As I’ve been following the political “season” here in the US, an interesting question crossed my mind. I’ve been watching Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin run around the country for the last few days. Of course, I’ve (actually) been watching Obama and McCain do it for much longer. But my question is, why don’t they have to give up their “regular” job in order to run for President/Vice President?

I mean, think about it… could this happen in your job? Could you go tell your boss that you’re going to go look (and campaign) for another job? Or more importantly, could you tell him/her that what you were doing was in the best interest of their company, but if you didn’t get the new job, then you’d be back to doing your “same ‘ol, same ‘ol” the next day? Oh… and you’d also like to loan the keys to the motorpool and use the limos/planes/boats/etc to ferry yourself and your entourage around during the interview process.

As the governor of Alaska, shouldn’t Sarah Palin have turned over the keys to the kingdom to someone else as she runs around the country? You can’t tell me that she (in addition to being a mother of five kids, including a baby with Downs Syndrome), can process all the information she needs to in order to make decisions for her state, while bouncing from campaign stop to campaign stop… Unless, of course, there’s not much to being governor of Alaska – which would open up a whole different set of questions.

Don’t read anything biased in there either – the same goes for Obama and McCain. Are either truly exercising to the fullest the mandate that brought them to the Senate – to serve the people of their state.

If you’re giving 5-10 speeches a day in 4 or 5 cities in states whose capitals you can’t even name, you can’t be paying much attention to what is going on on the Senate floor…

Shouldn’t we be demanding that our “potential” elected officials play by the same rules that we have to? If you want another job, fine – look for it on your own time. But if I’m paying your salary (and as an Arizona resident, Mr. McCain, I AM paying your salary), then you need to resign from your office. Go campaign. But if you lose, I don’t see how it is fair that you come waltzing back into the Senate (or Governor’s office, Ms Palin) as if nothing ever happened.

Just doing a bit of thinking out loud… Thoughts? Cheers!