Have you ever contacted a president?

25 comments

1. Yeah. In second grade we wrote letters to Reagan and got back a nice reply. I’m sure a secretary or aide wrote it and the signature is a stamp but when I was 7 it was really cool. The White House is still pretty good about correspondence, I’ve seen examples of people inviting the Obamas to a wedding and getting a kind response.

   Edit: I just remembered our family got a letter from Bush 1 after my veteran father passed, real signature on that one.

2. I met Vice President Cheney in boot camp.

3. Yes. I wrote a letter to Clinton about gun control and got back a letter about social security.

4. I’ve been in meetings with Obama and Trump, but never been the person speaking in them. Also spoke to Obama at church once.

   I’ve met Biden at a reception but nothing substantive, just a greeting.

5. I’ve met Biden a few times, but never since he’s become president.

6. Went to a Trump rally a few years ago. Pretty cool seeing a president in real life

7. I wrote a letter to former President Trump about immigration and he sent me back an invoice for $50

8. I didn’t, but a friend of mine in high school wrote Bush 2 around 2003 and got a letter and a photo. Looked like a pretty standard automated reply sent out from wherever the presidents mail actually goes. He was convinced that Bush actually read it and signed it, so I didn’t try too hard to convince him otherwise.

9. A President? Multiple times. The president of the US, no

10. If have plenty of other opportunities to be lied to throughout my day.

11. No. I did get o meet President Trump at a Scouting Jamboree.

12. When I was in elementary school, I wrote a letter to President Clinton’s cat. I was too young to understand that cats can’t read, but I got a lovely signed photo back.

13. I got a letter from President Clinton when I got my Eagle Scout badge

14. I regularly steal pies cooling on Obama’s windowsill.

    Also one time I got caught in Old Man Cheney’s vegetable patch. The punishment was unspeakable.

15. I haven’t, but my grandmother has a letter from JFK after she mailed him asking if my grandfather could get leave from the Air Force for their wedding.

16. I flipped off the presidential motorcade once because I was stuck in the horrendous traffic it caused. Does that count as contact?

17. I sent a letter requesting a birthday card for my grandmother from Clinton, which she subsequently received. Had my picture taken with Rosalyn Carter in 8th grade if that counts.

18. In elementary school, we had to write letters to the President about some issue we chose (we were little kids btw, 5th grade).I wrote a letter about gun control I think. The school actually mailed them. Got a nice reply and then a Christmas card at Christmas. I did meet Trump in person once at a fight in Atlantic City, but it was long before he was president

19. Pretty sure I shared a ships cabin on the Balkin sea with the man who is now the President of Somalia

    Other than that I’ve written every president and never even gotten a stamped reply, my letters were less than happy however.

    The Carter foundation did send me a letter looking for money lately.

    To the fellow on the signed letter from a POTUS for your deceased veteran, all get a letter and it’s stamped but looks real.
    Immigrants get a letter when they become citizens as well. Obama signature is under my father flag on the wall and Trumps, who signed my wife’s citizenship is in a envelope as it looks like Donald Duck, embarrassing mess.

20. Yeah. Invited the Obama’s to my wedding but they declined 🙁

21. My Grandpa got a congratulatory letter from Trump on his 80th birthday. I reached out to the office in the White House that handles Presidential greetings and just requested one for him. They typically send them out for things like Births, weddings, deaths, and milestone birthdays after a certain age. Obviously they are just form letters with the names and dates changed, and not actually written by the President, but they’re mildly interesting I’d say.

    Writing a letter or calling the white house about a political issue would just be a waste of time. Best thing I’d get would be a form letter reply thanking me for my comments and some boiler plate language about their position. Pretty much the same with Senators and Representatives at the federal level

22. Fun fact, if you send the White House a wedding invitation, there is a 99% chance you will receive a “congratulations” letter back from the president and the First Lady.

    Of course this letter isn’t personalized (sans the address heading) nor signed by the President/First Lady themselves, but it’s not laser printed either: a friend’s family friend used to work at the white house under Regan, Bush Sr., and Clinton and it was one of her job responsibilities to sign these letters, signing thousands of of them throughout her 15+ year long career there.

    IIRC, her position was/is one of very few who had authorization to sign the presidents signature.

23. Obama helped build my middle school playground, and I was one of the students selected to stay after school to represent us. I was tightening a screw on something and bam, he was on the other side doing the same.

24. Had a decently long chat (by politician standards — about 15 minutes) with Biden back when he was a Senator. There was no politics-related reason for us to even be in the same room: I was checking email after a business meeting and he was waiting for his ride.

    One of us made some lame joke that I’ve forgotten to break the ice, and we just sort of passed the time until he had to leave for his next meeting.

25. When I was in the military, I saw Dick Cheney and Joe Biden when they came to our bases

    I was in the crowd when Cheney came to give a speech. He was running kind of late so the crowd (a bunch of dudes in their late teens and early 20s) started chanting “we want Dick”. When Cheney finally came out, he had a huge grin on his face. I think he thought it was hilarious.

    With Biden, I was one of the guys chosen to stand on these bleachers behind him, and be his backdrop when he gave a speech. After all that, he took pictures with us. We were sitting on the bleachers, and he had us all crowd around. A female soldier was sitting right next to him and he put his hand right on her thigh when she scooched in. The photographer did a short countdown before taking the picture, and he moved his hand to his lap right before the picture was taken. Then after the flash, he put his hand right back on her thigh.