Mike Kelleher has the overwhelming task of going through Obama’s mail and picking the ten most important letters to give to the President. He gets over 10,000 letters a day that are addressed to the commander in chief. He prioritizes based on urgency and relevance.

“We pick messages that are compelling, things people say that, when you read it, you get a chill,” said Mr. Kelleher, 47. “I send him letters that are uncomfortable messages.”

The ten letters he deems worthy are put in a purple folder and given to the President with his daily briefing book. This is designed to give the president a cross section of what the American pubic is thinking. When he does respond he writes back in black ink on azure paper.

“I remember once he was particularly quiet,” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, “and I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, ‘These letters just tear you up.’ It was after getting a poignant letter from a struggling family.”

Mr. Kelleher’s office has a red box for what he calls “life-and-death constituent case work.”

“So someone says, ‘I’m despondent and I want to commit suicide,’ or ‘I have a life-threatening illness and I need help here,’ ” Mr. Kelleher said. “We immediately respond to those.” Threats are reported to the Secret Service.

Mr. Kelleher has two letters from his daughter Carol, 10. She wrote to him once and, when he did not reply, she wrote “a second, meaner letter,” he said. That letter begins, “I have noticed you did not reply to my letter.”

“So I had to reply to her,” he said, it seems this “keeper of the letters” doesn’t overlook his family or the letters the American public sends every day.