Same percentage voted for Romney in Massachusetts as did in California. Again, grouping people by states is ridiculous to represent the views of the whole population of the state. It usually comes down to urban vs rural and that's about it.
Atlanta is not all that different from LA and Boston politically.
Are the people in California traditionalist, religious, backwards, or even racist, etc, as the people in Georgia? They might not be, regardless of who they chose to vote for -- which takes into account many factors and policies.
That said, California is also traditionally regarded as conservative (at least by us in Europe) -- it's places like Massachusetts or Vermont that we'd count as progressive. Especially since California is regarded as hardcore pro-money/big-business, which is large part of being a "conservative" here.