Obama got on the Intertubes this morning and said this:

For those not wanting to watch or listen, he basically called for a strict policy of so-called net neutrality and formally opposed any deals in which content providers like Netflix would pay huge sums to broadband companies for faster access to their customers.  (Net Neutrality, according to Wikipedia, is “the principle that Internet Service Providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.” )

Net neutrality is very big among progressives and young people (including young conservatives).  To ensure net neutrality, you need government regulation.  Which conservatives don’t like.

This put Republicans in a quandary about how to respond.  Check out Ted Cruz’s reaction (via Colin Campbell of Business Insider):

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came out swinging after President Barack Obama wholeheartedly endorsed new internet regulations Monday morning.

Cruz, who is mulling a run for president in 2016, compared the entire concept of “net neutrality” — which posits that internet companies should not be allowed to speed or slow down their services for certain users — to Obama’s much-maligned healthcare reform.

‘”Net Neutrality’ is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government,” Cruz wrote on Twitter.

The more Republicans extend their philosophy of absolute private property and unregulated markets into areas that affect aspects of daily life, the more they may ultimately undermine their own message that government is always the problem and big avaricious companies can do no wrong. This was a good move for Obama.