Should those running for President have to relinquish their existing office?

Absolutely. Many politicians do resign when concentrating on a higher office, but these current contenders are all afraid of losing the power they have if they don't win the bid election.

They have all missed a large number of votes in the Senate, so how is that serving the people that elected them?

many that are not running dont show up for votes as it is. At least they do show up for what they deem to be important votes, where every vote counts & it may be very close.

Each state does have 2 senators, so its not like they are being ignored all the way. It would also cause many problems with each state as they would have to hold elections for each one who decides to run for office.

Remember, we started out with quite a few number of folks running for President. If we required them all to quit being governor, senator, congressman (or woman), or what ever other office, they each would have to find a replacement & would now be out of a job. For good or bad, I guess.

The majority of the members of Congress have what is called a traveling staff. These key members aid their Senators or House of Representative Member with the latest information on Bills and legalities.Many times the chief of staff will travel with their boss from their home to Washington. Therefore it isn't necessary for a person running for the Office of the Presidency to relinquish their elected duties.

This is a very good question. You have identified a very real problem in our election system. While your suggested solution would solve the problem identified, I do not believe that it is the best possible solution to solve this problem of senators, congressmen, and governors, as Presidential candidtaes.

The real issue that need to be addressed is informing the voters on the position of all the candidates on all the issues that are of concern to the voters. This should include not only major issues that are the normal fare of Presidential politics---War and Peace, Education, Taxes, It the Economy, Health, Energy Policy, International Policy---just to name the ones that come immediately to mind.

Any issue that is of concern to at least 1 voter out of a 1000 should be a proper question to be addressed by a Presidential candidate. (Who knows the voters concerned about this very minority issue may decide who gets elected!!!!!) It should also be noted that these minority issues that are little known and get little publicity, does not mean that they are unimportant, or even more so that they may be considered worthy of support by a majority of the voters.

The way to make it unnecessary for Presidential candidates to travel around the country here to there and back and forth all across the country, when they should be in the Senate, House of Representative, of the Governor's office doing the work they were elected to do, is to prepare a book of questions to be answered by all Presidential candidates to be available to the public for free!!!!

Such a book would include all questions and issues that are of concern to at least 1 voter out of 1000, as well as any other additional issue that a candidate might want to raise such as:

What changes I would suggest be made in the Constitution of the United States of America to improve our government and its abilty to respond to public concerns, and to facilitate public participation in the democratic process...

People who hold elective office spend a large amount of their time running for office and raising funds even if they are just trying to keep their jobs, so the loss due to running for president instead is not as great as it seems. The biggest problem arises with a president running for re election, because the president does have a full time job. We could not ask him to resign, so how could we demand it from a senator.

I think anyone running for President should resign their current position to not only allow someone undertake his current responsibility but face the demanding campaign for the most power full office in the world.

Just look at it as a leave of absence. Besides, McCain is doing fine with the Arizona people, The two High School kids are the ones missing the boat by having to concentrate on the Dem race. And....from what I have seen, they weren't doing anything anyways so the people are better off without them.

No.

It's important also for them to vote in Congress, like we have 3 senators running this year. It also gives us an insight how hard they will work-ie. John McCain has been absent 56% of the time-most of all three.

No. Each state has 2 senators.

Yup....

I can't very well tell my boss that I am going to be out for a month job hunting and expect him to hold my seat til I get back.

But, once again...dfferent rules for the elites.