I was thinking about this... what the political standpoint of people interested in hardware and software is through personal experience. These are only generalizations, know this and understand. There is ALWAYS an exception to the rule (in this case, theory) and I'll give an example of one such case later.

Through personal experience and examples put forth by my dad (we were discussing it) I believe that "software people" tend to be more liberal while "hardware people", that's right, more conservative. Again, there are always exceptions, an example of which is liking both very much (although maybe one slightly more than the other).

Me, I'm very interested in software and may also be by hardware if I had the money to buy hardware and therefore, become interested through experience. I tend to have very liberal ideals. Some of the few people I know that are interested in computers, hardware, tend to be conservative. My dad worked at Texas Instruments as an electrical engineer and IBM. Texas is a very conservative place to live so we can't make much of a hypothesis on this but New York (where he was located when working at IBM) is supposed to be very liberal. My dad is an exception to my rule as he seems to be much more interested in hardware. The people he worked with were all testosterone-induced and this isn't the "stronger inclination to being very good at math" testosterone but liking sports, so he had to associate himself with the Oriental (generally very nice) people. Although, unfortunately, we lived in a more conservative town, and we are stuck... darn. Although his profession is no longer an electrical engineer but a programmer (more specifically, "Information Technologist"). Where he works now every single person is liberal. Although, once again we have the same problem and that is he works on a college campus (the same college he graduated from) and it's Michigan... ugh.

As for the exception...
There's an Indian (I'm not quite sure what country he's from but I'm pretty sure it's not the US... it has to be India) student who, as far as I know, is interested in both hardware and software, and from what I've heard him talking about he seems very liberal. He listens to music from the 1960s ("The Beatles" I think I heard him say once) and doesn't seem easily malleable in general. It's possible he likes one more than the other or is an exception to my theory.

Another group of people I'd like to point out that seem to be, on the whole, extremely liberal, are authors (mainly the fictional writers). For example, in the McCarthy era a huge amount of the people being blacklisted were authors and actors. This could have come along with the time period but I highly doubt it as authors in general still have very liberal beliefs.

Maybe I'm making a big case where there is none to be made but I think I have some fairly substantial details to back up my claim and it's interesting too (in my opinion of course).

Also, I think this country is becoming a whole lot more conservative exponentially.

lol, I thought I was thinking too much, but you... j/k
Well, I've never thought of that before, but now that you say it, it's true that "software" people are mostly liberal people. I don't know if "hardware" people are conservative, but if they are, then America is probably one big chunk of hardware lovers (no offense to you americans ) Interesting thought... Let me think about this one more night, maybe I'll have something to add tomorrow.

Great and no need to type "j/k" about me thinking too much.

I don't really agree, Hardware and software lovers are geeks, geeks are secular humanists, so liberal all rounds. But let me add something here.

Geeks who love hardware are usually well off, as they can afford the hardware, and it is a fact that rich people vote for republicans, for no reason, they just do. so maybe that has soemthing to do with it.

Well I can agree with that as a generalization and believe it or not PHPFanatic I have discused this with other people before My teacher in school said "You my friend have what is called feature creep" lol what he meant is that I was a computer addict and that every software upgrade and every hardware upgrade I could get my hands on I had to test it out and see either how I can break it or how I can make it work faster.... lol I am your middle man I love both software and hardware I used to love programming in BASIC and ML on the AppleIIE in school and I also loved IBM compatibles for there sheer upgradedness LONG LIVE THE CLONES !!!! lol

Edit:BTW I am awaiting my free Visual Basic .NET from Microsoft ohhh how it pains me to wait those tortorous 4-6 weeks for delivery..... hmmm might give me time to save up for that 1GB Kingston HyperX module I have been drooling over since 3 AM this morning.... just think 2GB of RAM !!!!! *runs off to take a cold shower*

You have eh... I thought I was the only one damn. *bashes head against keyboard*