What's this? Former Democratic PR guy flacking for Calley

Moon

In Lansing, people in the public relations business change jobs quicker than Michigan weather goes from sun to rain to snow.

Mostly young or middle-aged, the members of this capital corps go from one state government agency to another, or to a PR job at the Capitol. Or they go to work flacking for an outside agency or lobbying group. Or, if they’re lucky, they’ll latch onto a major election campaign.

Sometimes, the unintended consequences can be awkward.

Consider Jason Moon, who served as Michigan Democratic Party communications director (that’s a fancy title for a spokesman) from 2003-08. For five years, Moon wrote press releases and spoke in tune with then-chairman Mark Brewer’s stridently partisan Democratic message. It was a job that required Moon to engage in relentless negative action against the Republicans on a daily basis.

From there, Moon took a job as the public information officer for the state Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, where he engaged in far more low-key, bureaucratic subjects. When the office morphed into the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Moon took on the title of LARA communications specialist.

On Friday, that unassuming post unexpectedly led Moon to become the lead organizer/PR guy for an event featuring Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. Moon was on the move, trying to rustle up some press coverage for the Michigan GOP’s No. 2 man as Calley addressed the very un-Democratic subject of reducing business regulations while speaking at a roundtable discussion in Clinton Township.

Calley

Moon, who once wrote and said the most reprehensible things about other pro-business Republicans such as Dick DeVos and Mitt Romney, was now putting out press releases that said the Republican governor and lieutenant governor are successfully working to “eliminate the burdensome and unnecessary regulations hurting the state’s job providers” and they are focused on the effort to “continue to build on the (post-Granholm) comeback that we’ve started.”

Hey, for guys like Moon, it comes with the territory.