Hoogendyk debates Levin: Conservatives win!

What exactly HAS the senior senator from Michigan done for us in the last three decades? That was Jack Hoogendyk’s question of Carl Levin during last night’s US Senate debate televised statewide on public television. And if you missed it you missed out. (And the AP has a recap for you.)

Jack is in an interesting position. No one is giving him a snowball’s chance in Carey Torrice’s workout room of pulling off this upset and polls have him down more than a point or two, but that may have been exactly what freed him up to go in front of the cameras with both guns blazing last night.

Levin’s been there for thirty years. What has he done, Jack asked. Levin was on the defensive.

Levin offered a broad defense of his longevity in the Senate, saying his seniority had allowed him to bring billions back to Michigan in special projects through the earmarking process that Hoogendyk derided as an abuse of the budget process. Hoogendyk said Levin had been ineffective, to boot.

“We still send a buck to Washington and only get 92 cents back,” he said. Levin said “I’ve been able to bring back a significant number of projects to this state that will help get this economy back on track.”

Of course that begs the question… exactly when is it going to get back on track, Senator? For six years we were the only state OFF the tracks and now that the rest of the nation is joining us the economic forecast doesn’t exactly look like peaches and cream. And Jack wasn’t done hammering. Even when Carl Levin attempted to launch a salvo, Hoogendyk, thanks maybe to the way “underdog” status can free a candidate’s lips in public, fired back with pinpoint accuracy and devastating efficiency.

http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2008/10/20/63956/991