It’s always interesting to me to see real life reflect national politics (or is it the other way around?).

You would think that with a represenative democracy, it would happen more often than it does. Yet, our day-to-day sensibilities seem to become less relevant, the closer you get to the White House.

Still, it happens. Employers hire otherwise incompetent people, out of cronyism or because of whom they are related to, or to gain favor with some group of customers. People who should lose their jobs get to keep their jobs because of who or what they know, or because of some favor they’ve done in the past.

It never really turns out well, does it?

Much like politics, the solution is deceptively simple: Hire the best person for the job. Period.

Sure, you may alienate some interested group; but did you really want to do business with such small-minded folk anyway, let alone allow them to tell you how to run your business?

So why on earth would you let them decide who gets to run the country and how?

In a recent LA Times/Bloomberg poll, Al Gore – who isn’t even running – comes in third at 15%. That’s great news, since he’s also the best person for the job.

Isn’t it time for a woman president, or a black president? Sure it is, but only if they’ll be the best president we can elect. Otherwise, we wind up doing exactly what the neocons did with George W. Bush: Looking at a candidate as someone we can get elected, as opposed to some we should get elected.

Ten years ago, Apple Computer was on the skids. They were bleeding money, the stock was at a 12-year low and the famous Apple ingenuity seemed to have fizzled. CEO Gil Amelio had a reputation for getting companies out of trouble, and he worked hard struggling to turn the company around, but he just didn’t have the chops for it.

The company turned to the one man that could bring them back from the brink – Steve Jobs.

The problem was that Jobs wasn’t on the market. He was enjoying tremendous success with Pixar, and saw no reason to return to the company that had so unceremoniously dumped him, despite being its founder. In fact, Jobs had long before sold all but one share of his Apple stock. He wasn’t coming back – that is, until he came back.

Apple did the smartest thing it has ever done: It recognized the right guy for the job and refused to take no for an answer. Sure, they could have brought in some Steve Ballmer-wannabe, a sales-oriented business manager type, and the temptation was probably there to do so. But Apple realized that its very existence was at stake, and the time to do the right thing, to hire the right person, was upon them.

So after a bit of coy “I have no plans to return…” statements, Jobs mounted the stage at the 1997 Macworld Expo and took the wheel.

Today, Apple is one of the world’s leading technological innovators. The iMac, iPod and other hardware offerings are the most popular and powerful products of their kind in the world; Mac OS X is the most sophisticated and reliable operating system available; the iTunes music store has revolutionized music sales worldwide; and the company is on the brink of the largest electronics launch in history.

Apple has always been about “the computer for the rest of us.” Now it’s time for the rest of us to follow their lead and pick the right man for the right job. Who is that, exactly? Well, if you ask Steve Jobs, he’ll say “We have dug ourselves into a 20-ft. hole, and we need somebody who knows how to build a ladder. Al’s the guy…If he ran, there’s no question in my mind that he would be elected.”

The best person is out there. Let’s hire him already.