Here we are, Election Day, and it’s all just about over except for the shouting. Trouble is, I think there’s going to be plenty of shouting come tomorrow. We might not know the outcome of some of these races until well into the wee hours of Wednesday, and both the Wingnut and Moonbat contingents will doubtless be hollering if their side comes up on the short end of the stick.

A few days ago we conducted a survey among people who had visited one of four politics-oriented sites: HuffingtonPost.com and DailyKos.com on the Progressive side, LittleGreenFootballs.com and MichelleMalkin.com on the Conservative side. We categorized respondents based on their relative level of interaction with each site. For instance, if they visited one of the progressive sites far more than the conservative sites we categorized them as “MOONBAT”. If they visited the progressive sites a little more frequently we categorized them as “LEANS MOONBAT”, and so on. Remember, their categories were determined by their observed online behavior during the past 6 months, not by self-reported recollections.

Given the tendency of conservatives to visit conservative sites and liberals to visit liberal sites, most of these results aren’t too surprising. But if these are anything, they are certainly a testament to Compete’s ability to categorize based on behavior. Consider, for instance, that 83% of WINGNUTS and 64% of LEAN WINGNUTS identified themselves as Very or Somewhat Conservative, while 75% of MOONBATS and 51% of LEAN MOONBATS called themselves liberal or very liberal. That sounds about right.

The conventional wisdom says this election will be a referendum on both the War in Iraq and the Presidency of George W. Bush. When asked about those topics, the results split predictably, with MOONBATS showing strong negative opinions of the President. It’s interesting to note that, while WINGNUTS generally have a favorable opinion of Bush, their level of support is not nearly as strong as the MOONBAT level of disapproval.

The same is true regarding opinions on the War in Iraq, with MOONBATS showing overwhelmingly negative opinions and WINGNUTS having more mixed reviews.

So how will they vote? Again, no surprise. MOONBATS are backing the Democratic party and WINGNUTS are all about the GOP:

Of course some of the most interesting findings were from those who we couldn’t clearly define as MOONBATS or WINGNUTS. These were the people who were getting their information by checking both sides of the story, and it’s their opinions that can determine whether a site is changing opinions or merely preaching to the converted. We’ll have to save THAT analysis for another day, maybe when Howard Dean, Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, or James Carville come calling…with a bag full of cash.

One last thing: we asked every respondent to tell us, in their own words, what was the most important issue facing the United States today. The answers are passionate, creative, mildly profane, and very entertaining. My favorite is the one that talks about the need to fight wars with Lazer Beams. It’s worth a read! If you’d like to review them, you can view the entire file here .

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