35. Peter King

Long Island’s favorite Republican Congressman—and the only remaining one so far—Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) went north to New Hampshire last fall to announce that he’s running for president in 2016. He can be forgiven that trip to New England because we all know he never forgets his district on the South Shore. When all was said and done, King may not have made much headway with the Tea Party base of the GOP, but he deserves respect for standing up for that rare breed, a GOP moderate, when the rest of the political world is racing to embrace the extremes. In King’s mind, the isolationist views of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas—the presumed GOP frontrunners (sorry, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie)—are beyond the pale. King has shown repeatedly over the years that he’s not averse to government spending when it can help his constituents. As a member of the Homeland Security Committee and chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, he has never been shy about protecting our country from outside threats, even if his rather mercurial definition of Islamic extremism has risked alienating a broad base of those in his own backyard who’d otherwise be his loyal supporters. But King always comes out swinging, whether in the ring at his favorite boxing gym on Long Island or in the chambers of Capitol Hill.