How many times have you heard it said that Northampton residents, with their progressive politics and reputation for tolerance, live in a bubble?

I've lost count, and people frequently offer similar sentiments about the entire Pioneer Valley. You know the caricature: the Birkenstocks, the granola, the left-wing politics.

Sometimes people say it in a derisive way, implying Northampton is out of touch with the rest of the world.

I've said it myself, though not as an insult. I think local people are to be commended for the ways they strive to be not only tolerant but welcoming of diversity, however imperfectly.

So there was little doubt Northampton would go for now President-elect Barack Obama decisively, and it did, with 82 percent of the ballots cast in Tuesday's vote for Obama. In fact, every single community in Hampshire County went for Obama - Easthampton saw 69 percent of the votes cast for Obama, and in Amherst it was 86 percent.

So is Hampshire County in a bubble?

Maybe so. But things have changed. The numbers nationwide may not have been quite so resounding, but they were decisive nonetheless: the 349 electoral votes for Obama, compared with 173 for John McCain, are being called a landslide and a romp for Obama. And for the popular vote, Obama won 52 percent compared to McCain's 46 percent.

If the Valley is a political bubble, it's a bubble plenty of area residents left during this grueling and energizing election campaign.

Hundreds of people, including many teenagers not even old enough to vote, hitched rides in carpools leaving from parking lots in Northampton and Greenfield to go to the battleground state nearest to us - New Hampshire - for their first real-life lessons in grassroots politics.

Some local people traveled to Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania - places that became a focal point in what the pundits called the "road to 270."

Among them were Rose Axelrod-Adams, 17, a Northampton High School student, and her mother, Karen Axelrod, who flew Friday to Ohio, where they spent long days campaigning for Obama in and around Dayton. They worked phones, made signs, walked neighborhoods knocking on doors and did "just about anything they needed done," said Karen Axelrod.

Axelrod-Adams didn't hesitate long when asked to name her favorite part of the time in Ohio. It was, she said, "talking to people who were enthusiastic about voting who hadn't been before, people who were excited about the election and people who think Obama is the change the country needs."

It's probably not surprising that what Axelrod-Adams liked best was talking with other Obama supporters. Isn't it human nature to want to be with like-minded people?

But it wasn't all just preaching to the choir. Some conversations with undecided voters and McCain supporters were difficult.

Some were disappointing, she said, such as when people seemed not to want to actually engage in discussion. For those, she said, she tended to hold back and watch her mother carry on the discourse.

But Tuesday night, when it appeared Obama would lose Virginia (which turned out not to be the case), people in the Obama headquarters in Dayton stopped packing and got on the phones to call voters in western battleground states. Axelrod-Adams, who was among them, recalled one hostile response from a recipient who, upon hearing she was with the Obama campaign, said simply, "You've got to be kidding."

"People were pretty unreceptive," she said. "It was really hard to see that."

Yet her candidate repeatedly has stressed the importance of conversing with people with whom you might not agree.

In his historic acceptance speech in Grant Park in Chicago, Obama thanked the millions of volunteers who "proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this earth," he said. "This is your victory."

Those who disagree with him found a place in his speech too: "I will listen to you, especially when we disagree," he said.

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too."

Obama signaled to the country - and the world watching - that this was not a simple victory lap. As tired as people may be, the work is far from over, he said.

That's a lesson Axelrod-Adams learned from experience. Even when Ohio was won, after all the canvassing, licked envelopes and phone calls, their work did not stop. The effort, she said, was worth it.

"I spent four days knowing that I was doing something," she said.

"I wasn't just sitting around and hoping."

And to think his critics said his candidacy was only about hope.

Laurie Loisel is the Gazette's city editor and can be reached at lloisel@gazettenet.com.