Yes, I think it depends on your discipline at a University- I am in a PhD program in the humanities and it is very, very rare to run into a Republican. One of my good friends from a writing group is fairly conservative, but he is certainly not outspoken about it. He is incredibly intelligent and I respect his views, but I also respect my brother (another Republican) and his views similarly, even though he doesn't have a college degree. His experiences in the army and the work force have given him a certain political perspective, just as my years in education and the arts have formed my political views.
In response to the OP, I've certainly curbed back my political posts in the last 2 weeks or so. I agree that it's become a very volitile environment. I listened to a report a couple of days ago where an interviewer was commenting on the volitile state of politics during this election. He speculated that average American citizens, on both sides of the debate, were responding to fear post-9/11. Many of us feel that there is little to nothing that we personally can do about terrorism, and that this fear turns to an anger that we are chosing to level at one another...that these attacks give us some kind of control over the emotions we are feeling.
Not sure if I completely agree with this assessment yet, but it is interesting to consider...