Quango - Job Interviews for President

President: it's a job with perks.  Photo via

“It’s the biggest job in the world,” go all the campaign ads. “You need a commander-in-chief who can successfully change horses in mid-stream. You need someone with the real-world experience to take on America’s problems. Senator Dogface-Smythe knows about women’s issues from his time playing the banjo in-between acts at a strip club. He knows about reforming our legal system from his time working as a state executioner. And he knows how to stimulate the American economy from the time he spent running a lemonade stand when he was nine…” Decade after decade, American presidential candidates have to parade what they did before politics as they entertain the fallacy that there is any job on civvy-street which can prepare you for the White House. So screw policy, beliefs, voting records – all we want to know is: which one of the Republican candidates had the best jobs before they were in politics? HERMAN CAIN

The most dynamic of all in using his past experience is Herman ‘Train’ Cain. He used to be CEO of Godfather’s – apparently “America’s tenth-largest pizza franchise” – and, as Cain would have it, one that he turned from a failing no-hoper into what auditors called “one of America’s most cash-fucking-rammed corporations”. Unfortunately, the lesser-spoken part of that equation is that Herm did this by closing failing outlets, trimming back expenses and generally doing classic hard-ass business stuff. Under his tenure, the company doubled profits, but halved stores.

Nevertheless, an ad guy from Godfather's who was present at the first meeting Cain staged during his tenure remembers him being "like a preacher". Over the course of three hours, Cain managed to turn a room of pissed-off, small town white guys into a standing ovation.

But is profit everything? According to TripAdvisor, Godfather’s Myrtle Beach branch is ranked number 268 out of over 400 restaurants in Myrtle Beach in terms of customer satisfaction. Maybe America would be better off employing the head of the number one ranked restaurant in Myrtle Beach: Hana Teppanyaki House, owners: Stanley and Mickie Wang. Conclusion: As president, Herman Cain would sack lots of Americans, but the rest of America would be richer as a result. MITT ROMNEY

On the opposite side of the pre-poliitics divide is Mitt Romney. Romney was a management consultant – an occupation that ranks just above "abortionist" in terms of public popularity. But he’s also managed to spin this into ‘Romney, the turnaround CEO’, because he too managed to save a slightly-failing business: Bain & Co – the management consultants for whom he’d worked. Of course, most of what he actually did is indecipherable to anyone without a PhD in sociopath studies – forgiving rich people their debts, and sacking tons of poor people. But, in numerical terms, it worked. As far as anyone can tell. And in the process, it earned him a titanic fortune – enough to dip into his own pocket to the tune of $35 million just to finance his campaign in 2008. Conclusion: As president, Mitt Romney would sack lots of failing Americans, change the ownership of their property, buy back shares in them, then find them all jobs working for him in businesses created under the aegis of his 130 trillion-dollar personal fortune.
  MICHELE BACHMANN

Bachmann worked for only four years outside of politics: as a lawyer for the IRS. “Well colour me amused,” is the sort of folksy aphorism she’d probably come out with about this deeply ironic fact, were it not one about her. As the Tea Party’s most obvious placeman, working for the IRS – the very symbol of big government tax & spend – is the exact opposite of her platform. So she’s spent a lot of time performing fairly shameless topspin on this one: “I went to work in that system because the first rule of war is ‘know your enemy’,” she declared. “So I went to learn how they work because I wanted to beat them.” This confused anyone with a memory span, because it contradicted something she'd said previously about turning to fiscal conservatism after gradually becoming attuned to how poorly run the IRS is. In summary: she spent four years looking for missing commas in affidavits, and would now like to run the Free World. Conclusion: There are people who’ve lived on the dole for 30 years who could take a lengthier CV down their local JobCentre than Bachmann. RICK PERRY

Rick Perry scraped a Bachelor of Science degree in ‘animal science’. It’s one of those terms that seems worryingly broad, isn't it? What exactly is it? Medical experiments? Did he spend five years tying tiny lead weights to cats, then dropping them off of rooftops, then slicing them open to test the impact velocity? Is that what’s behind that chiselled smile, Rick? Lots of dead cats that you greedily scooped off of the campus pavement and took back to the labs for an evening of pants-less dissection?
 
He then spent a few summers selling Bible reference books door-to-door, something he claims as a formative experience, and according to a former cohort (who is now a judge), he was "above average" in sales. This is great Republican blather: a) he met ""”’”Real People”’”’”’”; b) he sold them books which helped them understand where exactly Sodom was in relation to Gomorrah; and c) it seems like he (maybe) made a profit whilst doing it. After flying planes around in the Air Force, Dubya-style, and picking cotton on a farm for a spell, he somehow wound up with a property portfolio spanning the state of Texas. Wait, did I mention it was his (Reaganite) father's (goverment-subsidised) farm? I should probably mention that.
 
Conclusion: Rick Perry’s CV is that of an animal-loving, military-loving, God-loving, countryside-loving yet awesomely rich motherfucker. He’s like Republican Jesus if Republican Jesus weren’t already Jesus Jesus. If he'd spent more time sacking people in his life, he'd probably win January's primary by a landslide.

Previously: Quango - Separating The Separatists