"The amount of money Congress is about to approve simply will not support the mandates and timetables for aviation security that Congress set last fall for T.S.A.," he said.
The limited evidence also means that it was difficult to determine the extent of health systems support, for example, whether it was circumscribed to those activities that directly support the mandates of the GHIs, or whether they sought to support the health system more broadly.
Some even mused that Antonin Scalia, the court's most vocal conservative, might support the mandate; in 2005 he agreed that Congress could regulate the growing of marijuana for personal medical use.
Mr. Wilson, who supports the mandate, filled him in on the oral arguments before the court.
QUESTION FROM RACHEL: Your article shows Romney instinctively supporting the mandate and Obama instinctively opposing it!
But just a table away, Ronald Henderson, a financial planner who supports the mandate, grew distressed.
Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, who supported the mandate before he opposed it, shrugs off his party's change of heart.
Adam Winkler, a professor specialising in constitutional law at the University of California, who supports the mandate, said: "It is very difficult to predict.
(A CNN poll released Monday found that 52 percent supported the mandate, up from 44 percent in June, though unlike Kaiser, CNN did not explain that failure to comply would result in a fine).
Some other candidates have also opposed policies promoting ethanol, and even a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, who supports "the subsidy of ethanol," declined to say whether he supported the mandate — a different issue altogether from ethanol's major subsidy, which is slated to expire soon anyway.
"I think it is embedded in Virginia law," said Edwards, who supports the mandate.
