It started 15 minutes late because of some snafu.

Bouchard isn't exciting, but he's not DeVos-horrible on camera. Stabenow was ripping him about being on the board of jnl.com, an insurance company that outsources, but was otherwise fairly boring herself. Highlight was that he claimed he wasn't a board member on an insurance company (that outsources) even though the name of their web site is "Jackson National Life Insurance" -- dumbass. Stabenow wasn't going to make any big mistake that'd swing her ~20 point lead around, and I tuned it out pretty quickly.

One thing I will say -- Bouchard doesn't have a prayer as a senator if he thinks he'll be elected on a platform of budget balancing, as that's not a Republican core competency at the federal level. I bet the Republicans would be doing better if Bouchard had run for governor with DeVos running for senate.

There was another debate earlier this week, but it matters so much that it's not being broadcasting it on TV until the 29th (though it was aired on WJR):

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-38/116119376185900.xml&storylist=newsmichigan&thispage=1

Neither Stabenow nor Bouchard thrills me as a candidate.

Stabenow can be more about politics than about defending the constitution, as evidenced by her no-habeas-corpus vote, attacks against people in her own party when she was running for Governor long ago, etc. She's always struck me as someone more suited to state legislature than U.S. legislature. That move to negotiate with Canada was nifty, but it came from the state legislator playbook.

Bouchard is not a bad guy, did his job well enough and all. Unfortunately, he's a tool. He's supported by the Club for Growth, extreme right-wingers (funding by DeVos among many others) kicking out moderate Republicans in favor of nutcases. My sense is that Bouchard is not quite -that- far right, but more than willing to follow along in the interests of political expediency. Oh, and like DeVos, he's pimping his hot daughter Mikayla:

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I haven't done nearly as much overall fact checking, but that one issue about illegal immigrants getting Social Security caught my eye so I looked it up:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00130

Stabenow (and 49 others) came out against adding an -amendment- to a Senate immigration amnesty bill (which ultimately went nowhere) that would've explicitly spelled out that illegal immigrants who later become legal wouldn't get Social Security for any SS tax they paid while illegal. McCain raised the issue that one condition of their amnesty bill was paying any back taxes. Having them pay back taxes, then sticking it to them on taxes they've already paid seemed unfair. And, it'd add costs for the SS administration. Critics argued that money illegals paid to SS was significant, and if we just keep it, we save, and that can be used to defray the costs of illegals who use someone else's SS#. Pick whatever moral or business compass you like on the matter, but it's more complex than the soundbyte crap in the ads.

Did she show up or was there a cardboard cutout there in her place?

Check out this interview and see for yourself:
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And here's more of Mike's daughter...
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As to the charges of ducking debates, they did a couple debates, she held her own, and is comfortably ahead. People like us should bitch at their PBS affiliates for screwing up how their debates are being aired, not Stabenow. Even if I wanted to be charitable to my opponent, I sure wouldn't want to do a third debate before the second debate aired, and I wouldn't want to do any debates a week before the election.

The whole debate ducking thing is a petty attack. Truth is, she has given 6 years of what she believes so Bouchard has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Only because people are so stupid has this even become a race. I was watching some of the Free Press interviews today and she knows her crap far more than he does. He would be a good candidate for State Senate, but not US Senate.

Note that Bouchard was already a state senator for a couple terms.

Maybe he'd make a good deputy. He claims he was one, even when he wasn't:

http://www.micaucus.com/michigan_caucus/2006/10/bouchard_lying_.html

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was as narrow a victory for Stabenow as for Granholm.

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I suppose I was sorta right -- the margins for victory were pretty identical. I still don't get the margin of victory being -so- large, but I'll take it. Bouchard couldn't even carry Oakland County. Oof!

It's notable that neither could call each other to concede. Both Bouchard and Stabenow claimed they just get each other's voicemail.