Chris Ladd

Social conservatism based on the authoritarian imposition of sectarian religious values will fail and should fail. Social conservatism based on compassion, evidence, and the pursuit of humane values will be more modest in extent, but vastly more successful.

Chris Ladd is a center-right political pundit who ran his opinions on his popular political blog GOPLifer, now defunct as of October 10, 2016, after he resigned from the GOP, and now posts at Political Orphans along with others. Despite the title of his former blog he is not a wingnut and is actually consistently moderate in his views with his being critical of the GOP for their turn to religious fundamentalism, climate denial, and other hard-right positions. Naturally this has led him to being accused of being a "RINO" by more ultra-partisan Republicans.

He's also something of an endless source of amusing quotes.

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If you thought Benghazi was a legitimate scandal that reveals Obama’s real plans for America then you’re an idiot, but these next two years will be a (briefly) happy period for you

Ladd is (mostly) an older-styled commie "Jack Kemp guy" claiming to embrace the ideals of Teddy Roosevelt more than George W. Bush. As such he's actually aware that the Republican Party will not survive by drifting far to the right and actually urges them to return to more Nixonian ideas. He has, for instance, endorsed universal healthcare albeit through a " simpler, less bureaucratic alternative" to the Affordable Care Act as opposed to a single-payer system. He has endorsed drug legalization and moving away from the welfare state to a minimum income. He has also stated his support of gay marriage and, to a degree, abortion rights. His critiques of the modern Republican Party are, if anything, even harsher than what a lot of liberal pundits say, with Ladd outright accusing it of essentially being a white nationalist party. Ladd also has something of a seething hatred of modern right-wing pundits such as Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh.

That being said despite accusations of secretly being a liberal he does lean right, as seen by his hard-on over public sector unions and his general dislike of the Democratic Party, accusing it of existing pretty much entirely as an entity for patronage. In fact probably the weirdest idea he has going for him is apparently missing the memo about Bill Clinton shifting the Dems to the right in the 90's, leading to Ladd treating them like a -esque party. He's also occasionally drifted into some borderline wacky territory; such as accusing the Democrats' solutions to climate change of being akin to "strangling western economic development with artificial bureaucratic constraints", though he does also chew out the GOP for not believing in it at all with Ladd mostly endorsing (and keeping his fingers crossed for) technological advancements for dealing with global warming. While he does flog the "Obama's Jimmy Carter 2.0" horse he has also stated that he's basically considered the Republican candidates even worse. He also endorsed "regime change" in Iraq but was upset that Bush lied to do it and he does characterize the end result as ultimately a failure.

Ultimately your mileage may vary but at least you can usually see where he's coming from in many of his views. If you want to read more reasonable moderate (compared to the GOP at least) conservative opinions, he's probably one of your better choices.