Make some noise for the candidate’s jawline. The voting record will be playing the smaller room tonight. Congratulations on securing a presidential endorsement: your qualifications have been upgraded to supporting act.

Trump described examining Jon Husted’s body, including his backside and hands, at an Ohio rally, the Guardian reports.

The following candidate appraisal is parody. No actual inspection form or private conversation is being reported. We are simply testing what happens when the political endorsement is conducted with the priorities of a man selecting a leading actor for a film about himself.

Let’s See The Other Side Of The Platform

At our fictional rally, a campaign volunteer interrupts. She has doors to knock, and the people behind them keep asking what the candidate would do. Give the woman a usable sentence, champ. She cannot tell an undecided voter to stand farther back until the candidate looks convincing. The examiner offers her a better photograph. Great. The door now has a photograph and exactly the same question.

Next comes the economy. The candidate has prepared a serious answer. Unfortunately, the answer does not have a jawline. The examiner recommends replacing it with a more photogenic concern. A budget is very difficult to inspect from across a stage, whereas a chin has thoughtfully remained outside the skull for easy presidential access.

The candidate offers his voting record. The imaginary examiner asks whether it comes in a wider stance. An aide explains that the record is a collection of decisions. The examiner frowns. Decisions cannot be photographed shaking hands with him unless somebody prints them on a man.

Perhaps public service is the answer. The candidate has examples. The examiner wants measurements. This is the first endorsement in which the phrase strong on the issues risks being interpreted as a request to pick the issues up and carry them across the room.

The Qualifications Have Poor Stage Presence

Now the imaginary opposition tracker arrives with a camera. Normally this person hopes the candidate will say something damaging. What a terrible day to work in opposition research: the candidate cannot get an answer in at all. The tracker points at the unopened voting-record book. Somebody could attack that! The examiner objects to giving an unflattering prop extra airtime. The opponent has been handed silence, and even silence is getting stage-managed.

The appraisal continues. Does the candidate look authoritative from the left? Does he look loyal from the right? Can he maintain an expression suggesting that everything the endorser has just said was exactly the introduction he wanted? This last test is demanding. It requires control of facial muscles not covered by most campaign preparation.

The candidate asks when voters will hear about his plans. The fictional examiner is delighted. At last, a question about the audience. He recommends holding the plans slightly lower so they do not obscure the jacket. The jacket has been doing excellent work and deserves its moment.

Back at our invented campaign headquarters, the door-knocker returns. Voters have follow-up questions. The photo has declined to answer them. The campaign asks whether she can bring the whole endorsement apparatus to each doorstep. Sure. Nothing says a candidate can represent you independently like arriving with the man who explains where he should stand. Bring the magnifying glass, too. We’re building a ground game one supervised pose at a time.

The imaginary appraisal reaches its conclusion. The lighting passes. The pose passes. The governing record is still outside, practicing a smile in case it is called in as a supporting character.

Voters may inspect the record. The president has apparently reserved the walk-around.