What followed after the court ruling, historians would later reflect, was probably inevitable. The first signs could be seen in satire, ever the canary in the political coal mine. Nonetheless, for a few election cycles the only changes were more ads, more cash, more dirt, washing in an ever-increasing tide over the brains of a numbed and vaguely frustrated populace.
Decades on, however, a table of suited individuals (mostly men) would sit down to discuss something more radical, and more serious. Recent obscure legal rulings had made the law crystal clear: companies were people in all but flesh. They had every political right of a citizen. Every right.
The lack of blood and bones, the Chairman pointed out, was an advantage. A truly corporate candidate had no past, no dirty laundry or misspent youth. It could not be assassinated, grow ill or utter an inopportune racial slur. Furthermore, marketing had mutated into such a science by that point that the brand could be built from scratch. Traditional office-seekers had to have their campaigns organized around a set image: no matter how good the flaks, making the craggy, decadence-ridden face of Sen. So-and-so relatable remained a challenge.
Brands suffered from no such limitations. After all, commercials had long ago stopped featuring the product in question. People would not associate the candidate with a set human image, but flashes of happily running through fields and explosions of military triumph.
There remained other details, of course, and the various factions of the alliance of conglomerates required to put the pyramid of resources and organization together each demanded their say in the identity and platform. However, this was not so much different from what every candidate had to go through before, and this time it had far more reliable results.
After incorporating all of their various demands, parts of the corporate abbreviations and some last-minute suggestions from the marketers into the name, the public debut was ready.
It was a success; the sheer novelty quickly capturing the very serious people who occupied the now-stratified class of public news courtiers. If one strained hard enough, an audible sigh of relief from legislators could be heard: with this new breed of candidate there would be no personal grudges and no pretense. To the public, it was spun as a moment of honesty. Such a thing could not be bribed.
Only the religious conservatives muttered some complaints about the downright ungodly name of the intangible candidate: BAEL-KETH the Undying ("he won't stop!" one of the ads piped). However, the ministers were too tied to their business friends to complain and so promptly found scriptural justification for the whole affair.
The opposition were in too much disarray to offer a serious fight, and BAEL-KETH swept into the Oval Office with a comfortable majority. The first 100 days there was little noticeable difference, as many previous occupiers of the illustrious position had also retreated behind their subordinates and meticulously planned press conferences.
The Chairman and his fellows enjoyed their new positions ("Oracles" the wags quickly dubbed them) and set about writing the occasional new law to make the life of the new President and his fellows ever easier. New coinage was issued to mark the event, with the wisdom of old Calvin Coolidge sternly engraved upon it: the Business of America is Business. E Pluribus Unum didn't really seem to do it anymore.
It was amazing, in retrospect, how quickly the new era unravelled. An economic slump and occasional unrest provoked burning nostalgia for the day when one could curse whatever bum was in office and know that it was an actual bum: someone you could have a beer with and then bludgeon with the glass.
Then there was the fact that the Chairman had overlooked: the President might not be a tangible person, but he sure as hell was, as were the other "Directors." One adulterous affair and some social snubs added to a few rivalries paved the way for the descent: by the third year the directors were each ensconced in their separate fiefs and paralysis set in.
Without a unifying personality, even an utterly foolish one, BAEL-KETH's governance descended into something best described by later eminent historians as "a schizophrenic group-mind." Riots spread as there was no response to the country's many ills, and the country's standing abroad rapidly weakened without someone, anyone residing at the top. For the first time in history, the Presidency was literally occupied by an empty suit.
BAEL-KETH's era came to a definitive end with the election of Jem the Brawler, of the newly formed Visceral Party (successful campaign slogan: "With Our Fists!"). A veteran of the riots, she began her first State of the Union address by gut-truncheoning the Senate majority leader for a solid three minutes.
Turning to address the shocked elites, she shouted a line that generations of future schoolchildren would recite with pleasure: "Turnabout's fair-motherfucking-play, assholes!" before making the existence of BAEL-KETH and its ilk her first topic.
"Listen up! From now on, if you can't break its nose in a fight; it ain't a damn person!" With slightly more formal wording, this would become the next Constitutional Amendment.
Now wheelchair bound due to his various ailments, the Chairman called another meeting.
"Gentlemen, we must begin tests quickly. Find me an appropriate animal with a nose breakable by a human fist. I smell an opportunity here."
