If she moved to Austin, she's right, it's VERY liberal. Dallas is a bit less liberal and the valley (farm and ranch country along the Texas-Mexico border) is also pretty liberal. The rest of the state is relatively conservative.
I've been to the western side of Washington state, but never made it east of the Cascades.
Take care< steve, and thanks again, for a good discussion.
We were discussing trends involving medical providers here last week.
Have you seen this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3053818/posts?page=9
Just thought it might be of interest to you.
Some of the NYT comments are quite interesting.
And yes, my friend did move to Austin (husband is in medical imaging research).