He may not have graduated from Harvard Law School or the U.S Naval Academy, but this BGSU alumnus is running for the nation’s highest office too.

Joe Schriner, a 1978 BGSU graduate, has been on the campaign trail since 2000 and is running for president for the third time, with no plans on stopping his campaign for the 2012 election cycle.

He goes by the nickname ‘Average Joe’ and considers himself to be the common man running for president.

‘You know ‘Joe the Plumber,” Schriner said. ‘Well, I’m Joe the presidential candidate from Ohio.’

He said his reason for running is because he doesn’t want his children to inherit a world with the many problems of today.

‘I’m a concerned parent from the Midwest,’ Schriner said. ‘What I’m concerned about is mounting levels of violence, war, inner-city and third-world poverty, pollution, and etc.’

He said he knows his campaign is a long shot, but that this year he thinks his campaign could impact the election in a big way, after campaigning in all 88 counties in Ohio.

‘I think we will impact the vote in Ohio,’ Schriner said. ‘The story now is that McCain and Obama are in a dead heat in Ohio and if we can impact one or two percent of the vote then we can change the whole complexion of the race.’

Schriner said he is not concerned with being viewed as an election spoiler, like Ralph Nader was viewed as in the 2000 election.

‘I’m hopeful that this will make our campaign a national story, which will level the playing field in 2012,’ Schriner said.

A vote for ‘Average Joe’ is a vote that will really change America, Schriner said.

‘A vote for McCain or Obama is just like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,’ Schriner said. ‘Ours is about steering away from the iceberg.’

Drastic shifts in the way America spends its money need to be made in order to combat problems such as third world poverty, he said.

‘We currently give up four percent of our budget to the third world and 51 percent to our military,’ Schriner said. ‘Today in the third world, 24,000 people will starve to death. And so do we want to steer from the iceberg of world poverty, then we need to shift our percentages, like 25 percent to the third world and scale back on the military.’

While McCain and Obama have talked about phasing in alternative energy measures over time, Schriner said, that isn’t soon enough.

‘We believe what Mr. Gore was talking about on how [global warming] is an immediate and alarming threat,’ Schriner said. ‘We propose we go there practically over night. We are asking people to sacrifice a lot, like using no air conditioning. There was a time when people didn’t use it.’

The wind turbine technology in Bowling Green is something he would like to see all across America, he said.

‘Think, the wind turbines out there should be in farmer fields in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota,’ Schriner said. ‘The Great Plains are the Saudi Arabia of wind.’

He also applauded BGSU’s hybrid shuttle bus and said he has spoken across the country about BGSU’s model in hopes that other towns and universities will invest in the same technology.

Schriner is running as an independent and is a write-in candidate, with his running mate Dale Way.

Schriner graduated from BGSU with a degree in journalism and previously worked as a reporter at the Sandusky Register. Currently, he does some freelance journalism and handyman work to pay the bills.

He has never held any political office, but he said, ‘I’ve been a journalist for a number of years, I understand government.’

He currently lives in inner-city Cleveland with his wife Liz and his three children, Sarah, 13, Joseph, 11, and Jonathan, 5.

His family joins him on the road in their ‘White House or bust’ RV, which he has logged over 80,000 miles since he first ran in 2000.

If his time on the road does pay off and gets him into the White House, he said with a chuckle, ‘I would change the national symbol from an eagle to a falcon.’