Wow, in the heart of enemy territory. Did any counties in Mass. go for W?
no counties, but 65 out of 400 cities and towns did. There was a pretty good story about it in the Globe, actually.
Massachusetts is a wierd place. There are a lot more "conservatives" here than you think (look at our Gov). We have a lot of dyed in the wool Irish dems though, we also have a lot of crappy mini-cities with high concentrations of democratic "block voters" (trying to be PC).
The uber-libs don't actually live in Boston, they live in Cambridge, Brookline and Newton - cities that are adjacent to Boston - if you weren't from here you'd think they were all one big city, but they aren't.
The gay marriage thing happened largely due to the fact that our legislature, lifetime hacks who couldn't earn 50G a year elsewhere, where too scared to vote on the issue. They didn't want to offend anyone and lose their jobs so after years of having and avoiding the issue on the plate, it went to the judiciary.
Here's an example of how a Boston Irish Catholic votes - my aunt is 65, a retired teacher - very catholic and very socially conservative. 4 years ago my entire family was talking about the election (about 2 weeks beforehand). I asked my mother who she was voting for. She said Bush. My aunt let out a huff, and my mother said, "Kath, I would never vote for Gore". My aunt looked disgusted and she said, but that's who we always vote for (meaning the democrats).
To tell you the truth, I think it goes back to the turn of the century Irish vs the WASPs BS.
I grew up in a very Blue collar area of Boston called Dorchester and a lot of my friends (guys in their mid and late 20's and many of them union) voted for Bush. So I think things are slowly changing.