BuzzFeed reports:
Contributions to Republican candidates reached a “historic scale” in the hours after the decision, said Rob Saliterman, the account executive at Google who focuses on selling search ads to Republican campaigns.
“The healthcare decision was a great example of an offline event leading people to go online and search for more information, and then to take an immediate online action,” said Saliterman, a former aide to George W. Bush. “Search advertising empowered campaigns at all levels to instantly and efficiently convert grassroots energy into fundraising dollars at a historic scale.”
The core of that appeal is that the only way to stop legislation that some Republicans see as a dangerous expansion of government is through the ballot box. Mitt Romney’s message that “you need to replace Obama to repeal ObamaCare,” drove more than $5.5 million to the Romney campaign in online donations in the 36 hours after the ruling — a huge surge for a candidate who had struggled to connect with small donors.
That message may be particularly effective in the Senate campaigns whose outcome will determine the majority of that body. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Sunday that because the individual mandate was considered by the Court to be a tax, that the upper chamber could use reconciliation to repeal the bill — an expedited consideration that is not subject to filibuster, meaning they’d only need 51 votes.
Democratic Representative Henry Waxman said the very same thing as McConnell did, giving Republicans even more reason to vote for Romney and to support Republican House and Senate candidates.
Republicans must flip four seats in the Senate to take control, they already control the House of Representatives and replacing Obama with Romney would give Republicans their chance to fully repeal Obamacare.
