Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a conservative Republican who has represented western Maryland in Congress since 1993, is in the toughest race of his political career this year. And a quote of his that appeared in The Washington Post this weekend doesn’t exactly have the 86-year-old lawmaker sounding like a candidate for modern times.

“This isn’t the politically correct thing to say, but when we drove the mother out of the home into the workplace and replaced her with the television set, that was not a good thing,” Bartlett said.

OK, well that’s not as severe as statements made by Republican Senate candidates Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, but still, a bit outdated.

After Maryland’s state legislators changed the boundaries of its congressional district following the 2010 Census, Bartlett now finds himself in a redrawn district that includes hundreds of thousands of voters in Montgomery County, a reliable Democratic stronghold.

It’s also a county where two-income households are the norm, according to a 2008 report by the county’s Community Action Board.