Add U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wis., to the roster of Republicans hedging a bit on whether the party can repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Petri said Republicans don’t have to repeal the health care plan. They could effectively quash it by refusing to fund the initiatives as each one comes before Congress for authorization.

“The president can’t spend money unless it’s appropriated by the Congress,” he said.

As Open Congress’ Donny Shaw pointed out when U.S. Sen. John McCain. R-Ariz., argued for this strategy, “refusing to fund” is harder than it sounds — the president can veto appropriations bills just as easily as he can veto a “repeal” bill. And teeing up entitlement cuts for a Democratic president to veto — well, that’s a fight Democrats would enjoy.

The strategy also stands in stark contrast to the one advocated by U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who last week said repeal — that is, 100 percent repeal – is the only option for “Patriots, Constitutionalists, Federalists, fiscally responsibles, & Liberty lovers.”

For the first time in all my years of service to our great nation, and at great peril to my career and future, I am choosing to disobey what I believe are illegal orders, including an order to deploy to Afghanistan for my second tour of duty there. I will disobey my orders to deploy because I – and I believe all servicemen and women and the American people – deserve the truth about President Obama’s constitutional eligibility to the office of the presidency and the commander in chief.

And here’s the video, already up to 10,000 views.

Protesters gathered last week outside the Des Moines office of U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell trying unsuccessfully to convince the Democrat to vote against health care reform legislation (photo by Dave Davidson, www.TEApublican.com).

In Iowa, two of the three Republicans vying for the right to take on Democratic incumbent Gov. Chet Culver — Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts — promised that if elected challenging health care reform using the 10th Amendment would be a focus for their administration. Former Gov. Terry Branstad, the third candidate and the odds-on favorite to win the nomination, released a statement which didn’t go nearly as far as his rivals but still called potential legal challenges to provisions in the health care bill “both timely and appropriate.”

On the surface, conservative opposition to health care reform had dusted itself off and charged right back into the fight.

But beneath the headlines, press releases, petitions and donation drives that followed the historic vote, lawyers and legislators are less confident that health care reform can be repealed — much less that it can be repealed quickly. In Idaho and Tennessee, two states where state opt-outs of the federal mandate have passed (in Idaho, the legislation has even been signed by the governor), the people who will decide whether to challenge the bill are treading more carefully than the rhetoric suggests.

“Everybody needs to take a deep breath,” said Bob Cooper, a spokesman for Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. “This bill is a few thousand pages long. We need some time to review it. We need time to see whether or not it impinges on rights, how so, and whether we can bring a case that has merit. There are serious sanctions for attorneys who file frivolous lawsuits.”

Mae Beavers, a Republican state senator in Tennessee, was also cautious about how to proceed with a health care challenge. Her Tennessee Health Freedom Act sailed through the upper house, becoming a model for pre-emptive opt-out bills in other states. And while she expects a companion bill to move through the lower house, the possibility of an immediate challenge to the reform bill seemed remote.

“Our legislation says that whenever the national health care would start, our citizens will have a choice,” said Beavers. “I assume it would take a while to put together.”

The problem with a challenge, say conservatives, is that the mandate for health care — an idea with origins on the right that has become anathema ever since its implementation in Massachusetts — will not take effect until 2014. Whether attorneys general can successfully challenge the mandate until then is unclear. Thomas Woods, a conservative scholar who is putting the finishing touches on a book about nullification, suggested that challenges to the mandate will be fruitless, working their way through a legal system that has no great record of repealing major legislation.

“If states file legal challenges, who do they file them with?,” Woods asked. “The federal courts. I wouldn’t even go to the legal level. From my point of view nullification is a way to announce to the government that your state is ready to engage in civil disobedience. It boils down to this: We are confident that obeying the will of the people means not enforcing this mandate. So what are you going to do now?”

Nullification, however, is itself unconstitutional, according to U.S. Supreme Court historian and University of Texas law professor Lucas Powe.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution declares federal law the supreme law of the land, Powe told the Texas Tribune, and nullification is typically advocated by only two groups of people: “Nutcases, which is much more typical, and people who are losing at the federal level and resent the fact that they are losing,” Powe said, adding, “If you believe in nullification, you don’t believe in the constitution.”

Michael Boldin, the president of the Tenth Amendment Center — founded in 2009 to organize for such fights on behalf of state sovereignty — said in an interview that legal challenges of any kind were the “first step” to opposing health care reform. But he envisioned the resistance to the mandate taking a more low-key form: Simple, persistent disobedience.

“If I were to reduce this whole thing down to one word,” Boldin said, “I’d say: Marijuana. Look at medical marijuana in California. California passed a medical marijuana law and the federal government said it couldn’t do so, under the supremacy clause. But people continued to disobey laws and it cost more money to enforce them then to ignore them.”

As difficult as a repeal of health care reform would be, as realistic as the disobedience plan may sound to some, neither approach to the issue satisfies the high-level legal groups, pundits and politicians who have campaigned against reform. Prior to the health care vote, on the Friday episode of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck showed Sarah Palin a map of states with opt-out bills in the works — many of them dominated by Democrats, where the legislation has no chance of success.

“These are all the states that are saying, ‘No health care for us. Get your health care bill away from us,’” Beck said. “What do you think of this solution as a former governor?”

“Let’s be thankful for… those governors who want to lead their citizens to have their voice heard with this ObamaCare scheme coming down the pike,” said Palin. “That’s abhorrent. It’s unacceptable. And legal tools must be used.”

Beck and Palin were only slightly ahead of the curve — the final 72 hours of the debate saw surge in the number of Republican politicians promising constituents that health care reform could be stopped at the courts.At Saturday’s “Code Red” rally in front of the Capitol, Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., a candidate for governor of Tennessee, promised activists he’d meet federal regulators “at the state line” if elected. On Sunday, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., a candidate for governor of Michigan, raised the possibility of blocking reform “at the ballot box” or “in the courts.” On Monday, Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio endorsed Attorney General McCollum’s potential lawsuit — on a mid-afternoon Fox News appearance, former Florida  Republica Gov. Jeb Bush praised Rubio and chided his rival, Florida’s current Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, for not backing the suit.

Conservative legal groups have taken much the same tack. Last week, the Landmark Legal Foundation — nominally run by conservative author and radio host Mark Levin — prepared a draft legal brief challenging any health care bill that the House “deemed passed” without a vote. Because the House held a full vote on the bill, the foundation scrapped that brief and, according to vice president Eric Christiansen, moved on to assisting attorneys general with whatever they decided to do.

The American Center for Law and Justice is the first conservative legal group (that I’ve seen, at least) to pivot to a full-out repeal campaign.

From their fundraising/petition building appeal:

Now that it’s been approved, the focus turns to challenging this measure in the courts.  The ACLJ is embarking on a massive litigation strategy and will work aggressively to challenge the constitutionality of this pro-abortion package. The battle is far from over when it comes to health care!  Make your voice heard in the courts — join our legal challenge today by reading the form below carefully and declaring your membership with the ACLJ by adding your name to our Constitutional Committee to Challenge the President and Congress on Health Care, which will be represented in amicus briefs filed in all the key challenges.

That comes via Sarah Posner. Meanwhile, the Landmark Legal Foundation — they had put together a draft lawsuit to file in case Democrats deemed health care reform passed without a vote — tells me it’s reaching out to state attorneys general to offer help on potential lawsuits. ]]> http://iowaindependent.com/30296/conservative-legal-group-fundraises-for-health-reform-repeal-campaign/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/30181/nervous-tea-partiers-see-possible-democratic-win-on-health-care http://iowaindependent.com/30181/nervous-tea-partiers-see-possible-democratic-win-on-health-care#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:22:48 +0000 David Weigel http://iowaindependent.com/?p=30181 Might as well not even be here,” grumbled Georgia Holliday. “I can’t believe that Dick Armey screwed up like this!”

Demonstrators at Tuesday's rally in Washington, D.C. (Photo by David Weigel).

Holliday was not alone. Having traveled into the city from the suburbs for the 10 a.m. “Code Red” rally on the U.S. Capitol grounds, she got more and more annoyed that she couldn’t hear any of the speakers. (She was also annoyed at the wrong Tea Party activist — the Code Red rally was sponsored by a coalition of Tea Party groups, while a different, 9 a.m. rally had been organized by Armey’s FreedomWorks.)

As U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, waved a copy the massive Senate version health care bill — “I brought an abortion to show you!” — Holliday winced and chanted her disapproval.

“Kill the bill!” she said. “Kill the bill! And get us a PA system!”

The Code Red rally was small, drawing around 300 people into a noisy circle. So was the FreedomWorks “People’s Surge,” which sent Tea Party activists onto Capitol Hall to seek out one-on-one meetings with members of Congress whose votes could decide the fate of health care reform. Both events were mocked for their size, by Democrats and liberal groups that had grown used to explosive media coverage of the conservative movement.

“I’ve been to birthday parties that drew more people,” sneered DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan in an e-mail to Politico’s Ben Smith.

If the relative fizzle fazed Tea Party organizers — FreedomWorks had hoped for closer to 2,500 activists — they didn’t show it. Rob Jordan of FreedomWorks told smug Democrats to wait for election day: “You can count on people showing up.”

Libertarian and conservative blogs reported larger Tea Party protests happening in Michigan and San Diego.

But the smallish numbers of the March 16 Tea Party push amplified the new attitude coming from politicians and activists: pessimism. Slightly over a year since the start of the movement, Tea Party activists were, for the first time, contemplating a major legislative victory for President Barack Obama and the Democrats — the final passage of health care reform. While many held out hope that plans to pass the Senate’s version of reform in the House would stall out, others pondered their next steps.

Some, like Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, took a dark view of what might come.

“Right now, they’re civil, because they think they have a chance of stopping this bill,” King said to reporters, waving his arm at a pack of “People’s Surge” activists forming a line to enter the Cannon House Office Building. “The reason we don’t have violence in this country like they do in dictatorships is because we have votes, and our leaders listen to their constituents. Now we’re in a situation where the leaders are defying the people!”

Later, King would expand on those remarks and speculate on a possible anti-Washington revolt in which Tea Parties would “fill the streets” of the capital.

Few Tea Party activists were as pessimistic as King. All agreed that the determination of Democrats to pass a bill — post-September 12, post-Massachusetts special election — was getting harder to overcome.

“Nothing they do surprises me!” said an exasperated Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express. “Nancy Pelosi has said, ‘If we can’t get through the fence, we’ll go over it; if we can’t go over the fence, we’ll catapult over it; if we can’t catapult over it, we’ll parachute over it.’ So, basically, they’ll do whatever it takes. Just a total disregard for what the American people want.”

Activists spent the day — they plan on spending most of this month — trying to convey just what it is they say Americans want. Those who arrived in D.C. on Tuesday morning were handed thick packets of advice on how to lobby members, and who needed their attention. Those who couldn’t make it there could pick up other guidelines at a small “war room” set up at a hotel a few blocks south of the Capitol. In all cases, activists were given advice on how to complement the phone calls and faxes that were coming to targeted representatives from, largely, Americans who didn’t live in their districts. A white sketchpad in the war room ran down a few possible responses to members who blanched at talking to the activists.

“If you are not a constituent and they don’t want to talk to you,” advised war room organizers, “ask — ‘If you won’t talk to someone from outside of your district are you ready or willing to pledge not to take money from donors outside of your district?’ Or — ‘If I gave you a donation, would you talk to me?’”

The lobbying had mixed results. A group of activists from Georgia said they were trying to lobby Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., who has said he’d vote “no” on the Senate bill, after a difficult time lobbying Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., who has said he’d vote yes.

“We spent an hour with him,” grimaced Kathryn Jackson, a retired hospital worker from Fortson, Ga. She pointed to a lamppost. “It was about as useful as talking to that, right there.”

Kathy Ropte — like Jackson, a member of the Harris County, Ga., Tea Party, had started to move beyond lobbying. As cameras snapped away, she stood in front of the Cannon Building and announced the termination, “to take effect in November,” of pro-health care reform members. One activist chided her for the display, which included a massive sign reading “Waterboard Congress.” Jackson didn’t care. She was in the fight, whether or not health care reform passed.

“One day I turned off American Idol,” Ropte said, “and I turned on Fox News. Before this year I’d never voted in my life.”

Of the activists who were interviewed, none were ready to give up on opposing health care reform if the bill passed. Some, however, were looking to other potential fights. Jane, a Montgomery County, Md., activist who declined to give her last name (”my kids don’t want to see it show up in the paper!”) suggested that a health care win would free up President Obama to give amnesty to undocumented immigrants, possibly by an executive order.

Susan Clark, whose sign compared the health care bill to the notorious Tuskegee Experiment, suggested that passage would bring Democrats a step closer to enforcing a new “slavery” over Americans. But most activists who pondered the aftermath of health care reform’s passage said they would fight on, looking for ways to roll it back. Susan Birch, a Chester County, Penn., activist, sported a button for insurgent Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Sam Rohrer because he was pledging to make the governor’s office “the front line” against government expansion.

“Whatever Congress does,” said Birch, “you’re going to see the 10th Amendment invoked to stop it.”

The thought of a post-vote backlash — electoral and legal — was the cheeriest thought of the day.

“I’ve got a standing bet with [Rep.] Jason Altmire [D-Penn.],” said Henry Hill, a retired police officer and member of the Pittsburgh Tea Party. “A case of Yuengling says that the mandate will not go through the Supreme Court.”

“These members of Congress cannot reject you if you come here and look them in eye,” says King.

To some extent, this round of activism is kabuki for the cameras — all of the action is inside the Democratic caucus as wavering members are convinced to vote for the Senate bill. The “town hall” theme is meant to remind members what they’ll face when they come to their districts, but if those raucous responses came as surprises last year, they’re pretty rote now.

Medicine Hat News, a a daily newspaper published in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, reports on a speech potential 2012 candidate and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave in Calgary, where a folksy monologue took a shocking turn — an admission about how her family received health care.

We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic.

Palin, born in Idaho, lived in Wasilla, Alaska, for most of her life. The nearest city in Canada is Whitehorse, a 15-hour drive away.  I definitely want to hear more about this.

UPDATE: I just checked my copy of “Going Rogue” and recall now that Palin spent the first few years of her life, up to age 6, in Skagway, a remote town in gold rush country only a few rough hours from Whitehorse. But it’s about as far from Skagway to Juneau, so the question remains why the family “hustled” to a country with single-payer coverage.

UPDATE: The Calgary Herald has a fuller, slightly different version of the quote.

My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.

Palin was born in 1964. The Medical Care Act that established the national health care system in Canada was passed in 1966.

UPDATE: The Washington Post points out that Palin told a different version of the same story once before, according to a 2007 report posted by the Skagway News. In that telling, she and her family by ferry to Juneau, Alaska, from Skagway for treatment of her brother’s burned foot. ]]> http://iowaindependent.com/29455/palin-growing-up-i-%e2%80%98hustled-over-the-border%e2%80%99-for-health-care/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/29410/romney-%e2%80%98climate-change-is-occurring%e2%80%99 http://iowaindependent.com/29410/romney-%e2%80%98climate-change-is-occurring%e2%80%99#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:30:37 +0000 David Weigel http://iowaindependent.com/?p=29410

Skepticism about man-made climate change — once seen as a fairly fringe belief, now a pretty big topic of political debate — is increasingly the norm among Republican voters. A December 2009 Ipsos/McClatchy poll found only 57 percent of GOP voters saying climate change was happening at all, and a 42 percent minority chalking it up to human activity.

In his latest book, “No Apology,” Mitt Romney sets himself up in the shrinking “climate change is happening but we don’t need a carbon tax” camp.

I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor.

Again, this issue is evolving so fast — with people like Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., becoming Tea Party folk heroes, national sites like Pajamas Media demanding that Al Gore return his Academy Award, and local blogs along with county parties openly mocking the idea of climate change — that by the time Iowa Caucus-goers turn out in 2012, Romney might be in the deep minority of GOPers. ]]> http://iowaindependent.com/29410/romney-%e2%80%98climate-change-is-occurring%e2%80%99/feed 1 http://iowaindependent.com/29361/romney-tries-to-fill-gop-national-security-void http://iowaindependent.com/29361/romney-tries-to-fill-gop-national-security-void#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:19:20 +0000 David Weigel http://iowaindependent.com/?p=29361 U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., effectively clinched the 2008 Republican presidential nomination in the 10 days between the South Carolina and Florida primaries. Up against a wall, with polls showing Mitt Romney moving up as Rudy Giuliani faded, McCain unleashed a new attack. Romney, he said, had given up on the Iraq War.

Former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney (file photo).

Romney had wanted to “surrender and wave a white flag” and “set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster,” McCain said at the time. Thrown off his message, Romney stopped talking about the economy and tried — in vain — to get McCain to back off. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist endorsed McCain, the senator won his state’s primary by 5 points, and within two weeks Romney would drop out of the race.

Romney won’t be caught in that position again. That’s at least some of the rationale for “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” a book he is launching with a national tour, a round of media sit-downs, and a series of speeches. The title — which Romney credits to an aide after he had spent “at least six months trying” to think of one — is a knock on President Barack Obama for purportedly conducting an “American Apology Tour” in other countries. For roughly 100 pages, Romney lays out a vision for American foreign policy defined against Obama’s “radical reworking of American and Western leadership” — and what Romney characterizes as Obama’s view that “America is in a state of inevitable decline.”

For a politician whose every action points at a 2012 White House bid, it’s a bold move. As unemployment hovers near 10 percent and health care reform trudges through Congress, support for Obama’s approach to foreign policy has been a source of strength. Polling released in January and February found approval of Obama’s handling of terrorism in the 50s, even after a thwarted airplane terror attack on Christmas Day 2009. A Gallup poll released last month found support for Obama on foreign policy at 51 percent, 15 points higher than support for the president’s domestic record. A Franklin & Marshall poll released last week found the same thing, with 57 percent of Americans backing the president’s approach to Afghanistan and a slight majority backing his overall foreign policy. The president and his party are more vulnerable on economic issues, which Romney, a self-made multimillionaire, has a unique ability to speak out on. Instead, he’s opted to challenge Obama on his foreign policy strength.

“It’s a good juxtaposition,” said Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Republican Party in Romney’s first home state of Michigan. “Obama has said he kind of wants to create this new world order. It’s been a year since his worldwide tour, and we haven’t seen many successes — potential adversaries are taking advantage of our perceieved weaknesses.”

Romney’s focus takes advantage of several developments in Republican Party politics. Despite Obama’s popularity on national security, one of the surest ways to draw standing ovations in conservative crowds is to call the president out for weakness, apology, “abandoning our allies” or “giving civil rights to terrorists” — points Romney made in his speech to CPAC and makes again in “No Apology.” And as Republicans look toward possible presidential candidates for 2012, the current field lacks any contenders with the built-in national security credibility of McCain. Some Republican strategists and conservative activists say that opens the door for any candidate to win over veterans and national security-minded voters by speaking out first and taking a hammer to Barack Obama.

“There are really no divisions between Republicans on national security,” said Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain campaign strategist who now works with Liz Cheney’s Keep America First. “There will be events we can’t predict, so you’ll see the candidates take different positions. I think you saw that in 2008. Everybody’s for keeping Gitmo open, so Romney will say ‘double it.’”

During Romney’s 2008 run, tactics like that couldn’t quite win over the GOP’s national security voters. In exit polling of the Florida primary, for example, 44 percent of Republicans called McCain “most ready to be commander-in-chief.” The 27 percent of primary voters who’d served in the military backed McCain by seven points over Romney; those with no service record backed him by only three points.

But no candidate on the 2012 horizon has a record like McCain’s — or any military record to speak of. Among the dozen candidates seen as most likely to jump into the race, politicians whose names have appeared on straw polls or who have been invited to address GOP dinners, none served in the military.

“If you’re gonna run for president you just have to make clear what your foriegn policy stances are,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and a Fred Thompson backer in 2008 who eventually switched to Romney. “It may have more to do with views and ability than with whether you were a corporal or private in the military. Perhaps what [Romney] wants to do is check that box on his resume. Everybody has to check that box.”

The way that Romney checks that box in “No Apology” is illustrative, with positions inspired by neoconservative thinkers — Fred Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, Thomas P. Barnett – cited throughout the text. America, argues Romney, is one of four competitors with “distinct strategies for twenty-first-century world leadership,” with the others being China, Russia, and “the jihadists.” Romney sees the first two rivals increasing their military power in a way that might cut America out of their spheres of influence. Were China, for example, to “become capable of declawing America’s military in Asia, they will gain freedom of action to do whatever they choose in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.’”

The solution to this is more military spending: Romney calls it “inexplicable and inexcusable” that the 2009 stimulus package “devoted almost no funding” to defense. In other sections of the book, as in his speeches, Romney argues that President Obama is creating mounting crises by not dealing aggressively with critics of American power. “The day is coming,” he writes, “when [Venezuelan President] Chavez announces a ‘peaceful’ nuclear program organized and supported by the mullahs in Iran.”

These, said Republican strategists, are arguments that will build up Romney’s commander-in-chief credentials in the possible 2012 field. Possible candidates like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, they said, hadn’t focused on national security to the same extent. Only supporters of Newt Gingrich suggested that their candidate could get a jump on Romney, pointing out in an interview that the former speaker of the House is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Professor at the National Defense University and a co-chair of the UN Task Force, and has held other educational or ceremonial defense positions. But no one argued that Romney was staking an early claim on the GOP’s national security vote.

“By articulating it early,” said Anuzis, “by making a strong case early, he establishes his credentials — even if they are theoretical and political.”

At the same time, liberals who look at the foreign policy polling data are skeptical that Republicans have so many openings on President Obama’s national security record.

“There is a large sub-group of the Republican base for whom this is absolutely a winning argument,” said Heather Hurlburt, a Clinton administration veteran who now leads the National Security Network. “There’s a larger swath of moderates/independents — maybe as much as a third of the electorate — for whom national security is a ‘threshold issue.’ They aren’t — consciously — voting on national security issues. But they can’t really take in a candidate’s pitch on jobs, healthcare, values, whatever, if they haven’t first been convinced that the candidate will keep them safe and shares a baseline understanding of the threats we face. The ‘06 and ‘08 elections — and Obama’s ratings on national security and foreign policy — show that these people can be quite receptive to international approaches that start with diplomacy, engagement, cooperation and persuasion — as long as they believe that strength will be used when necessary.”

Some conservatives agreed, saying that whether a candidate like Romney can ride this message to success in 2012 — not just primary victories, but the White House — depends on what Obama does. David Frum, the former Bush administration speechwriter who now runs the Frum Forum website, wondered whether Obama was benefiting from a “benefit of the doubt bump.” It would take a while to sort out whether Romney’s play for national security cred was working.

“He’s got a theme and a tone,” said Frum, “but not a message.”

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

“We’ve just been so consumed with the health care issue,” said Jennifer Hulsey, a Georgia-based leader of the American Grassroots coalition. “People are only now starting to take a stand on this.”

After a slow weekend, Hulsey said the group only developed a position on Bunning’s blockade during a Tuesday night conference call, shortly after Bunning relented. Other conservative activists and Tea Party groups also took their time in responding — but in the end, most of them got behind Bunning. What Democrats saw as a perfect opportunity to turn American opinion against Republican obstructionism in the Senate became, with only a few exceptions, an opportunity for conservatives to endorse a slowdown of Senate business. Late Tuesday, when Bunning announced a hold on all pending nominations, activists were confident that Democrats would blink first in a conflict that the majority party could have ended on day one, had they been honest about what they were doing and willing to invoke cloture.

“Sen. Jim Bunning has taken a courageous stand, to hold the Democrats — in fact, all of us — accountable for the the things we say we believe,” said U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Bunning, argued DeMint, was making a point about Democratic hypocrisy on “pay-as-you-go” rules, and Democrats were spinning unfair scare stories about Americans left without unemployment benefits.

“I admire the courage of the junior senator from Kentucky,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., who in his role leading the National Republican Senatorial Committee is tasked with electing a Republican to replace the retiring Bunning. “It’s not fun to be accused of having no compassion for the people who are out of work.”

The conservative enthusiasm for Bunning echoed in his state, where he was once so unpopular that Republicans not-so-quietly urged him to step aside. All three of the Republicans seeking to replace Bunning endorsed his stance, starting with frontrunner Rand Paul. At a rally in Lexington, pro-Bunning activists stood with Paul and chanted “Pay Go, Pay Go.” That chant revealed how, after a fitful start, Bunning’s explanation for his blockade — he is not opposing all aid, just that which would add to the deficit — had trickled down to the conservative base.

Like the Tea Party organizers, Democrats and liberal activists didn’t anticipate Bunning’s blockade. But unlike their opposites on the right, they had been looking for a fight to demonstrate how Republicans are gumming up their legislation. And in the search for a villain, Bunning seemed to come from central casting. Never a fan of political etiquitte, Bunning responded to a criticism from freshman Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., with a crisp insult: “Tough shit.” When ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl attempted to buttonhole Bunning with questions, the senator made a rude gesture and physically prevented him from entering an elevator.

“We need this to end,” wrote Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in a column for the Huffington Post. “Debate big differences. Disagree. Use the filibuster when big matters of principle hang in the balance — and sometimes they do. But at the end of the day, Washington has to function — people are counting on it.”

Conservative activists hesitated in responding to that spin. But by Tuesday, when the stunt was reaching an end after four days, the smart take was that Democrats were intentionally letting Bunning act out in order to make a political point. Conservatives like Erick Erickson of RedState took obvious delight in being pilloried by liberal organizations like Media Matters when they spoke out for Bunning. In a series of blog posts, Erickson argued that Democrats could have stopped Bunning’s filibuster on day one, but had instead sparked an ideological argument that conservatives should be happy to have.

“Reid is doing this for a photo op,” Erickson said in an interview, arguing that the majority leader was misleading voters by letting Bunning’s stand be portrayed as a filibuster. “He has the votes. It’s just one senator [who] said he will not go along with unanimous consent without knowing where the money is coming from.”

By the time Bunning abandoned his quest, that was conventional wisdom among conservatives.

“Liberals think they have discovered a winning issue – conservative obstructionism,” wrote conservative activist Gary Bauer in a daily e-mail message to supporters. “Today, all three major networks tuned in to the Senate’s proceedings to broadcast live coverage of Senator Bunning blocking the $10 billion ‘emergency’ spending bill. This one appropriation is not newsworthy, but the Left thinks Bunning is making its case as to why socialized medicine must be passed using budget reconciliation rules. This is a perfect example of how the media distort what conservatives in Washington are doing and how they manipulate the news.”

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the furor over Bunning was the latest in a line of liberal campaigns to make conservatives like Rush Limbaugh the face of obstructionism, and the reason that Democrats couldn’t get bills through the Senate.

“For all the talk of Obama as some kind of messiah, I see a bunch of guys trying to score junior high school tactical wins,” said Norquist. “They keep setting up cheap shots against these straw men. If setting up a phony fight with Limbaugh didn’t work, you think a fight with Jim Bunning will? Who’s Jim Bunning? You have to explain this to voters who haven’t even heard of him.”

Not everyone in the grassroots, given some time to watch the strategy, agreed with Bunning.

“He comes across as a hardass, don’t you think?” mused Robin Stublen, a Florida Tea Party activist who’s often critical of Republican efforts to court the movement. “Some of his argument was legitimate. Some of it was grandstanding.”

That kind of criticism, however, was a distinct minority.

“Some weak-willed Republicans don’t want the GOP to be cast as the heartless Scrooges taking away ‘temporary’ unemployment benefits that have become enshrined permanently,” wrote conservative blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin. “If Republicans can’t stand up and question the permanent Nanny State and can’t point out the unintended consequences of liberal intentions without folding like card tables, what good are they?”

“I’m glad someone up there is finally asking the question, how are we going to pay for this?” said Judson Phillips, whose Tea Party Nation group sponsored the National Tea Party Convention. “In my family, when our income is down, that is the first question we ask. I don’t care how important the spending is. That question must be answered.”