Oakland County Republican Paul Welday is going to try to do something his former boss, ex-Rep. Joe Knollenberg couldn’t do: beat Democrat Gary Peters.

Welday announced Wednesday that he was mounting a campaign to unseat Peters in Michigan’s 9th District, which takes in suburban Detroit, including eastern Oakland County. Welday used to be the chief of staff for Knollenberg, an eight-term incumbent whom Peters upset in 2008.

“For over six years Michigan’s economy has been in the tank, and now America is feeling much the same pain we have become all too familiar with,” Welday said during an anti-tax Tea Party in Troy, Mich. “While we have been promised hope and change, what we are getting from our current congressman is grandstanding and massive deficit spending.”