ICYMI: GOP Rep. Nan Hayworth, who was elected in 2010 with Tea Party support, but has moved steadily to the center ever since, continued her leftward drift when she bragged to our D.C. bureau’s Leslie Mayes about her habit of voting with President Obama.

Hayworth made this comment in response to a question about how she plans to appeal to Democrats and independents now that her district has been redrawn to be even less hospitable to a Republican than it already was. (Recall NY-19 has flipped three times – GOP-Dem-GOP – since John Hall ousted Sue Kelly in a squeaker of a race in 2006).

“I’ve been eager to work with Democratic colleagues and with the president all along,” Hayworth insisted.

“I’m one of the members of the House majority, who has voted most frequently – actually, about a third of the time I voted the way President Obama has also supported voting…So, I’m confident that I’ll be able to work successfully to make our Democratic voters feel well served.”

I wonder how House Speaker John Boehner feels about this, since he has gone out of his way to elevate Hayworth – a freshman vulnerable to losing her seat in a presidential election year in this Democrat-dominated state.

Hayworth dismissed the suggestion that D.C. is polarized and mired in gridlock due to partisanship as “a misconception that’s sometimes promoted in the media, adding: “We passed 30 bills last year with Democratic and Republican votes…there is cooperation here.”

In fact, she insisted, there’s “a lot more cooperation here than you might think.”

There are a number of Democrats fighting for party support to take on Hayworth in the old NY-19, which has been renamed NY-18 in the House special master map.

Until recently, the two main contenders for the Democratic line were Cortland Town Board member and cardiologist Richard Becker and Wappingers Falls Mayor Matt Alexander.

But last week, former Spitzer/Paterson aide Sean Patrick Maloney, who had been mulling a run for retiring Rep. Maurice Hinchey’s seat, added his name to the list when Hinchey’s NY-22 was eliminated.

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