I reached out to other Friends of the Mail and found ideas like that emerging and reemerging, going back to the earliest days of the administration and the days of the campaign. David Axelrod, who served for years as Obama’s senior advisor and chief strategist on both his presidential campaigns, said the letters were Obama’s lifeline from the start. “They were more than a kind of ceremonial nod to, you know, to the grassroots,” he said. “Remember, you have a guy here who four years before—a little more than four years before—was a state senator. Basically representing some communities on the South Side of Chicago. And his habit was to travel that district and interact with people. And so to go from that experience in four years to being the president of the United States is, you know—it only accentuates the loss of contact.
“I was impressed by how faithful he was to the practice,” he said, about the 10LADs ritual. “I saw him go back to his residence with—I mean, ultimately it was carried over there because it was such a load for him to put on the elevator. It always impressed me that he made the time for the letters.
“But, I mean, look, you serve in the White House. Everyone who’s worked there and everyone who’s sat in that Oval Office has served the people. So I don’t mean to make invidious comparisons and suggest that somehow he was more virtuous than others. But the regularized communication he had with people seemed to me to be pretty extraordinary.”
One thing I noticed about all of the Friends of the Mail I reached out to was they were delighted to learn that people in OPC thought of them as Friends of the Mail—“Oh, it’s so true!”—and they readily volunteered names of others I should know about. There were recognizable names like Illinois senator Dick Durbin, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, and speechwriter Jon Favreau, as well as plenty of people I’d never heard of, and the names kept multiplying—two more here, six more there, and then each of those people had more names. It got so I started wondering, Is anybody over there in the West Wing not a Friend of the Mail?
Probably not, Chris Lu told me. He served as deputy secretary of labor for the administration and White House cabinet secretary; before that he was in the trenches with Pete Rouse on the transition team and in Obama’s senate office. Chris talked about getting “steeped in the ethos of how we do mail in Obama world” as a kind of credentialing. “It’s one of the things that was really kind of ingrained in us,” he said. If you didn’t appreciate the mail, you wouldn’t have lasted. In Obama world, letters were part of the deal.
“The president would say, ‘Send this to Secretary Vilsack, and I want to know what his response is,’ ” he told me. “And believe me, those letters went. I would send it to, in this case, to the Department of Agriculture. And they understood. A fire was lit under those agencies to respond.
“I think it’s all part of the broader spirit of transparency,” he said. “The idea is that government works best when people can participate in that government. And look, obviously when you’re in a country of three hundred million, it’s hard to do that. But people express their views not only by voting; people express their views by writing letters.”
Like so many others, Chris Lu told me that Obama carried letters around with him. If not the actual paper they were written on, which he sometimes would, then the stories they told. It was, he said, simply the way Obama thought. Stories were how he bracketed ideas. Stories had protagonists. The protagonists were the point. The letters would provide an ongoing supply of material. A ready inventory of parables.
Speechwriter Cody Keenan (Friend of the Mail) said the letters were constant fodder for speeches. “The president will just call me upstairs and say, you know, ‘Read this letter; this is awesome; let’s work this into something,’ ” he told me. “I remember when we were embroiled in a debate with Congress about extending unemployment insurance. And we got this letter from a woman named Misty DeMars in Chicago. She was just like your totally average American, and she and her husband had just bought a house. She got laid off because of budget cuts, and she was like, ‘We are the face of the unemployment crisis.’ Whereas the Republicans then were casting it as, like, you know, these greedy minorities trying to game the system. POTUS was like, ‘Boom! Misty DeMars. This is exactly what we’re talking about.’ ” Cody built the 2014 State of the Union address around her story.
Misty DeMars is a mother of two young boys. She’d been steadily employed since she was a teenager. She put herself through college. She’d never collected unemployment benefits. In May, she and her husband used their life savings to buy their first home. A week later, budget cuts claimed the job she loved. Last month, when their unemployment insurance was cut off, she sat down and wrote me a letter—the kind I get every day. “We are the face of the unemployment crisis,” she wrote. “I am not dependent on the government….Our country depends on people like us who build careers, contribute to society…care about our neighbors….I am confident that in time I will find a job….I will pay my taxes, and we will raise our children in their own home in the community we love. Please give us this chance.”
Misty attended the State of the Union address, sat next to Michelle Obama, and clapped on cue. The tradition of “stacking the First Lady’s box” with constituents had started under President Reagan. Over the years, presidents would use the practice as a way of illustrating certain policy issues or to honor heroes. For Obama’s team, stacking the First Lady’s box was a simple matter of digging into the mail.
“If there was a way to make every letter he got for eight years a piece of data somehow,” Cody said, “put all that data together, that would tell a pretty great story. Whether it was love finally recognized. Or despair and fear turned around. Or hopes unfulfilled. Or fear unaddressed. Or prayers answered. I mean, if there was some way to quantify that into trend lines, it would tell a pretty big story of America.”
He said the letters helped inform Obama’s attitudes about ending his two terms in office. “You know, he’ll close a speech by saying, ‘My faith in America is stronger than ever,’ ” Cody told me. “And people say: ‘How can you say that when the country looks poised to elect some demagogue?’ But it is true. And I think it has to do with these letters. He sees the unvarnished, unedited dramas of the American people every day—in a way that most people don’t. We all go to our curated Twitter feeds and to our Fox or MSNBC corners and kind of wrap ourselves in our own worldviews, with people who think exactly like we do. And we assume the worst in the other side. But he sees the mail. You know? Fiona’s good about giving him a really representative sample. Some are like, ‘You’re an asshole, and I can’t wait till you lose.’ But most are at least kind, even in their disagreement. One of the letters he told me to put in the convention speech this year was—there was a conservative, from, I think, Texas, who basically wrote to say: I disagree with you on absolutely everything, I’m opposed to almost everything you stand for, but I appreciate that you’ve been a good dad. He loves that letter.”
Dear Mr. President,
As the father of three daughters, I am touched to see President Obama with his girls. Politically it would be hard to find someone further apart, I am a rabidly pro-gun libertarian, but I appreciate the sacrifices you make to serve our country and the stress on your family. I am always happy to see you as a father. I just saw your visit to central park and wanted to take the small chan[c]e you[’d] see this message. Long after your term as president is done, your job as a father will continue and all accounts suggest you are doing a great job. It is also encouraging that if the leader of the United States can take the time to walk in the park with his family, the rest of us should take the time to do the same.
God bless you.
Dr. Joshua Racca
Flower Mound, TX
“I’ve always looked at the letters as hopeful,” Cody added finally. “It’s even—no matter how painful or upset your letter might be, there’s still somethin
g hopeful about sitting down and thinking that maybe somebody will see this. There’s a hope that the system will work. Even if you’re sitting down to write, ‘Dear Shit-for-Brains,’ there’s a chance that someone might read it, you know?
“There was one letter, one of the best ever, was just this guy who was broke, and screwed, and completely out of luck, and then he got a job as a dishwasher and said it’s the best thing to ever happen to him. And he completely credited Barack Obama for it, even though I can’t think of anything we did to help him get a job as a dishwasher.”
Hey Mr. President Barack Obama
I just want to write to you from Richmond, Virginia and let you know my life is getting better. A few years ago I didn’t have a job and my whole family was scrambling to make ends meet. I prayed daily that something would happen positive for this young man on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
I was at home watching television and the phone rang. I was sure it was a bill collector. Turns out it was a hotel in need of a dishwasher. I was so happy. To make a long story short I got the job and I have been there for two (2) years now. I [at]tribute my job finding to the Obama Administrations relentless work to turning the economy around. I am a witness and now instead of visiting the food closet at our local church, me and my family can donate three (3) or four (4) cans a week so someone else experiencing hard times can eat. Thank you Mr. Obama!
[Name withheld]
And why did that guy think to write to Obama? That was the question that Shailagh would continually get stuck on. “You know, just going back to this notion of, like, Who are you going to tell this story to? Well, I think I’ll write to the president of the United States. I mean, that’s a powerful insight into how people view leadership and kind of still idealize it, even though they may pretend not to.”
For Shailagh the letters became a resource for study, a sociology project, a history lesson. “I started looking back through letters chronologically, to get a different version of the presidency,” she told me. “Establishing the public trajectory of the presidency as opposed to the legislative one or the policy calendar. This was the outside looking in.”
One of the things she found was confirmation that these voices provided a kind of emotional nudge to decision-makers.
“It’s apparent through these letters alone,” she said, “even despite the political risk of doing a partisan healthcare bill, for example, why we stuck to that and saw it through, even at a pretty heavy political cost in the midterm elections. The raw terms that were revealed, time and time again, in letter after letter after letter, of people up against these incredible headwinds,” Shailagh said, “and the one thing we could do for them was create at least a foundation of healthcare coverage where they were going to get…something. It’s a totally different perspective on decisions like that. You think, Oh, that was naïve of Obama to try to pass that healthcare bill with just Democratic votes. Didn’t he realize he was going to lose Congress over that? Well, if you’re reading ten people a day, eight people a day, dealing with health-insurance problems and huge COBRA payments after having lost their jobs—it’s a totally different perspective on it.”
Senior staff could have, after all, opted to synthesize the voices coming out of the mailroom. They could have made charts indicating trends. “Imagine if Obama received them and we digested them for him,” Shailagh said. “Just summaries of the letters, for instance. Any of these letters you could condense into a couple sentences, get the point across, without the texture and the voice and the color. And he would certainly be able to track what people were concerned about, you know? But you wouldn’t have those Bobby Ingram voices; the depth; the personal, plaintive cries; and the stories as vignettes. All those things would be lost.”
The human side of the story, the ideas you can’t squeeze into a briefing memo or translate into bar graphs or dots on a chart. The voices of letter writers were a constant chorus in the background, pop songs you couldn’t get out of your head, the tunes that defined a culture.
“I think it’s the absence of that,” Shailagh said, “that produces a different outcome.”
CHAPTER 13
Shane Darby,
February 2, 2016
KILLEN, ALABAMA
Shane Darby does not remember anything about what he wrote to the president or when he wrote it. If you’re telling him it was February 2, 2016, well, he’ll have to believe you, but that is surprising. That would have been just three days after everything happened. So whatever he put in the email must have been pretty terrible. Just, like, anger. That is the only thing he remembers. But why he would have written to President Obama about it, he has no idea. He’s almost embarrassed to look now.
Please don’t bother Stephanie with this. It has destroyed her. The person she was on the day before January 30, 2016, will never be seen again. She’s doing well, given what happened.
Stephanie is sitting over by the corner hutch, listening. Not really moving, as she tends not to these days. Shane is a big guy. Thick goatee, wire-frame glasses, dressed in a black T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it.
They bought this house two months after the funeral. It was a way of keeping Stephanie distracted. Looking at houses. The idea of decorating. And just getting away from Crissy’s room and all the memories. Her door squeaked. You would not believe. He used to say good night, then shut the door super slow, let the squeak go on and on, until Crissy would say, “Dad!” Every night. And if she was in a crappy teenage mood (which she hardly ever was), she couldn’t maintain it if the squeak went on. Every time. “Dad!” She was so funny. Nothing embarrassed her. Imagine a teenager choosing to go to dinner with her family over her friends. And, like, excited to go on vacation with them. A teenager loving her parents the way she did. Father’s Day, taking him to see the Superman movie, showing up dressed all in Superman gear, including socks. Those socks had capes sticking out the back. Little red capes. He was like, “I can’t believe you.”
Crissy and Stephanie—they were like twins. They might as well have been twins. Same sense of humor. Best friends. Texting all the time. Crissy was happy. Honestly, there were no signs. Not one. Of course then you get into: Was he paying attention? Could he have seen something if he was paying closer attention? That is basically what every parent who has ever suffered through something like this thinks. That is where you are stuck and will be stuck for the rest of your life.
So.
It’s crazy he wrote to Obama. First of all, he’s a Republican. But not political. Well, he tried getting into politics; like in 2000 he paid attention to George Bush and Al Gore arguing, but after a while he quit. Nothing people in Washington, D.C., did had any effect on his life. It was better to just leave it be. So why he would have gone to the computer and typed an email to the president of the United States—it makes no sense. He doesn’t even hardly use the computer. He’s an iPad and iPhone guy.
Stephanie would like to put the dog to bed now. He’s a goldendoodle. Yeah, pretty chill. Stephanie guides the dog to the crate, goes back to her spot by the hutch.
This house is spotless, the way Stephanie keeps it. It’s like a museum. Nothing moves. He does his part. She chose the pink for the under-chair rail part. All the white wood in the kitchen. Everything is spotless, and the lawn outside is carpet smooth, and the bushes they put in are the kind that hardly grow, so you don’t have to do anything.
Shane manages a paint store. Stephanie is a mail carrier. Cassie is the youngest daughter. The Cassie part is a whole thing he would like to redo. She was seven at the time. In the back seat, just sitting there. Stephanie out in the parking lot with the phone, collapsing. Him throwing up. Cassie sitting there watching this. Seven years old.
One thing that happens when someone in your family dies is people bring you food. He used to think that was the dumbest thing. Like, a roast beef is going to help? Turns out it does. Like, deeply h
elpful. All of that outpouring. Plus him and Stephanie had stopped eating. Stopped going to work. Mostly he just sat in his room.
The military doesn’t tell you anything. There’s a number you call where they’re supposed to tell you things. But that guy was a robot. “No information at this time.” Same thing, over and over, to the point where you’re like, “Can’t somebody go bust her door down?”
Maybe they already had and they weren’t allowed to say. Maybe. The whole way they handled it—
That sound? Okay, believe it or not, it’s the clock, like a cuckoo clock, but not. Just listen. It’s playing “Hey Jude.” The batteries are low, so it doesn’t play the whole thing. At Christmas they switch it, and it plays Christmas carols. They’re big on Christmas. You can see in this picture they’re all dressed like elves. Even Crissy. Imagine a teenager wanting to do something like that. She was bubbly. She had that long blond hair. You see her military portrait, and it’s unrecognizable.
An eighteen-year-old should make her own decisions. That’s why he didn’t go with her to the recruiter. But the military? Crissy? The girl in tie-dyed shorts and mismatched socks and Vans? She always had to have her Vans, even on those rare occasions you could get her to wear a dress. It did seem out of the blue, her wanting to be military. He thought she would be more suited to something where you use your people skills to cheer people up. When she was seventeen, she got a job at Shoney’s. You know how they have that big dancing bear in the parking lot waving to people? She was the bear. Which is funny considering all her life she was terrified of anybody in costume. Like at Disney she would not go near Mickey or Minnie.
When Stephanie was Crissy’s age, she did serve for a short time with the marines. So that may have been a part of it. But even that. Stephanie busted up her ankle, and they let her go or however the military does that. She didn’t last long, and it’s not like she was the type of person walking around like, “Oh, I hope my girls will grow up to be soldiers!” Nothing like that.
To Obama Page 20