A striking trend in Congress's reaction to Wednesday's protests against the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act was the partisan divide in the Senate. At least 16 Republican Senators—more than a third of all GOP members in the body—declared their opposition to PIPA for the first time on Wednesday. In contrast, as far as we can tell, only three Democrats jumped off the bandwagon that day.

Why were Republicans so quick to abandon PIPA? For an inside perspective, Ars talked to two conservative operatives who have long opposed Hollywood's campaign for ever-more draconian copyright laws. Reihan Salam is a blogger at National Review and a policy advisor at Economics 21, a conservative think tank. And Patrick Ruffini is a conservative political strategist and founder of the PR firm Engage.

Salam and Ruffini told Ars on Thursday that the differing reactions to the online protests reflects structural and philosophical differences between the two parties. They said Democrats have deep ties to Hollywood and to labor unions who staff Hollywood productions, which makes it hard for them to buck these interests and vote against PIPA. In contrast, they said, Republicans have few ties to groups that support PIPA, and they have a Tea Party faction that has grown increasingly invested in Internet freedom as it has become more reliant on the web for its own organization.

The IT industry could be a rich source of both votes and campaign cash, but so far neither party has done a good job of championing its interests in Congress. Salam and Ruffini believe that Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial culture is a perfect fit for the GOP's free-market policy agenda, and they told Ars that the fight over PIPA is a golden opportunity for the GOP to build a lasting political alliance with Silicon Valley.

"Holder is coming to take the Internet"

The Motion Picture Association of America is a key interest group behind the PROTECT IP Act, and Ruffini argued it has much stronger ties to the Democratic Party than to Republicans. The MPAA is headed by Chris Dodd, previously a Democratic member of the Senate. Hollywood is also heavily unionized, and labor unions are a major Democratic constituency. And Hollywood's wealthy creative professionals have long made it an important stop on the Democratic fundraising circuit. Indeed, Hollywood now has one of its own, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), in the Senate. He is a PIPA co-sponsor.

Ruffini said that the GOP has fewer ties to the interest groups behind PIPA. The US Chamber of Commerce, a traditionally Republican group, has supported PIPA, but the legislation is just one of many items on its legislative agenda. At the same time, another key Republican constituency, social conservatives, have long despised Hollywood for the sex and violence in its products.

Salam pointed to the rise of the Tea Party as another key factor in Republican skepticism toward PIPA. The Tea Party is a decentralized movement organized largely online. As the Internet has become a more important means of political organization for conservatives, they have also grown more invested in protecting it from harmful regulation.

The arguments against these bills also appeal to conservatives' general suspicion of big government. Ruffini told Ars that SOPA and PIPA have emerged as major issues on conservative talk radio. "Their perception on this has been that [Obama attorney general] Eric Holder is coming to take the Internet," Ruffini said.

Meanwhile, as we've reported, conservative and libertarian bloggers and think tanks have been lining up against PIPA. Scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute (where I'm an adjunct scholar) and the conservative Heritage Foundation, conservative bloggers like Matt Drudge and Erick Erickson, and Tea Party politicians like Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) had all declared their opposition to the bills in the weeks before Wednesday's protest.

As a result, Republican support for PIPA has been very soft. "People hadn't thought about the issues very deeply," Salam told Ars. "There was no one advocating the case against these policies. Once people articulated the case," support for the policies "crumbled fast."

The Tea Party movement scared Republican members of Congress in 2010 when they mounted primary challenges to several Republican incumbents. The defeat of incumbents like Bob Bennett lent credibility to Erickson's threat to recruit primary challengers for Republicans who supported SOPA.

"Nobody wants a primary challenger," Ruffini told Ars. "The Tea Party has demonstrated vote-getting potential. If I have to choose between the Tea Party or the Chamber of Commerce, I pick the Tea Party."

An alliance with Silicon Valley?

Salam and Ruffini believe that Republicans have a chance to cultivate a new base of political support in the technology industry.

Ruffini argued that Republican philosophy naturally aligns with the creative destruction that is a hallmark of the technology industry. "Republicans are a free-market party," he said. "They are more inclined toward economic disruption. Certain industries will inevitably go by the wayside due to technological changes. Nothing in Republican governing philosophy says there's anything wrong with that."

Salam agreed with this, pointing to the Tea Party's intense opposition to bailouts for Wall Street and Detroit.

Ruffini argued that the controversy over PIPA gives the GOP "a chance to flip the tech community," winning Republicans a new donor base, or at least making it harder for Democrats to raise money in Silicon Valley. He noted that Republican politicans have already begun visiting technology companies seeking support. By picking a fight with the Democratic leadership over PIPA, they could win lasting respect from technologists.

Ruffini encouraged Republican leaders to "make a partisan issue out of it. It's not like this is an obscure issue," Ruffini said. "Millions of people are watching this."

"People talk about how polarization is bad," Salam said. But polarization can help ensure that both sides of the debate are strongly represented, he noted. The lack of polarization has meant that both parties consistently side with Hollywood.

The death of PIPA

Events have moved quickly since we talked to Salam and Ruffini on Thursday afternoon. The leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for Reid to delay the vote on PIPA on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday evening, four GOP candidates declared their opposition to SOPA. Former speaker Newt Gingrich explicitly tied his opposition to his broader antipathy toward Hollywood liberals.

On Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) postponed next Tuesday's PIPA vote, but vowed to continue fighting for the legislation. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was furious. And Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be delaying consideration of SOPA.

So both parties are backing away from SOPA and PIPA. But so far the Democrats have shown more interest in reviving the legislation. Reid and Leahy have pledged to bring a modified version of the legislation back to the Senate floor later in the year. On the House side, Smith has continued to champion his proposal, but he has gotten no real support from the House Republican leadership, which has pledged to put the bill on hold until a consensus is reached. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is also opposed to SOPA.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Republicans have been attacking the bill, explicitly tying their opposition to GOP themes like limited government, free markets, and antipathy to Hollywood. If Republicans play their cards right, the last week could mark the dawn of a new political alliance between Silicon Valley and the Grand Old Party.