"I am running for the United States Senate because I can no longer stand by while President Obama and his Democratic cronies in the Congress continue to mortgage America's future on the backs of our children and their children's children with a national debt so large it is difficult to comprehend," said the 55-year-old McCulloch in a press release today. "… This great country of ours desperately needs a change of direction, one that will lead to prosperity and economic stability, rather than financial ruin. "Debbie Stabenow has been with President Obama every step of the way. She voted for the huge, almost billion dollar stimulus package that was supposed to create jobs. But, according to a White House analysis, every job created cost $278,000."

Here's my comment in the Detroit News forums:

Regarding Mr. McCulloch's statement: "She voted for the huge, almost billion dollar stimulus package that was supposed to create jobs. But, according to a White House analysis, every job created cost $278,000." Without commenting on Mr. McCulloch's or Sen. Stabenow's qualifications, I'd just like to point out that Mr. McCulloch makes a MASSIVE error in this statement. The ARRA (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) of 2009 actually totalled $787 billion, and $288 billion of that (more than 1/3) was actually TAX CUTS, which Republicans insisted on, or other tax credits/incentives. If Mr. McCulloch really mean to use the word "billion dollar" figure, then he's off by a factor of 787, or 99.9% off. If Mr. McCulloch meant to say "almost trillion dollar" (which I assume is what he meant), then he's still off by over 21%, a pretty significant error (I've never heard of $79 being described as "almost $100"). If Mr. McCulloch was only referring to the parts of the stimulus bill that he, as a Republican, thought was bad (actual spending), then the total was only $499 billion, making him off by over 50% (or by a factor of 499, depending on whether his "billion" figure was a typo or not). As for the $278,000/job figure, if that's using the $787 billion total amount, then that means that the ARRA bill saved or created over 2.8 million jobs, which still sounds pretty impressive to me.

As for McCulloch's chances, well, on the one hand, anyone holding a county-level position in Oakland County is worth taking seriously (it's the 2nd largest county in Michigan, and the heart of a lot of money and power), and having powerful Oakland County Executive (and Republican) L. Brooks Patterson in his corner certainly won't hurt him.

On the other hand, 3 years ago, McCulloch came within less than a half a percent of being taken out by a Democrat named Brett Nicholson, which doesn't sound too eyebrow-raising unless you know that Nicholson was, at the time, a 21-year old college student who'd never ran for public office before, had absolutely zero experience in fluid dynamics, engineering, or anything else remotely related to running a water/sewer system, and raised no money and did virtually no campaigning to speak of.

Granted, McCulloch didn't do much campaigning/fundraising in 2008 either (because he never thought Nicholson would be a threat), but it's still noteworthy.