In a recent interview, President Obama told ‘TODAY’ Show host Matt Lauer, ‘when you actually look at the (health care) bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas…” Like it or not, Obama was correct, too many Republicans were pushing for big government health care takeovers.

And I’m not just talking about Mitt Romney’s failed experiment in Massachusetts, though that is the most prominent example. Across the nation, too many “nanny state” Republicans embraced the notion that government could — and should — impose individual mandates on its citizens (for our own good, of course).

Case in point, Kansas state senator Jim Barnett (R) — who currently has a slight lead in the race for the open Congressional seat in Kansas-1 — pushed for an “Obamacare-esque” bill in Kansas less than three years ago. Now, Barnett wants to go to Washington to, presumably, help grow government as a Republican.

SB 309, aka. “The Kansas Health Care Connector Act” or “BarnettCare” would have included an individual health care insurance mandate for all Kansans. It would also have imposed much harsher penalties for non-compliance than Obamacare, giving the state the power to withhold tax refunds and garnish wages up to $10,000 for those who failed to purchase insurance through the government exchange. BarnettCare would have also imposed massive new employer mandates. Barnett’s bill didn’t make it out of committee, a point which is both good and bad (the fact that it never came to a full floor vote has allowed him to pretend as if he never proposed it).

Open seats are rare, and thus, the Kansas-1 primary race includes numerous candidates. But it is essentially a two-person bid, with Barnett holding a slight lead over conservative favorite Tim Huelskamp in the polls (though Huelskamp leads in the money race). Huelskamp is essentially a conservative rock star who has earned the support of disparate groups and individuals such as The Club for Growth, Ron Paul, and Ken Blackwell — just to name a few.

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“Conservatism is America’s longest-dying political movement” claims R. Emmett Tyrrell in his newest book “After The Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road To Victory.” Yet, says the old warrior, it is also poised and fated to ultimately win the culture war.

As one would expect from the one and only RET, it’s quite a read.

He details the obituaries: the 1950s (when the movement was just coming together), 1964. 1974, 1992, 2006, and 2008. As long as conservatism has been growing, it has repeatedly been pronounced dead. Next he notes that just before 2006 it was the Liberals who were having obituaries written for them–in 1994, 2000, and 2004—a little noted fact.

But, as Bob quotes from the longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer, “every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” By the Bush years the pols were spending wildly and giving only lip service to true conservative principles. Some conservative media darlings were too often merely opportunists, mouthing our principles whilst looking for the next lucrative gig.

In its’ infancy, “conservatism” was but a small group of erudite and engaging intellectuals with a beef. It was far from a racket. It was a great cause focused squarely on limited government and personal liberty. Always this cause has been up against the statists, the so-called liberals (who are not, in fact, very liberal at all). So Tyrrell designates them Liberals–large L. And because said Liberals dominate our media and political culture, they have been in a great position to publicly declare our doom.

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In yet another admirable display of the right kind of Attorney General activism, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli has put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on notice that what she and the Democratic leadership are reportedly scheming to pass Health Care ‘reform’ is not only wrong — it’s unconstitutional.

3.18.10 KConPelosi

Amidst discussion and arguments surrounding health care reform, is the effect passage will have on the re-election of Democrats in the Fall. The health care reform legislation currently in front of Congress is so widely unpopular on both sides of the aisle that Democrats have taken up the idea for a process called, “deem and pass” to get health care reform passed through.

Deem and pass is a process by which House Democrats will be able to avoid taking recorded votes on the Senate health care bill. Given the political environment and discussion within the blogosphere and mainstream media, the motives behind enacting this process specifically for this bill are highly transparent.

In a letter to the Speaker, above, Cuccinelli wrote, “A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.” (He’s not exaggerating when he talks of the “magnitude” of this bill. It’s said to project up 2.5 trillion dollars in new spending).

“Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill.”

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During his campaign for Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli committed himself to acting with an aggressive conservative agenda. He promised voters that he would the office to aggressively fight governmental overregulation and interference wherever he could find it.

In other words, he pledged to use the office of Attorney General for good, rather than evil. After just over one month in office, he’s off to one hell of a start.

Last week, AG Cuccinelli boldly petitioned the EPA to convene a proceeding to reexamine their “Endangerment Finding” which claims that human activity has increased atmospheric greenhouse gases to a point that people’s lives are at risk. As such, they claim, the federal government must impose new caps on emissions and other climate protection policies in the energy sector.

Cuccinelli believes, rightly, that regulations based on the findings of the EPA in this sketchy case would be both legally questionable and detrimental to Virginia’s economy. (Much of the research that the EPA has based these findings upon has come from the questionable climate-gate materials). Accordingly, the AG also has petitioned a federal appeals court to review the EPA’s findings.

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