I've been hearing conservative radio talking about this as a conservative issue, but I'm having a hard time swallowing it. Perhaps I just need to learn more about the position..
And I like that motto.
Read some of Clarence Thomas' writings on the Substanial Effects doctrine.
I see it as a States' Rights issues. So did the Prez the first time he ran.
It is a conservative issue in the sense that conservatives are against it.
Liberals, Libertarians, and anarchists are in favor.
Look up the Supreme Court's Wickard v. Filburn decision and the Aggregation Principle. In Wickard (a case which involved some farmer who was growing wheat for personal consumption in violation of FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act), the Court decided that the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause gave the federal government the authority to control activity that was neither commerce nor interstate. You heard that right--entirely intrastate, non-commercial activity could be controlled and even banned by the federal government, and--according to the New Deal Court--the authority for the feds to ban intrastate non-commercial activities can be found in the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
This was one of several important Court decisions during FDR's New Deal era that allowed for the massive growth of the federal government and the federal government's trumping of state sovereignty that conservatives supposedly now wish to roll back. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is currently defending the Wickard decision before the Supreme Court in the medical marijuana case, Raich v. Ashcroft. It's about the worst thing that Bush has done since he's been in office and a death blow to both federalism and conservatism, imho.
If Soros if funding it, it can't be a conservative issue.