Candidates should be forced to relinquish their seats

Here is a situation that has bothered me for some time:
I elect my Mayor and after a few months he decides to run for state congress.
Now after he is elected to state congress he decides to run for state senator.
Then US Congress, then Governor, then US Senator, then President.....
Where am I being represented in all of this? All the guy does is run for office and never pays any attention to the job he was elected to do in the first place. It's insane.
An example of my inability to have a voice in government comes from the fact that I am a lifelong resident of New York state.
Enter Hillary Clinton (from Arkansas) who decides that she will "adopt" New York as her new home. She doesn't even bother with going for any of those "lesser" offices but goes straight for Senator. She wins and flits off to Washington. Great place to learn all about the people you're supposed to be representing. All she was looking for was to keep her face in the news as representing one of the more influential states in the country and poise herself for greater things ahead. I mean the handwriting was on the wall from day one.
After a few years in office she completely abandons everything she was elected to do to mount an excruciatingly long campaign for an office she didn't win. And she's STILL not back. Try staying away from your job for over a year, while looking for another job, and then come back to your old job like nothing ever happened!
I propose that anyone who already holds a political office be required to give up their seat before taking off to mount a new campaign. I don't really care how that seat is filled, by appointment, by vote, whatever, as long as there's a warm body representing ME.
There should also be a cap on how long campaigns can run, even to be re-elected to your current position. I know I'm probably being delusional but this whole business really pisses me off.
There are 50 Senators in this country and it felt like half of them were involved in this campaign at one point or another. And we wonder why nothing ever gets done, THERE'S NOBODY THERE.
Please weigh in on this, I'm very interested if I'm just out of touch with reality or if others may feel the same way.

I totally agree with you on this.
While Obama and Clinton were off in all the 50 states, drumming up support for their side, what was happening to their respected office?

Why do we not hear of news that they were handling something for their state that they were elected to? Were they still getting their paychecks for running all around the US?

Oh, I'm sure they were pulling down their regular pay. plus the money from their campaign funds.
I know it will never happen but it pi**es me off anyway.

I thought I would restart this thread given the events of last week with the McCain decision to "suspend" his campaign to hurry back to Congress.

It just confirms my point that politicians regularly abandon their posts to campaign. I know I couldn't get away with just taking off then pretending like I'd been there all along.

Let me know what you think, and if there would ever be a way to change things, which I doubt.

Term Limits or a law stating that when running for 1 office the office currently held must be abandoned; those are the only waya to change this.

reply to post by zlots331


so you haven't figured it out yet?here it is in a nut shell.There is no two party system in this country.There is a one party system which trys to remain under cover.I call it the corporate party.The corporate party has two branches,dems and repubs.They bicker and fight to keep your attention off what they're really doing.Neither of these branchs have any use for the people except as cash cows.70% of the people in this country wanted an end to the war.They elected
the democrat branch to end the war.How did that work for them?They tell you one thing when they run for office and do another once elected.Bush ran on a humble forgien policy.How did that work for you?The main stream media is corporate controled.Shouldn't the american people get to decide thier president
instead of the media?If so why do we not see third party canidates?When you get to the bottom of this bailout you'll find the federal reserve bank.The federal reserve bank,a central bank,with no athority from the constitution fixes prices.They were responsible for the last depression and ultimatly they are behind this.How do they get away with it?They own the corporate party.
They own the media.The republicans have thier favorite industrail complex and the democrats have thiers.The federal reserve cares not which one wins as they are always on the band wagon.They print the money to fund these pet projects.The people owe interest on every dollar they print AS it rolls off the presses.Therefore we can hand over our dollars to the military industrial complex,medical/healthcare complex,insurance complex,or a dozen others.The fed still gets it's share.While the people sleep the corporate party has turned this country into a government of the corporation by the corporation for the corporation and bankers.Maybe this little quote will mean something to you now.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

You of course haven't seen anyones home repossesed lately?The only way we are going to get out of this mess is by voting third party.We will never vote third party until the masses wakeup.You can not wake someone up who thinks his canidate is the answer to all our problems.They are mesmerized by the media.They can not see beyond and as a result this country will fall when the dollar becomes worthless.There will be chaos when that happens and it opens the door to the north american union.That is the end of the united states of america.With no constitution you will have no freedom.Not that you have much now.Look at the people on this board.They complain about politicans but when time to vote comes they'll vote for thier choice of one of the two branches of the corporate party.These people make more money the further up in thier respective branch they can get so why would you have a problem with them making more money?