I’ve decided to start writing letters to the President.\u00a0 You know, of the United States.\u00a0 Like, actual letters, on paper, in envelopes.\u00a0 And mailing them the old fashioned way, with a stamp and a mailbox and whatnot.<\/p>\n
What inspired this?\u00a0 Did I suddenly age 65 years?\u00a0 Am I suddenly so delusional I think the leader of the free world cares deeply about what I think?\u00a0 (Though he should.\u00a0 I pay his salary!)\u00a0 No, I recently learned that he occasionally writes back.<\/p>\n
I’ve recently been informed that President Obama’s people give him a stack of letters every day, a representative sample of what comes in, and he writes back to 3-5 people per week.\u00a0 By hand, on a sheet of paper from a yellow legal pad.\u00a0 And I want a hand-written letter from the President.<\/p>\n
Now 3-5 people isn’t a lot, but let’s work out the odds.\u00a0 Let’s say, ballpark, that 1% of the US population writes a letter to the President every year.\u00a0 That seems high to me, but I tend to overestimate people and I’m trying to be conservative.\u00a0 That’s 3,117,673 letters per year.\u00a0 I realize the pace probably picks up when issues come around, but since everyone has a different issue and something’s always got someone’s dander up let’s assume an even distribution and round the number up a little and say he gets 60,000 letters per week.\u00a0 If he answers the 3-5 he claims that means I have no worse than a 1 in 20,000 chance of getting a response!\u00a0 Every week!<\/p>\n
I know, right?<\/p>\n
Of course that means I’ve got 20,000:1 odds of him ever actually reading one.\u00a0 And as much as I hope to inform and entertain a former valedictorian who thought a White House internship would be fun and exciting, writing a letter a week that one person will skim before throwing it into an industrial shredder seems like a poor use of time.\u00a0 I mean, I can’t just write filler or it’ll never pass the filter and make it to the President’s desk to begin with, and quality takes effort.<\/p>\n
This is where you come in.\u00a0 I’m going to start posting copies of the letters I sent to President Obama right here.\u00a0 And if (or should I say when) he writes back, I’ll be sure to post the response.\u00a0 And if he’s so enamored by my writing that he decides to invite me to the White House to hang out and give him policy advice and watch football and whatever, I’ll be sure to remember all you little people that were here with me on my climb to the top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve decided to start writing letters to the President.\u00a0 You know, of the United States.\u00a0 Like, actual letters, on paper, in envelopes.\u00a0 And mailing them the old fashioned way, with a stamp and a mailbox and whatnot. What inspired this?\u00a0 … Continue reading