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LATEST LETTERS

Candidates should resign to run

Thursday, March 29 at 12:01 AM

Richard L. Wilde of Elizabeth writes:

What would be your response under the following circumstances? You are the boss. One of your employees comes to you and states; I am going to look for a new job. It is going to take me about two years to find this job. In the meantime, I would like to keep my current job. I will not be able to spend much time or give it much effort during the next two years. However, I would like you to continue to pay me my full salary. In addition, I want to maintain full benefits and perks, including retirement and medical plan, office space and full use of the phones, staff and mail room to assist me in looking for my new job. If I cannot find the job I want, I want your assurance that I can keep the job I have.

Sound preposterous? How many congressmen and senators and governors are getting this wonderful treatment from us taxpayers while they attempt to get elected president?

I think you, as the boss, just might say no to this absurd proposal. Correct response should be: If you want a new job, resign from your current job. Shouldn't this common-sense rule apply to our politicians?

READER COMMENTS

I like that letter, even though it is impractical. Perhaps a compromise would be federal funding of elections so that the incumbent, as well as his opponents, need not spend so much time fund raising, and spend more time on the issues, and so that his opponents, who don't have a bully pulpit, will be on a more even playing field with him. It would take away some of the power of incumbency.

P.S. I don't want to get in trouble with the women. Please interpret his as his/her, and him as him/her.

Posted by Truth on March 29, 2007 08:47 AM

Not only should resign, but there should be an eligibility "Life in the Real World" requirement that requires candidates to not be in an elected office or government job for an amount of time equal to the length of the term immediately before the election.

i.e. If someone wanted run for the US House of Representatives in 2008, they may not have had held elective office or any government (federal, state, or local) since November, 2006.

This way, we may actually get some candidates who have spent time in the real world...

Posted by Miles on March 30, 2007 09:56 AM