Why are the Berkshires in Mass so liberal?

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To move a bit beyond the "cold climate liberalises white people" thesis (the only possible bit of thruth which I may detect in it is that cold climate means less outdoor life = less / more difficult to exert social control):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_American : "Walker (1962) examines the voting behavior in U.S. presidential elections from 1880 to 1960, using election returns from 30 French American communities in New England, along with sample survey data for the 1948-60 elections. From 1896 to 1924, French Americans typically supported the Republican Party because of its conservatism, emphasis on order, and advocacy of the tariff to protect the textile workers from foreign competition. In 1928, with Catholic Al Smith as the Democratic candidate, the French Americans moved over to the Democratic column and stayed there for six presidential elections. They formed part of the New Deal Coalition. Unlike the Irish and German Catholics, very few French Americans deserted the Democratic ranks because of the foreign policy and war issues of the 1940 and 1944 campaigns. In 1952 many French Americans broke from the Democrats but returned heavily in 1960".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_County,_Massachusetts
"16.5% were of Italian, 16.4% Irish, 10.8% French, 10.3% English, 8.0% Polish, 7.1% German, 5.8% American and 5.1% French Canadian ancestry according to Census 2000."  In other words - you won't find very many WASPs up there!

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Those towns (along with Wellesley, Needham, Dover, Weston, Melrose and Reading) used to all be rock-ribbed Republican well into the 70's. Have the demographics changed in those towns since then? And even Newton, Brookline and Boston's Back Bay neighborhood were strongly Republican until the early 60's.

Do many of the Republicans that now live in New Hampshire "exurbs" like Bedford, Salem, Derry  or Hudson use to live in Concord, Lexington and Wellesley - suburbs that were 70% Republican half a century ago?

Do you have any town-level voting data at hand? Middlesex county, in which all of the towns listed in the first quote box are located, as a whole has not gone Republican once in the last 50 years, even not during the Reagan landslides (though 1980 and 84 were quite close, with only 1-2% D margin).

I would especially be interested in Concord / Mass., where my Godfather lives, but which I never felt to be particularly republican during my visits there.