It wasn't "because he was a conservative". It was because he was funding a campaign to limit peoples rights and and everyone / every website was running a campaign to tell users to get off Firefox if they want to stop funding this. It would have destroyed Mozilla if they did nothing.
No it wouldn't have. The outraged were a minority and have a short attention span. I'm sure Firefox would be doing better today with him at the helm. But we'll never know.
