With the enormous strain that occurs on any candidate running for President of the United States, it seems apparent to me that their duties as a Congressman, Vice-President, Governor, dog catcher, whatever must take a major hit.
A very gray area also presents itself as we're seeing with Barack Obama's trips to places like Iraq and Germany and the controversy over injecting politics into military and foreign policy matters. Is he a Senator or a candidate? Is there public funding involved in certain parts or is it campaign funds?
In order for him or any other candidate for that matter to warrant traveling to foreign countries there must be this illusion created that it's this congressional fact-finding mission. They all do it. When McCain went to Iraq to supposedly meet with Petraeus and get the "real" picture of conditions there, we all know that same info could easily be communicated through email (if he knew how to use it), video, and phone calls. Obviously, these trips are more about the photo ops than about the information garnered.
Now I'm very glad Obama went overseas. What an incredible day yesterday was. We truly are citizens of the world and our major candidates have a responsibility to hit the ground running should they win and a good part of that will be interacting with leaders and people across the globe. But I dislike that there has to be this phony pretense that at least a portion of the trip has to do with his congressional duties. I would have preferred he went as a private citizen running for President and not as a sitting Senator.
As long as we allow Presidential candidates to retain their day jobs while they're campaigning we will get into this mess. We force them to be something they're not and bottom line is that it's a white lie. While they obviously still are concerned about their constituents, there is no way they can adequately represent them at the same level they could were they not involved in one of the most demanding jobs in the world - running for President.
Look at the whole flap over the FISA bill. Obama's stance on the issue, right or wrong, could not have been fully researched during a Presidential campaign. His agenda would have been booked solid for months ahead of time and there would have been time for nothing more than a cursory look at the changes that occurred in the week prior to the vote. Even sitting congressmen that weren't running for President were behind the eight ball on all the repercussions of the pages and pages of legalese. I'm certain part of Obama's calculation in the vote he took was because that very public record of "Yea" or "Nay" is political ammunition for the right. Were he not a senator, he could have probably lead the way many on here wanted him to. It's much easier to take the bully pulpit when your vote doesn't hang over your head later.
By retaining their jobs while running, every vote, every non-vote, every missed constituent contact is a potential pitfall. It's one reason why very few congressmen ever make it to the highest office. The opposition can introduce bills solely as wedge issues to force a candidate to have to take some morally ambiguous stance where there is no right or wrong. There's enough Catch-22's in life without throwing the bane of a current office on these people.
The argument against what I'm proposing is of course that, if a candidate on our side puts it all on the line and fails, we've lost their political office. My contention is that, if this person is of high quality, they will have no trouble regaining power later on and the vacation will probably do them and us good. Remember that the loss of seats will work for all political parties. It might even empower independents in major races by forcing sitting politicians to cede the advantages public office gives them in regards to access to the media and government perks in travel and exposure.
One thing that would have to be addressed would be how to replace people leaving their position to run. That process is now up to each state and varies widely. I'm not sure if that would need to be altered if this change could actually be implemented. I would prefer that special elections would be required to replace them to remove the power from partisan Governors or state legislatures that can change the political balance against the will of the voters.
I'm not sure what it would take to implement this. Since the Constitution to my knowledge doesn't explicitly say anything at all about a candidate's current job, it might actually require that wording to be inserted which of course is a huge mess. I know that many states actually have the requirement that candidates step down when running for offices such as governor so it's obviously doable through law.
Maybe no law needs to be enacted to create this change. Perhaps as Presidential campaigns continue their growth in required resources and time, no sane person would consider trying to retain their job to seek office.
I look forward to the brainstorming that will occur on this issue.