Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) has taken his parties leadership to task. In an interview with the Post-Standard editorial board, he had this to say:

I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history.

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We render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides. If all people do is go down there and join a team, and the team is invested in winning and you have something that looks very similar to the shirts and the skins, there’s not a lot of value there.

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I would say that the friends I have in the Democratic Party I find … much more congenial — a little less anger.

And these extremes are pushing moderates out of the Republican Party. Rep Steven LaTourette (R-OH) announced yesterday that he would be retiring from Congress after this term. The news was a shock to GOP leadership, especially Speaker John Boehner, which LaTourette had a close relationship with. LaTourette is also the most moderate Republican of the Ohio delegation.

One of the things that can be to blame for moderates being upset over GOP leadership is the lack of leading a country in dire times. Instead of taking up important issues, GOP leadership has decided to take up political issues:

And the decision by Majority Leader Eric Cantor to schedule several votes on abortion, reaffirming that the nation’s motto is, in fact, “In God We Trust” and other social issues has angered moderates for more than a year.

“Leadership told us that the ‘get out of town’ week messaging was ‘stop the tax hike.’ It baffles many of us that they would muddy that messaging by scheduling an abortion bill vote,” one Republican told Buzzfeed Friday of the decision to hold another abortion vote.

In the year and a half since Republicans retook the House, this has been the massive majority of their work. They have spent countless hours and voted 33 times on repealing part or all of the healthcare bill, knowing that it would never pass Senate or be veto proof.

In fact all the Republican leadership has done since retaking the House in January 2011 is work towards being re-elected in 2012. If that is the only goal of our leaders, then how can anything ever be done in Congress?

I wish these moderate Republicans well. They are needed members in a highly partisan political atmosphere. It’s time that moderates start retaking control and then maybe we can get our country back in order.