In a New York Times/CBS Poll release today, 61% of respondents disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. An astonishing 77% of Americans believe members of Congress don't deserve to be re-elected. In what is a more telling statistic, 48% of respondents said that their representative does not deserve to be re-elected, as opposed to 39% who believe they should. The poll and accompanying article can be found here

For those of us on the campaign trail this is not surprising. We have been hearing for months how unhappy voters are in the 6th district with Roscoe Bartlett and the Republican controlled Congress. Voters expected smaller government. They got the biggest government in history, growing 30% in just the past 4 years. Voters expected a lower national debt. They got the largest debt in history. Voters expected the government to get off their backs. They got the most intrusive and incompetent government we have seen since the beginning of the 20th century.

Andrew just spent an hour on "Fredericks Forum" on WFMD (930AM) radio with Blaine Young. So many issues were covered, but there was not enough time to get to all the callers questions. If you have question that was not answered this morning, please let us know.

WFMD will post the show online shortly and you can visit them by going to http://2005.wfmd.com/main.html

Robert

In the August 19th edition of the Frederick News-Post, Roscoe Bartlett attempted, feebly, to explain his “no” vote recently on the [w:Voting Rights Act] Reauthorization bill. I wrote the following in response:

Dear Editor,

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett’s attempt to explain his vote on the Voting Rights Act Reauthorization published on August 19th is gibberish.

His statement that “institutional racism” no longer exists shows that he is out of touch with reality. There have been real and troubling questions raised during the last several elections regarding the availability of voting machines and purged voter roles. The fact that these problems occur in predominately poor and minority neighborhoods clearly demonstrates that voting rights issues continue to exist.