Slowly but surely, it seems that the Republicans are getting a little bit of their mojo back.

How?  Simply by saying "no".  Because, when it comes to Obama's agenda, it seems that saying "no" is enough for Republicans to gain more support of the American people.

Some recent polling from Rasmussen tells the tale.

By a long-shot, the economy is the number one issue on people's minds, and they don't think Obama and the Democrat's are doing such a good job dealing with it.

Overwhelmingly, they think the government is spending (and borrowing) way too much money, and the national deficit and debt are looming larger in voter's minds.  Seventy-one percent agree that Obama's policies have driven up the deficit.

As for Obama's latest push for bigger government, so-called health care "reform", it would seem the Democrats aren't on the same page with voters.  Forty-eight percent rate the US healthcare system as "good" or "excellent", with only nineteen percent rating it as "poor" - hardly a cry for a radical overhaul of the system.

Over half the country now opposes the "reform" plan working its way through Congress...which seems to demonstrate that the harder Obama and Pelosi push for it, the more ground it loses.

Seventy-six percent of voters believe that it's at least "somewhat likely" that their taxes will be raised if Obama's healthcare "reform" becomes law, (at least fifty-nine percent are positive about it).

All of which helps explain the latest "generic ballot" poll, (asking voters which party they would support in the next congressional election), which showed Republicans leading Democrats by a margin of 43% to 38%.

In other words, being the "party of no", as Obama, Pelosi and Harry Reid have put it, hasn't exactly hurt the GOP.

This isn't to say that a party should always and only define itself by what it's against.  It shouldn't, and the GOP doesn't.  But don't blame the Republicans if Obama has given the American people so much to be against lately.

As the old saying goes, "make hay while the sun's shinning".  And you don't have to look any further than your local town-hall meeting to see that Obamacare is providing the warm sunshine needed to make plenty of hay for the GOP.  (The bailouts, the stimulus, and government takeovers of private enterprise continue to provide a warm glow as well)

Simply put, opposition to Obama's agenda is re-energizing the Republican Party, just as much as opposition to Bush and the Iraq War energized the Democrats, if not more so.

Yet oddly enough, while conservative Republicans seem to be undergoing a bit of a rebirth, at least in terms of enthusiasm, many of them are being set upon by others in the party.

Take Ohio Senator George Voinovich for example, who bemoaned the visibility of conservative southerners in the GOP, followed up by columnist Kathleen Parker, who spent the better part of the last year complaining about the ascendancy of cultural conservatives such as Sarah Palin.

In fact, Parker has written so often and so disparagingly of Palin, that one could almost be forgiven for mixing her up with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times.

Why is it that these people only tend to have problems with conservatives who take their cultural and traditional values seriously, or who think those values have something to do with our country's greatness?

What makes it worse is the things (and people) these quasi-Republicans seem to hold in such low esteem are exactly what's conspiring to bring the party back.

For months we were treated to endless stories about "who is the leader of the GOP?", or "who's going to lead?", which quite frankly is far less important than what the party stands for - and against.  And what it does to advance that agenda.

Leadership will take care of itself.  Right now, the grassroots are the leadership - and they're leading the party to say "no" to Obamaism.  What's more, they're bringing their friends and neighbors with them, and that's how you build a party.

Come 2012 the GOP will need a candidate that can clearly articulate a conservative alternative vision to the American people in contrast to the silver-tongued, teleprompter reliant Obama.

But between now and November 2010, "no" will do just fine.