After the House of Representatives rejected a bailout plan for Wall Street and the stock market plunged 777 points Monday, a lot of people were angry. Some vented at greedy executives. Others took it out on Congress for failing to act.

With that in mind, Republican Dale Sweetland decided it was a bad day to conduct a poll to find out where voters stand in his race against Democrat Dan Maffei for the 25th Congressional District seat.

Sweetland canceled the one-day poll planned for Monday because of concerns it might not be an accurate measure of the race to succeed retiring Rep. James Walsh, R-Onondaga.

The worst day in Dale Sweetland's life wasn't when Joanie Mahoney beat him by 21 votes last year in a Republican primary for Onondaga County executive.

It wasn't the day four years ago when his dad died.

What makes Sweetland's voice crack is a decade-old memory of the day he telephoned his father, Al Sweetland, and told him he was going to sell the family farm.

Republican congressional candidate Dale Sweetland issued a statement Monday critical of the Democratic-controlled Congress for taking a summer vacation while schools struggle with higher energy costs.   "This is disgraceful," said Sweetland, whose rant against Congress was provoked by a story in Monday's Post-Standard citing 30 to 40 percent increases in energy costs for Central New York school districts.

ROCHESTER, NY (2008-08-04) A central New York congressional candidate says he would push federal legislation to ban New York State from passing half of its Medicaid costs down to county governments.  Dale Sweetland is the Republican candidate for the 25th Congressional District, which stretches between Rochester's eastern suburbs and Syracuse.