# Which political office would you take? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 26, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670 "2019-07-26T14:22:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/21 "2019-07-26T20:58:54Z")
President, no question. I’d do a great job and after only 4 years I get to retire with a life time pension. I really don’t want to live in DC so any other the life time appointments there would suck. Governor wouldn’t be a bad gig but the pay isn’t great and the retirement package isn’t nearly as good as the president. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/22 "2019-07-26T21:01:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Starting now? President, in a heartbeat. That would be a great service to the country, even if all I did was call up Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama before every decision and say “what would you do?” My thought as well! I’d take note of the way Trump has managed to get ‘acting’ Cabinet members all over the place, and use that to circumvent the GOP-controlled Senate as I fired Trump’s lickspittles and replace them with people who have a clue. (Anybody from Obama’s Cabinet who wanted their old jobs back, would get them, pronto.) Ditto sub-cabinet positions, U.S. attorneys (gotta throw Trump in prison!), and a full investigation of the human rights abuses at the border. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/23 "2019-07-26T22:16:36Z")
Definitely mayor. It’s a small burg filled with rednecks and meth dealers, so I could actually make a bit of a difference. We also have a substantial budget surplus to work with, so I could drag some parts kicking and screaming into the 19th century. The “indefinite” part was the clincher. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/24 "2019-07-27T00:55:57Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Definitely mayor. It’s a small burg filled with rednecks and meth dealers, so I could actually make a bit of a difference. We also have a substantial budget surplus to work with, so I could drag some parts kicking and screaming into the 19th century. The “indefinite” part was the clincher. 😃 Interesting. How does a burg of rednecks and meth dealers manage to run a big budget surplus? (Unless you have extremely low town-budget spending) ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/25 "2019-07-27T02:21:43Z")
I think supreme court justice might be easiest for me to hide my incompetence from the world. I can handle sitting through oral arguments saying nothing just as easily as Justice Thomas. There is no way that I would be the sole hold out on an 8-1 decision, so I would always have another justice that could write the decision I would just have to sign my name. My decisions would probably be based more on moral opinion than established law, but that might not be a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/26 "2019-07-27T02:30:28Z")
I think I would pick governor, if I could pick a deep blue state with a legislature willing to work with me. I’d like to pass things like universal health care, renewable energy laws, labor laws, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/27 "2019-07-27T02:31:01Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think supreme court justice might be easiest for me to hide my incompetence from the world. I can handle sitting through oral arguments saying nothing just as easily as Justice Thomas. There is no way that I would be the sole hold out on an 8-1 decision, so I would always have another justice that could write the decision I would just have to sign my name. My decisions would probably be based more on moral opinion than established law, but that might not be a bad thing. I agree, and it’s why being a justice is the best job. Judges as a rule can be as hard working or as lazy as they choose, and they will be tolerated either way. Once you are a Supreme, either you don’t read or write anything and just vote with your ideological wing, or you can be a voracious reader and stay up at all hours pontificating about the legal issues at play. Or just pick and choose - if you want to be the “free speech” guy, you can choose to only wake up when that issue arises. It’s a sweet gig. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/28 "2019-07-27T04:37:41Z")
As governor, I could commute a lot of prison sentences & get some people into rehab or home to their families. That sounds pretty good, even if some of those guys later commit violent crimes and the press give me grief like they did Mike Huckabee. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/29 "2019-07-27T09:19:05Z")
Where’s ambassador? - that’s my actual choice. I went with cabinet member instead. Office of the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, here I come. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/30 "2019-07-27T11:02:02Z")
Supreme Court Justice, absolutely. I wouldn’t think of accepting any of the others. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/31 "2019-07-27T14:00:11Z")
I have zero interest in being a politician at any level. I picked department head even though there is a lot of politics involved. The better job is to be Deputy Secretary. The person who really runs the department even during regime changes. The pay isn’t nearly enough. I made more than that last year and didn’t have any of the responsibilities. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think supreme court justice might be easiest for me to hide my incompetence from the world. I can handle sitting through oral arguments saying nothing just as easily as Justice Thomas. There is no way that I would be the sole hold out on an 8-1 decision, so I would always have another justice that could write the decision I would just have to sign my name. My decisions would probably be based more on moral opinion than established law, but that might not be a bad thing. Thomas famously doesn’t ask questions during oral arguments because he feels all the important questions have been asked through multiple levels of appeal. I can’t help but feel he’s correct. Some Justices like to hear themselves talk. He has written quite a few decisions so you can’t emulate him there if you want to stay lazy. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670/32 "2019-07-27T15:17:17Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > He has written quite a few decisions so you can’t emulate him there if you want to stay lazy. The neat thing about being a Supreme Court justice is that you also get to hire people to [do your writing for you](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/06/aca-supreme-court-decision-how-do-the-justices-actually-write-their-opinions.html): > [@](#): > > Sorcerers’ Apprentices, a 2006 book on the influence of Supreme Court clerks, found that about 30 percent of the opinions issued by the Supreme Court are almost entirely the work of law clerks, with clerks responsible for the majority of the court’s output. > […] > In his book Closed Chambers, former clerk Edward Lazarus suggested that some judges function as little more than “editorial Justices.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-political-office-would-you-take/837670.md?page=1)