Moderate Republicans? Has Anyone Spotted A Live One In Congress Since Sherry Boehlert?

No friends of Darrell Issa's, the American Association of Letter Carriers endorsed Richard Hanna for reelection

Yes… Mark Pocan, the intensely progressive freshman from Wisconsin insists he knows a genuine moderate Republican. Richard Hanna (R-NY) defeated disappointing conservative Mike Arcuri in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010 to win back Boehlert's old upstate New York seat (Utica, Rome, Binghamton). The district-- now NY-22-- has a PVI of R+3 but was a 49-49% tie in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. Last year Hanna was reelected 61-39% and won all 8 counties in the district including blue Broome County. This year Hanna's 15.79 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is far worse than even the 3 most right-wing Democrats, John Barrow (20.87), Jim Matheson (24.35) and Ron Barber (25.00).

So what makes him a "moderate?" Well, he's one of only 6 Republicans in the House who refused to sign Grover Norquist's shrink the government and drown it pledge and he's a major supporter-- financially-- of Planned Parenthood… and voted against the GOP attempt to defund it. He also voted against their crazy attempt to defund NPR. At the same time, he's pretty bad on a wide range of issues that moderate cherish, like economic fairness and preserving the environment in a way that makes the planet habitable by humans.

Still he endorsed Jon Huntsman for president, was one iof only two Republicans to vote against shutting down the government over Obamacare (which he opposes) and he's voted against GOP attempts to gut abortion laws. He's also one of only two Republicans to back same sex marriage-- and the other one, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has one of the country's biggest LGBT communities in her district. He doesn't. And he joined the House LGBT Equality Caucus.

And that brings us to why Mark Pocan claims Hanna is a rare member of the nearly extinct breed of Republican moderates. Pocan and his husband got married in Toronto. Wisconsin doesn't recognize same-sex marriages. Mark sees him as an overall decent and caring guy. That counts for something. But when Hanna found out about how Mark's Canadian nuptials wouldn't be recognized in Wisconsin, he offered to have Mark and his husband, Philip, fly to New York where he could officiate over a wedding. OK, that doesn't sound like any of the Republicans I've gotten used to seeing parading across the TV spreading dissension and hatred. Still, to me, he sounds like a decent, mainstream conservative, not a reactionary, which is what most Republicans in Congress are today. Listen to these two clips, the first from 2 years ago and the second from a month ago: