I don't want to be President

Now, I know its bold of me to even assume that I have a chance at being the president, but regardless, I'd never want to be the President. I'd rather be the person behind the president, the advisor who is actually in control, otherwise known as the power behind the throne. Machiavelli said that it is better to be feared than loved as a ruler, but what if you don't have to be the ruler? What if you can be behind the figure-head, feared by those around you because you are actually in control, but not really seen? Historically, being the King's right-hand man gave you a lot of power, because you could persuade the king to do certain things that would benefit you. You would receive the benefits, but wouldn't have to be in the spotlight, and could somewhat avoid more blame. For example, the solicitor general. While further research showed that this position is not as powerful as it seems, given an unreliable term length, in principle, it should be very powerful. One person has been given the power to persuade the court to take up specific cases and can dissuade them from taking others. This one person (depending on how persuasive they are), can directly influence which cases the court decides to see. Another example are the congressional staffers. These people are usually staff on standing committees in Congress and are the people who take care of a lot of things that the senators are to busy to do. These kinds of people have the power of suggestion as well and can voice specific ideas about smaller issues and get their way, with the senator being too overwhelmed to pay too much attention and allow their staffer to take care of everything. Now, its always hard to tell how much influence these examples actually have on the "throne" they are behind of, especially now, but in theory, this strategy is almost a better method of gaining power than actually trying to run for president. The one thing you would have to work hardest at is remaining in favor of whomever you are working with. So theoretically, you would want to be on the president's advisory committee or even the senior advisor to the president. I'd have to do more research into the amount of control each of these positions are given and how those relationships could morph into a "power behind the throne situation" (Its quite difficult to find this kind of information online), but as an idea, its something I've been thinking about for a while, and came up again when we discussed the solicitor general in class.