Windsor -- A fiscally conservative Dartmouth alumnus who has run several times for the Vermont Legislature has his eyes on a larger target this year.

Republican John MacGovern, 60, said yesterday he plans to challenge U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent running for a second term.

MacGovern, who has lived in Windsor for about a dozen years, said his major concerns are cutting the deficit and restoring the economy.

“I think one of the big items is the historic and crushing debt that we have built up and are leaving to be paid by future generations. That in and of itself is cause for great concern, and something has got to be done about it,” MacGovern said in a phone interview.

“We've got to take this seriously, or it won't take very much to have the United State look like Greece if we don't take action now,” he added.

MacGovern said he didn't want to attack Sanders, but also questioned his effectiveness in Congress.

“I think Bernie Sanders is clearly fighting hard for what he believes in, and that's to be commended, but I think his solutions are not always on, and I think he's not particularly effective,” MacGovern said.

A Sanders spokesman said the lawmaker would have no comment yesterday.

Sanders last week helped defeat a Republican-sponsored measure known as the Blunt amendment that would have allowed any employer to opt out of providing birth control coverage because of either religious or moral objections.

MacGovern said he would have supported it, and said, if anything, the measure didn't go far enough.

“The issue here is freedom of conscience in the United States. The idea that you have got the government mandating to religious organization to do things that violate their fundamental beliefs is extraordinary, and I oppose it strongly,” he said.

MacGovern, a 1980 Dartmouth graduate who majored in Chinese language and culture, serves as president of the Hanover Institute, an independent Dartmouth alumni group that has challenged some actions by the college trustees.

MacGovern, who is married to Fiona Blunden, has served on the Windsor Budget Committee and Development Review Board, and also has run at least three times for the state Legislature.

He finished fifth in 2010 in a race for Windsor County Senate, behind both the three Democratic incumbents who held their seats and former state Rep. Henry Holmes, a Bethel Republican.

Windsor County Republican Chairwoman Suzanne Butterfield said she is enthusiastically backing MacGovern's candidacy, saying he is a cerebral candidate and a good debater who will be able to spell out his conservative message.

“Bernie will have the ranting and John will have the ability to cut right through the meat and point out whatever he is trying to do to countermand Sanders,” she said.

Though he has fallen short in his Vermont legislative races, MacGovern served four terms as a Republican state representative in Massachusetts in the 1980s, and narrowly lost a race for U.S. Congress against a Democratic incumbent in 1990.

Sanders reported more than $2.9 million in his campaign war chest at the end of 2011, and MacGovern acknowledges that national Republicans wouldn't regard him as one of the top 10 races in the country “unless something dramatic happens.”

But he has launched a website -- http://johnmacgovern.com -- and let some Republicans know about his plans, and also said he “wants to give “the people of Vermont a choice, with a different direction on doing thing.”

“You sense in the Republican president race, the way things go up and down so quickly, this is a time when extraordinary things can happen,” MacGovern said.

John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com or (603) 727-3213.