Payne: Rep. Gary Flipflop

Posted by hpayne on July 26, 2012

Mitt Romney has a reputation as a flip-flopper, but Michigan Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township-for-now, has perfected the art.

The 9th district Oakland County representative running for the new 14th District Democratic nomination in Detroit told the Detroit News editorial board this week that running in a more urban, liberal district hasn’t changed his message one bit. But the devil is in the flip-flops.

Running against conservative GOPer Rocky Raczkowski in the 2010 Congressional campaign, Peters took an aggressive stance against spending and bucked President Obama on his calls for another $50 billion ins stimulus money. He fashioned himself a champion of small business. Most notably, he opposed Obama’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire on taxpayers making over $250,000.

What a difference two years makes.

Today, Peters supports President Obama’s new, $450 million second stimulus gusher which makes the $50 mil proposal look like a small leak. And while the small business lobby, the National Federation for Independent Business, this year was the lead plaintiff in the historic Supreme Court suit against Obamacare’s individual mandate, Peters says he supports the bill.

And those Bush tax cuts? Peters now supports Obama’s call to end them for higher income earners (many of them small business owners). The only Michigan congressman to march with Occupy Detroit last fall, Peters sported a “We are the 99 Percent” button as he marched alongside his new union and activist friends in the very liberal 14th district.

Peters, a millionaire former financial advisor with Merril Lynch, wants to be whatever you want hi to be. It’s also a commentary on the Democratic field that Peters is the most qualified candidate for the job.

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