Mike Bouchard, the Republican nomininee challenging Michigan's liberal Democrat Debbie Stabenow for her seat in the Senate, took a break from the campaign trail to meet with D.C. bloggers earlier today.

Bouchard, currently the sheriff of Oakland County, sat down to talk tough on issues ranging from Michigan's flailing economy to the War on Terror. Below are some of the highlights.



On increased transparency in government:

I think the more things you expose to daylight the more likely it is the outcomes will be something that you can be proud of and not hiding…I think we’ll get less of the silliness. If you have to put your name an appropriation and then other people have to vote for it, with a very clear “yes” or “no” and then ultimately they’re held accountable for that by the electorate that’s a good thing.

On running in a year when national GOP is struggling:

We have a lot of people that are hurting in Michigan and they’re angry at the lack of movement on those issues by their incumbents. What they will try to do is make this all about Washington and not about their lack of results. But the reality is that 49 other states are doing well -- it’s pretty tough, I think, to point at Washington as Michigan’s problem when Michigan’s leadership is failing us -- they’re going to have to take the blame. That’s going to be the point of this campaign -- to show that, as much as they want to deflect attention to Washington, or to China, or to the sun being in their eyes -- the reality is that they haven’t done their job.

She’s [Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s] got a failing grade from all these business groups and the only bill she’s passed in the law is to rename a federal building -- how is she helping?

On Michigan's struggling economy:

The reality is Michigan’s the only state in America that’s lost jobs for three straight years. We used to say Michigan was the only state that’s lost jobs for two straight years except those that were hit by hurricanes but now we’ve even surpassed them. We’re a single state recession by every measure and if you look at our leadership they are anti-job provider, anti-growth, pro-tax -- typical liberal polatsy? And on every indicator they’re wrong.

And as the campaign has been unfolding, it’s been amazing to watch Sen. Stabenow tack to the right and her commercials actually say she reaches across party lines to pass tax cuts. This is from a person that I don’t think met a tax increase she didn’t like. She’s filibustered the death tax time and time again. She opposes making the tax cuts permanent. If you run through the different employers in Michigan she’s killing them here [Washington, D.C.] and she comes back to Michigan and says she’s standing up and working hard to create jobs. […]

She’s bad on every issue. She’s certainly not representing Michigan. She’s opposed to policies that would help Michigan. She’s with the extremists from California and other places -- even when it goes directly against Michigan’s best interest.

On the War on Terror:

This is my generation’s World War II in terms of a battle it has to fight and win so that our kids have a better future. And it’s not one that is going to be based as much as WWII was on certain pieces of ground, it’s kind of an amalgamation of the Cold War and World War II where you’re fighting over a particular turf but it’s more an ideological battle because…if we leave Iraq, or if we leave the whole Middle East, they’re not going to say, “Okay, they’re gone,” and that’s that. They’re going to look for the next place, or the next stop. It’s a situation where we have to defeat the ideology of terrorism and the extremist kind of philosophy that they embody.

I mean, when you have people that are willing to drive a plane into a building with a daycare, you have a very different enemy, a very different mindset. And it’s not a short-term struggle.

On tracking and combating terrorists:

We have to have the steps and the tools in place to identify terrorists wherever they may be – whether that happens to be in Michigan or elsewhere. That’s another different part of this battle -- it’s a very diffused group. In the old days if you took out a general or a president the country would fall and now, there’s individualized cells.

On the commercial he did with his 16-year-old daughter (who, by the way, blogs on his campaign site under Mikayla's Minute:

No, that was not her boyfriend. That was a buddy of hers. It’s actually funny -- I still hear more about that commercial than any other.

All in all, I'd say Mike Bouchard is just about all conservatives could ask for in a representative -- he's a polite, well-spoken, pro-growth family man who understands the importance of being tough on security. He's also endorsed by the Club for Growth and Rightroots -- what more could you ask for?

Mike Bouchard has challenged Debbie Stabenow to eight debates but she's only willing to do one. He's going to need more outlets to get his voice heard and message out. Send money his way today -- if anyone can take "dangerously incompetent Debbie" out, he can.