He criticizes conservatives who campaign on a hot-button agenda of "God, guns and gays" in order to divert the attention of voters from fundamental economic and foreign policy issues. He says "government is good and government is necessary" and condemns those who would dramatically downsize federal and state programs as "nihilists." He asks thoughtful questions about the Bush Administration's approach to the war in Iraq. He opposes the Bush Administration's push for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. And he proudly touts the backing he has received from the League of Conservation Voters and the United Auto Workers union.

Who is this guy, John Kerry? No, he's Joe Schwarz, the newly minted Republican nominee for an open House seat in a Michigan district that leans strongly enough in the party's favor to pretty much assure that he will win a ticket to Washington in November.

Schwarz calls himself a "mainstream Republican" or, when the 66-year-old physician is waxing ideological, a "traditional conservative" who respects both individual liberty and civic responsibility--as opposed to the current batch of neoconservatives and "extremists" who, he suggests, have warped the moniker beyond anything Barry Goldwater or even Ronald Reagan would have recognized. But in the shorthand parlance of the current political debate, Schwarz is best described as a moderate--some would even say liberal--Republican. In a party that has swung hard to the right in the past decade, that makes him a rarity. And winning a contested primary over several more-conservative candidates, as Schwarz did in early August, makes him downright remarkable--so much so that the beleaguered band of Republican moderates and mavericks in Congress is hailing his nomination as a sign that their fortunes have finally turned. Arizona Senator John McCain, who campaigned for Schwarz, went so far as to suggest that the Michigan Republican's election could ease the overall pattern of ideological polarization in Congress.

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