Presidential Job Application Question #5 (with my answer): What experience have you had that will serve you well as president?
/Slate's John Dickerson recently published a piece entitled:
Over the course of the next seven days, I plan on completing Dickerson's application by answering each of the questions. I've always wanted to be President, so perhaps my answers will be so impressive that a grassroots campaign supporting my candidacy will ignite.
Answers to previous questions:
- Question #1: What’s the biggest crisis you’ve faced in your professional life and how did you handle it?
- Question #2: What's the biggest personal crisis you’ve faced and how did you handle it?
- Question #3: What’s your greatest political triumph?
- Question #4: What’s your greatest governing triumph?
What experience have you had that will serve you well as president?
Over the course of my life, I have been impoverished, homeless, jobless, arrested and tried for a crime I didn't commit, and the victim of violent crime.
I have also worked my way through college, managed restaurants for more than ten years, worked as an elementary school teacher for 17 years, owned two small business, and forged a publishing career that includes four novels, two plays, and a humor column.
I have lived a life emblematic of many Americans. In fact, it could be argued that I have lived many lives emblematic of many Americans. As President, this multitude of experiences will help me to understand and connect to the average American in a way that many of our previous Presidents and Presidential candidates cannot.
This is what's been missing in American politics for a long time. As the disparity in wealth increases over time, we need a person leading this country who understands what it's like to be in the bottom 5% rather than than top 5% and everywhere in between.
I could be that person.