantastic is that?! nt

[phantom power]

3. Heh. I wonder how many letters Little Boots read over 8 years...

:rofl:

[DS1]

4. 10

per letter

He never got past "Dear Chimp"

[EnviroBat]

5. Didn't realize that dumb-ass could read...

I though they just gave him coloring books.

[liberal N proud]

15. He only looked at read letters that had big checks attached to them

Then he would only LOOK at them. I doubt he ever read any letter from any citizen.

[unhappycamper]

6. I would like to be included in the daily ten letters.

I posted 'Say it ain’t so, Mr. O' to the WH site.

[ima_sinnic]

11. excellent letter, but I think you should write it in longhand and send it by snail mail

I picture the WH website as full of all kinds of things, many written in haste and too much to digest, really. A handwritten letter sent by snail mail (which I intend to do, along the same lines) might get more attention--who knows?

[Aristus]

7. Remember B*sh's "Who care what you think?"

Thank God those days are over... :woohoo:

Go, Mr. President!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ima_sinnic]

9. does he also read the ones beseeching him to hold bushco responsible for treason

and plunder and war crimes? what about criticism of his breathtakingly wrong decision to retain bushco attorneys in the Justice Dept., to continue with renditions, to maintain bushco's position in the "trials" of Gitmo detainees (when he said, apparently untruthfully, that those people were going to be released)?
or is he just reading "stimulus-related" letters?

who is deciding what letters he gets to see?

will he see one from me asking that he suspend arms sales to Israel and another one asking him to stop fucking around with perpetuating bushco's war crimes in relation to illegal detention of people who haven't even been charged with a crime?

It appears that on some issues he couldn't give a rat's ass what We The People think. After all, he did find some kind of virtue in a pig like Judd Gregg and other idiotic cabinet choices, and he allowed the stimulus bill to be watered down and compromised as a pandering measure of "bipartisanship." He also has refused to include much of anybody progressive--the people who pounded the pavement to get him elected--in his administration.

[ogneopasno]

10. Only ten? Why not twenty? Are you saying he couldn't possibly read twenty when he can read ten?

Kidding, kidding.

[jwirr]

13. I once volunteered in a congressman's office as a caseworker. You

do not have to worry there is more than likely someone like me who is also reading all the letters and tallying the interest. If we got one letter regarding a subject we assumed that there were 40 other people out there who agreed with the writer. He may not know what you said word for word but he will have the general gist of your letter added to all the other letters on that subject.

[frazzled]

12. You know, I wrote him when he was first my Senator in early 2005

It was one of those requests to write one's senators from Wes Clark, about some military bill. I did it simply out of duty and didn't really think Obama or Durbin needed much prompting to vote the right way. But I didn't use the WESPAC form letter--changed it up with my own ideas instead.

Lo and behold, a month or so later I get this email from then-Senator Obama. No big whoop ... it's typical to get something back (though I never did from Durbin's office). I scanned the letter briefly and then stopped, and then I read it again ... and then a third time. It seemed as if it had been written specifically in response to my original letter--very thoughtful, very eloquent, very personal. That couldn't be, I thought: I know how these staff form letters regarding legislation go. But it seemed too real ... like the guy had actually READ and then personally responded to my specific points. Nah, couldn't be, I thought.

I filed it away as a mystery, but remembered it when it came time to support a candidate in the primaries.

Now, I wonder if he really did read and respond to that little email of mine. Good on him.

[CountAllVotes]

14. did he read my letter?

No more U.S. troops for Afghanistan. Keep your promise! End these wars without end!

:dem: :kick:

[No Elephants]

20. Sadly, he campaigned on fighting bigger in Afghanistatn. No broken promise there.

[Angleae]

16. Letters are probably highly pre-screened.

Only those that fit into his agenda are forwarded on to him.

[TroglodyteScholar]

17. Who, exactly, are you talking about?

Sounds like a description of W to me....

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. That's 3,650 a year, - 29,200 over a 8 year reign - How many did Dim-Son read?

.
.
.

OH

Dim-Son

Read . .

"does not compute"

[No Elephants]

19. I wonder who chooses the letters that Obama reads. I'd do that job for free.

[Delphinus]

21. Yes, this is great,

but I need him to read the ones that come through the mail and the email - not just the ones from people who can come go through the White House.