According to Precursor Group President Scott Cleland, of the 95 Democratic candidates who took a pledge to "protect network neutrality," none succeded in getting elected.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a PAC that has also been pushing for healthcare reform, against restrictions on abortion and in support of ads denouncing Rush Limbaugh, publicized the list in an e-mail to reporters on the eve of the election.
In a statement, the PAC's senior online campaign director, Jason Rosenbaum, said it had been the first time that congressional candidates had teamed up to make net neutrality a campaign issue.
"So the best available national proxy vote gauging political support for [that] vision of net neutrality lost unanimously 95-0," said Cleland, who is also chairman of NetCompetion.org, which promotes online competition over regulation with the backing of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, American Cable Association, Verizon and AT&T.
Adam Green, PCCC co-founder, says it was hardly a referendum on network neutrality, and says not sane political analsyt would agree with Cleland "that Tuesday's Democratic wipeout was a 'national referendum' on Net Neutrality -- or had anything to do with Net Neutrality. The only significant thing about Net Neutrality in 2010 is that 95 Democratic challengers felt confident enough to actively tell voters they support this pro-consumer position while zero candidates across the country felt confident enough to actively tell voters they opposed Net Neutrality for the obvious reason that opposing the free and open Internet would be a ridiculously stupid political move."
