I suppose one way to gauge popular opinions to the ACA challenge would be to see how Lopez, Boerne, Raich, etc were perceived at various stages. I know the public defender (whom I tried to track down in Texas a few years ago) that represented Lopez apparently pursued an argument no one thought would win. There weren’t any blogs back then. But surely some law review articles existed. Same for a case like Boerne v. Flores. Blogs were around during Raich so that may be easier.