January 13th, 2014 by WCBC Radio
During his 20 years representing western Maryland in Congress, it was not unusual for conservative republican representative Roscoe Bartlett to visit Allegany and Garrett counties at least once a month. The familiar face has changed dramatically in his short time away from Washington- with a recent profile in Politico Magazine showing the former representative in a very new light. Bartlett has swapped his suit and tie for a pair of denim overalls and retreated into the dense woods of West Virginia, where he has been living off the grid in preparation for natural or man-made doomsday. Bartlett, a small-government, Tea Party-style Republican, had spent two decades as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district. In 2013, he was voted out of office and replaced with Democrat John Delaney thanks to the process of gerrymandering. Over the course of his career in public service, Bartlett used his status as a U.S. congressman to sound the alarm about the vulnerability of the American power grid. Although a retired scientist in the U.S. Navy, most of Bartlett’s colleagues dismissed his warnings as nothing more than rambling from an aging “eccentric”. Jason Koebler, the free lance writer who profiled Bartlett for the magazine article, came away impressed- saying candidly that he actually expected to run into a “crazy old man”….
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