1. They are paying money, small sum but still money, for an extremely childish prank. Great use of resources. Considering #2 below, it can be said they are spending money counter to their own goals.
2. So whats the first thing YOU do when someone mentions a website address that might be of interest? How many of you typed (or cut and pasted) the addresses in to check it out?
Finding anything on the net (if your not net-aware) is difficult. Giving a website higher visiblilty by creating a story such as this is very stupid. I can see the headline now "Petty political squabble breaks out in cyberspace", since its democrats making fun of conservatives, it'll be picked up everywhere, the lib media just loves these types of stories. This is "Human Interest" fluff. People will see this on TV or in the newspaper and become curious. The conservative sites that were "targeted" will get a few more firs time visitors which may lead to repeat visitors, which eventually leads to converts.
As anyone in the Web Business knows, the 2nd hardest thing to do with a website is get traffic, the first being getting that same traffic back. Giving the conservative sites ANY publicity is extremely stupid, nevermind having to pay for it. Unless your aim is to shut down a site by shaming the ISP, as we've seen in the past, the best thing you can do is ignore it an hope no one finds it, especially the Democrats, they cant argue with us, they cant argue with common sense and good humor, sending anyone to Ann Coulter to somehow color the party as bad is crazy. The absolute last thing the democrats should want is more people travelling to conservative sites. This is Marketing 101.
This story needs to get out more. It might even be beneficial to have someone (WND maybe) threaten a lawsuit, just for shits and giggles.