What does a moderate look like?

This is a photo of Joe Schriner. He has no elected experience, a fact I dislike. However, he's the candidate I'll probably vote for, via write-in, in November 2008.

Simply put, this is the kind of moderate that a prior post bemoaned the lack of. He's staunchly pro-environment, pro-worker, and pro-consumer, positions few Republican senators endorse and even fewer vote for. But he also favors an amendment to the constitution to define marriage as one man and one woman, a position no Democratic senator favors.

He backs immigration reform that includes amnesty in name and in deed. He also wants a strong formal apology to all Native Americans, a land give-back, and the establishment of Native American History Month--positions far to the left of the Democratic Party. However, he also opposes abortion, euthanasia/physician assisted suicide, and embryonic stem-cell research that kills human embryos--a pretty far-Right set of beliefs. (Oh--and he opposes capital punishment, which virtually no one does nowadays.)

This mixture of positions, favoring neither one party nor another, is extremely close to my own. That's why, even though Joe has never even been a delegate in his home state, I'm (probably) going to Vote for Joe in Nov. 2008.