From now on, Pete Buttigieg will only be referred to as a presidential candidate.
Effective January 1, Buttigieg is no longer the sitting mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Too Much of a Struggle
Pete Buttigieg had his hands full trying to run South Bend as well as campaign for the presidency of our country.
That struggle was never more apparent than when a black man had been shot by a police officer.
South Bend was in complete turmoil, but Buttigieg was out on the campaign trail rather than in South Bend where he could immediately address the situation.
When Buttigieg did return to South Bend, city residents slammed him for putting them second to his campaign.
There were rumors at the time that Buttigieg was going to leave the presidential race, but instead, he chose to step down as mayor.
Instead of running for re-election, he endorsed his chief of staff, James Mueller.
Mueller would go on to win the Democrat nomination and the election in November.
Can’t Do Two Jobs
The dilemma Buttigieg faced is one that many of our presidential candidates today face.
There are roughly half a dozen candidates that are currently holding other public offices while they run for the presidency.
In virtually all their states, there are problems that need to be addressed, but they are being ignored because they are on the campaign trail.
If they are on the campaign trail, they are not home listening to their constituents, and they are not in the Senate or House to vote on legislation.
While it is great Buttigieg made the right decision for the people of South Bend by stepping down from office, we need to make that the law for both Senate and House members that want to run for president.
If you want to run, fine, but you should have to resign your current position prior to announcing.
If we do that, perhaps a little more will get done in D.C. during campaign season and perhaps we will not have fields of more than a dozen candidates, most of which have no shot of actually winning.
Instead, they are being paid out of our tax dollars to ignore their House or Senate duties while they try to fulfill their fantasy of becoming our president.