So, which of the main US presidential candidates is - or would have been - better for the technology industry? You think it doesn't matter? Then look attechnology shares on the Nasdaq, which stalled pending the election outcome.

OK, the US indices stalled in general due to the uncertainty about who would be leading the world's biggest economic powerhouse. That said, it's hard to know who they stalled for. Received wisdom is that the market always likes a Republican because Republicans, traditionally, are more pro-business. But, during the Clinton years, the United States has witnessed a growth in the economy that is unprecedented in the nation's history.

The small government/laissez faire libertarian leanings of the technology industry, propounded first in the pages of Wired magazine, seem more Republican than Democrat. But the industry - no doubt because of the preponderance of barely-out-of-college youths - also exhibits a laid-back social liberalism more in alignment with the Democrats.

Just taken at face value, each candidate seems to have points of appeal to the tech industry. On one hand, Bush is a big business supporter and voiced sympathies with Microsoft during the Department of Justice trial against the software company. Accordingly, Microsoft shares rose on the predictions of a Bush win, since it is seen as an indication that the lawsuit may be dropped or pursued in a kinder, gentler way.

But then, Gore is a bona fide tech geek, with every capability of discussing computer architecture, and even using massively parallel computing and distributed intelligence as metaphors for explaining how government works. I kid you not: in the cover story interview with Gore (E-Gore) in October's Red Herring, Gore explains the three generations of computer architecture with concise precision and compares each to a form of government. The confined, central processing unit model equals dictatorship, vector processing equals representative democracy, and massively parallel processing over computer networks is the new era of global distributed intelligence.

Gore has other tech credentials - more than 20 years ago he was working to make the Internet a reality (he is misquoted saying he invented the Net - he actually said he was the person who pushed Congress to pass the required legislation and funding, which is fairly accurate). And of course, he coined the phrase "information superhighway".

An Upside survey compares the two on tech issues and concludes they are much the same - they support more immigrant visas, oppose Internet taxation, support some online privacy regulation and want to address the digital divide. None of these issues was addressed at any length during the campaign, so it's hard to know what either would actually do.

However, the voting preferences of the tech industry - at least, its major regions - are pretty clear from the polling results. Santa Clara County - the main tech-rich region within the sprawl called Silicon Valley - voted 61 per cent Gore, 34 per cent Bush. The area's next most tech-focused county, San Mateo, ran 65 per cent for Gore and 34 per cent for Bush. Microsoft's home area of Seattle was 61 per cent Gore, 34 per cent Bush. New York, home to new media zone Silicon Alley, polled 79 per cent Gore and 15 per cent Bush. And Boston, centre of Massachusetts's Route 128 tech corridor, polled 72 per cent Gore, 20 per cent Bush.

Gore interview: www.redherring.com/mag/84/gore.html

Bush interview: www.redherring.com/mag/73/bush.html Comparison of the candidates:

www.redherring.com/mag/ issue85/mag-bush-85.html

How US tech regions voted: www.upside.com/News/3a0734b0909.html

Karlin Lillington is at klillington@irish-times.ie