I got asked this in several places on another diary, so here's the answer in one easy bite (and then I can just link people to this if they ask in the future).
I consider myself a leftist because I believe that the Marxian concept of "surplus value" is essentially correct: capitalists are skimming money off labour that they don't really deserve. (I'm not talking about petty bourgeois who work hard right in their mom n' pop enterprise, but big capitalism, the shareholder style Edwards talked effectively about, where fat cats are collecting dividends forwarded to one of their luxury homes.)
I'm also a pragmatist, though, so instead of voting whatever party promises to nationalise major industries, make the economy sustainable and equitable, and guarantee a job, home, and health care to every citisen, I support Democrats. Just like a lot of you do, I'm sure, even though the Democrats don't live up to your every ideal.
I think, frankly, that I'm more pragmatic/realistic than a lot of Deaniacs and Naderites, who constantly proclaim that Democrats are "Republican Lite" (some of them sure are, but not as many as you guys claim) and seem to think that unabashed Nation style progressives could win the presidency or take a majority of the Congress.
My "maverick" positions are basically threefold:
(1) This one you probably know already: support for an interventionalist foreign policy aimed at promoting liberty and treating every oppressed human as deserving of rescue to the degree reasonably possible (not the degree convenient or easy).
(2) I want a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to first trimester abortions, but ban all others (except for special circumstances a review board would decide). I also think they should have left that comatose woman in Florida alive, as her family wants.
(3) I am for reparations for slavery, and increased funding for minority education and jobs programs, but not for affirmative action that humiliates blacks and passes the buck to later failure rather than early intervention.