No. It's not D.C.
As a resident of this area I can assure you are way off base, there is a lot of misinformation here. I assume you are talking about the metropolitan area and not just the city itself. Yes, it lacks a white working class population that is traditionally Democratic but socially conservative, however it does have a black working class population that is traditionally Democratic but socially conservative. There's a reason Maryland has no gay marriage while New York does, Maryland has no assault weapons ban, and the death penalty is still alive in Maryland, despite big Democratic majorities in the state legislature, and a Democratic governor who takes the liberal position on all of those issues. And that's on the Maryland side.
Yes, there's a large Federal workforce, but a big reason for that is the Pentagon and the military-industrial-intelligence-homelandsecurity-complex. That tends to attract conservative military types. Just because Northern Virginia voted for Obama that doesn't make it liberal. It also voted for Bob McDonnell. When Sarah Palin showed up in Fairfax county in 2008, 20,000 people showed up to hear her. Conservative Republicans are still quite competitive in the area.
I would say New York and Boston are more liberal than D.C.
You sure not DC proper? Boston has Southie which from what I've seen is quite Irish Catholic and socially conservative. If you count Cambridge then I'd go Boston too. Metro area, I'd agree with your assessment. In fact PG County, Maryland has a lot of religious African Americans. And Northern VA.. well it has its socially liberal parts. But like you said I've seen social/military conservatism there definitely. It actually surprises me Fairfax voted for Obama.
