The FCC has specifically asked people to comment on their proposal. Either they do care, or they're staging some very bizarre and pointless PR stunt because it really doesn't matter if anyone likes them or not.
The vibe I've been getting from Tom Wheeler is that he would probably personally prefer reclassifying ISPs as common carriers, but there's a ton of powerful forces leaning on him not to, and his half-assed proposal is the best he could get. But if he could point to an "anti-SOPA-like" grassroots movement and go "There's a ton of bad PR if you mess with these people, we better give them what they want", he might be allowed to reclassify after all. Though I'll be the first to admit, the sudden disappearance of half a million comments from the FCC site doesn't really corroborate this theory...