Last week, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., held fund-raisers in California's Silicon Valley. Both of them are staking claims on the high-technology territory that Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have been cultivating for years. Why are high-tech areas suddenly getting so much political attention? For the same reason Willie Sutton gave when someone asked him why he robbed banks: ''Because that's where the money is.''

High tech is the new boom sector of the American economy, not just in California but all over the country. Consider the nation's seven high-tech congressional districts. Three of those districts are currently represented by Republicans and four by Democrats, including David Price of North Carolina and Lloyd Doggett of Texas, two of the dwindling band of white Democratic Representatives from the South. Several of the districts have tipped back and forth from one party to the other in the 1990s.

''These places don't have a history of being involved with government or politics,'' said Floyd Kvamme, a Bush fund-raiser in Silicon Valley. ''It's really happened only during the last three or four years.'' Who has time for politics when you're making all that money? As Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., noted: ''These are incredibly busy people.''

But high-tech voters have been losing their aversion to politics, mostly for defensive reasons. ''Twenty-five or 30 years ago, they would have said, 'I'm an engineer--engineers don't do politics,' '' observed Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., whose district covers Silicon Valley. ''Now, I think it's almost universally understood that politics can prevent you from being a successful engineer, so you'd better get involved. It's viewed as, 'If I don't get involved, it's going to be messed up--I won't be able to make or export the product I want,' whether it's encryption or satellite technology.''

Why are high-tech voters so independent? Bradley fund-raiser John Hummer explained: ''One of the overriding things about Silicon Valley is that it is a meritocracy. Venture capital guys don't care if the person's black, white, Asian, female, straight or gay. They do care if the person can succeed. Folks here in the Valley will back a winner.''

If there's any high-tech ideology, it tends to be libertarian. According to Inslee, ''They want to make sure government doesn't dictate things in their personal lives, for instance on the (abortion) issue. They also believe government should not dictate things in their business lives. For instance, they want to make sure that no regulations are adopted in Washington that would slow down the development of the Internet.''

As a result, the high-tech Democratic Representatives tend to be moderate rather than liberal on economic issues (scoring an average of 44 percent ''correct'' on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce voting index for 1998). And the Republicans tend to be moderate rather than conservative on social issues (scoring an average of 69 percent ''correct'' on the American Civil Liberties Union index and 45 percent ''correct'' on the Christian Coalition index for 1998).

Bill Clinton swept California's high-tech district in 1992, in part because his GOP opponent had nothing going for him there. As Campbell observed: ''I go to restaurants in Silicon Valley, and they have pictures up of when the President came to dinner. (Clinton) came across as younger, more hip, more interested in technology. And he did the time--he came to California, whereas President Bush was none of those things.''

Clinton dominated the high-tech vote by an even greater margin in 1996. Same reason. ''Remember Bob Dole at the end of the debate, when he gave out his Web site?'' Campbell noted. ''The poor guy couldn't get it right.''

But when Clinton vetoed litigation reform last year, he alienated a lot of high-tech entrepreneurs who see trial lawyers as their natural enemy. That development hurt Al Gore, who fashions himself Mr. High Tech, champion of the information superhighway and self-styled ''inventor of the Internet.''

What's the big issue for high-tech voters? Ask a Republican. ''The biggest social issue here is education,'' said Kvamme. ''That would be the most important issue in the Valley that would drive the vote.'' Ask a Democrat. ''Education, education, education,'' said Inslee. ''These are folks who live in a world where human capital, intellectual capital, is the driving force for economic change.''

Which helps explain why Bush connects with high-tech voters. ''He's made education his big issue,'' Campbell said. ''The first words out of his mouth are education.'' High-tech voters like Bush's record on education as Governor, including his willingness to experiment with such new ideas as school vouchers. As Campbell observed: ''Thinking outside the normal structures, particularly in education, is very much the metier of Silicon Valley.''

When Silicon Valley entrepreneurs look at Gore, they see a conventional politician. They look at Bradley and see . . . one of them. ''These venture folks have made money betting on new paradigms,'' Hummer noted. ''Well, Bradley is a new paradigm. He is a fresh look at new ideas.'' Ever see the computer ads that say, ''Think different''? That's the unofficial slogan of high-tech America. High-tech entrepreneurs who think different are often big winners. And that's exactly what they look for in a politician.