It is hard to explain to outsiders how we can be so screwed up politically but you have to understand a couple of things that factor into this.
The first factor is the "JFK factor." For some reason, JFK is worshipped by the vast majority of the people. When I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, virtually everybody in my neighborhood had a portrait of JFK hanging on their wall or propped up on their bedroom dressers. As a result, this adulation spreads to anybody with the surname Kennedy. I don't think anybody named Kennedy has EVER lost an election in Massachusetts. In fact, in the primaries, a Democrat concerned about an unusually strong Republican candidate will find some local drunk named Kennedy and get him on the GOP primary ballot. The result will be that the "Kennedy" will win the primary and then drop out of the race, allowing the Democrat to safely run unopposed in the general.
When I was younger, I figured that the JFK worshippers would eventually start dying off but inexplicably, they are replenishing their ranks with new generations of Kennedy lovers. Now we have some young freckle-faced Kennedy running for Barney Frank's seat. Don't know much about him or how he's related to the rest of the Kennedy clan, but he's got the tousled hair and the toothy smile so you just know he's going to automatically win in a landslide no matter how good the Republican is (and we are running a good one in Sean Bielat.)
The other factor is the "college factor." Massachusetts is home to a disproportionate amount of colleges and universities. The result is that upwardly mobile parents from all over the country (and world) send their offspring here to be educated (and indoctrinated in liberal ideology).
Due to the fact that the Boston area has a perfect climate (we have all four seasons in moderate proportions), great sports teams, access to first-rate beaches, skiing, hiking, etc., great hospitals and so forth, many of these students, now indoctrinated in liberal ideology, decided to stay and make the Boston area their home, further adding to the liberal population.
I will say it again. Boston (and New England as a whole) is far and away the best area to live in the continental United States. This is why so many conservatives decide to stay here and stick it out, despite the hopelessness of ever getting conservatives elected to public office. I've lived in most other parts of the country for a time, the hot and sticky Southeast, the hot and dry desert areas of the Southwest, the crowded shores of SoCal, the mean streets of NY/NJ, and I keep coming back to New England because politics aside, this really is the best place to live when all other factors are considered.
I just wish it wasn't so hopeless, politically.
Martha doesn’t have a Boston accent. She’s from Happy Valley. So she talks with a clenched jaw so she doesn’t sound like a sledfish from Maine. Yup!
Bravo Zulu. I'm sticking it out, too. The worm will turn.
Don Diego Vega: If I give my land to the people, where are we going to live?
Charlotte Taylor Wilson: Boston!
Don Diego Vega: Boston?
Charlotte Taylor Wilson: Yes! It is the only civilized city. They have the best art, the best music...
Don Diego Vega: You have to be kidding me! I was in Boston for a week, and I never heard a decent Mariachi player.
Zorro, the Gay Blade