Polls show Mr. Labastida running even with a moderate conservative, Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party or PAN (A leftist, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, is trailing).
The alternative is a McCain administration with a moderate conservative presiding over a divided government and generally inclined to resist a European social-democratic model of economic and social regulation featuring, for example, wealth-redistributing growth-killing marginal tax rates.
With 17.28 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Toledo had 36.7percentt, followed by former President Alan García, a leftist populist, with 25.8percentt and former Congresswoman Lourdes Flores, a moderate conservative, with 23.8percentt.
The new chairman has a reputation as a moderate conservative with no evident sympathies for Mr. Ahmadinejad's opponents.
Voters brought an end to the tumultuous Ford regime by electing Tory, a moderate conservative, with 40.3% of the votes, a victory margin of just under seven points.
Saudi analysts peg him as a "moderate conservative" with ties to all the competing factions within the country, from strict Islamists to liberal intellectuals pushing for political change.
If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, the court will return to a familiar dynamic, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate conservative, holding the decisive vote in many closely divided cases.
If Republicans are sly, they will play to Obama's vanity and begin bargaining with the White House about naming a moderate conservative who they will confirm.
The principal author of the decision, however, was Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate conservative who, along with Sandra Day O'Connor, voted in 1992 to uphold Roe v. Wade.
A vacancy would give President Obama his first chance to begin reshaping the court but would not likely change the dynamic on a bench that is often evenly split between the liberal and conservative blocs, with moderate conservative Justice Anthony M. Kennedy often holding the pivotal role.
Going back to lower-profile types of activism, engagement with moderate conservative officials (especially in the judiciary) and attempts to enter the local and national legislature are the most effective and least-costly options at the moment.
