Are the blue-state secessionists learning they love federalism?

Andrew Sullivan is promoting this Dan Savage piece and this article in the Stranger, both of which go on about various liberal urban areas and how they ought to withdraw from the dominant national trends and do things their own way (which they think is better). That is, they want to take advantage of federalism values. But don't look for that phrase anywhere in these articles. For years, liberals have been decrying federalism as a nefarious conservative plot.