Senatorial Duties vs. Presidential Campaign

nothinghead

Was thinking about this earlier today in regards to the whole John McCain "racing" back to the Senate to help formulate the bailout package. Now, regardless of whether you think he really had any substantive impact or you think Obama was "watching from the side lines" or whatever...doesn't this seem like a strange debate to need to have?

If I'm at work browsing the job boards online...but I still manage to get some of my job done, I don't think I am going to immediately brag to my boss about that.

Should elected representatives be barred from running Presidential campaigns at the risk of shirking the duties their constituents have bestowed upon them? It doesn't sound necessarily right to me--the logic being that we elect officials because we feel they are competent, capable people we want in decision making capacities (or sometimes because their a good deal less frightening than the other guy) and that many of these people would therefore be qualified or viable candidates. Does it follow that they should then be forced to step down? Is there no problem with any of this?

I'm curious to hear what other people think about this.