Rick Perry says that he "feels" that running for being President is what he "has been called to do." Michelle Bachmann also said that God called her to run for president. George W. Bush similarly heard "the call."
This is code. While its meaning is obvious as pie to people surrounded by Baptists, it might not be a clear term for others, so this is simply an attempt at explaining the concept and the consequences.
If we go back to Calvin, we run into the problem of a break from Rome so severe that it broke the apostolic succession. (Now, this is something of a ... myth ... itself, but the idea is that each priest was ordained by the laying on of hands of a bishop who had been ordained by an archbishop, and this succession went directly back to St. Peter in an unbroken line.) Calvin was branded an heretic, but he also rejected the very idea of apostolic succession. In other words, no bishop would ordain his priests, and he argued that he didn't want or need them anyhow.
Calvin is not the end of this story at all. We have to add in Mr. Knox. John Knox introduces the brand of Calvin that would come to America. It is a charismatic Calvinism, and it is an anti-authoritarian one that nevertheless embraces authority. Knox lived under persecution and was a great preacher, but his solutions to the problem of election and reprobation and organizing the church were innovations that stuck.
1. The priesthood of all believers, which is a cornerstone of all the Protestant churches, means that each congregant is capable of discernment.
2. The vile horror of "sin nature" that is man without grace, though, means that no one may be trusted.
3. Schools of theology cannot teach anything, and they can only confuse the issue, because the Bible is fully sufficient for all things.
4. The Holy Spirit gives grace, and those with grace and elect may discern and be chosen for various positions in a Godly community.
(You'll note, if you're a Christian, that these folks always and only quote Paul. They never cite the Gospels.) They draw from a description by Paul that the Spirit is laid out evenly on a congregation, and people should wait for it.
5. God has a personal plan for each individual (providence), because each person is a saint. [N.b. this is not the old view, not a necessary view. This is the heritage of the late 17th century's dissenters.]
So, tens of thousands of young people today are turning seventeen or eighteen and waiting to hear "God's call." They have to hear it, hear it clearly, and know it, because this is what they expect, else there is no providence or discernment.
When Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann both claim to have been called by God to be the prophet in chief, then the faith community should reject them, since someone is mistaken. However, the code word is that these two are saying, "I have found my career, and it is providence, and it is my place in the congregation; no expert can tell you I'm qualified, and no school can say I'm trained, and no scandal can say that I have a shady character, because this is the divine will, and we trust only in God's will" -- except that we are also supposed to scrutinize like mad, too.