Ferrel Guillory says the "Seaboard South" is different.

The head of the Program on Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill says that Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida have moved away from the rest of the South in recent years.

He said the increased focus on high-tech jobs in Research Triangle Park and banking in Charlotte as well as the strengthening of the state's university system has led to a demographic shift that made the state more open to Democrat Barack Obama.

"Economically and demographically, the South has split in two," he said. "The 'Seaboard South' states — with the exception of South Carolina — have been growing robustly. They have moved more speedily into the newer economy and their metropolitan areas are burgeoning."

He said Obama found a pool of "persuadable voters" in the metro suburbs of North Carolina.

"Obama campaigned on a theme of change, but it was the change that was already here that put him over the top," he said.

Guillory made a similar argument in the biannual "State of the South" report in 2007.

John Shelton Reed says the Southeast is a concept, not a region.

The retired UNC-Chapel Hill sociology professor said that the Southeastern United States is a loosely defined "post-historical region" centered around Atlanta.

"It's an economy; it's not a culture," he said. "You talk about Southern music and Southern cooking and Southern women. You don't talk about Southeastern music and cooking and women."

As a general rule, Reed said the boundaries do not necessarily follow state borders, but he would use the Mississippi River as the dividing line between the Southeast and the Southwest and the usual borders between the North and South.

That would include: Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

It would leave out Arkansas and Louisiana. He said West Virginia would be a borderline case.

"These boundaries are kind of indistinct," he said. "You don't cross a border, you sort of move into it gradually."

Hat Tip: awbeal 

Who needs the federal government? We've got football.

Though the U.S. Census Bureau does not define the Southeastern region in its reports, another major — more important? — agency does: The Southeastern Conference.

The college athletic conference headquartered in Alabama has its own roster of states it considers to be in the Southeast:

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

It does not include North Carolina or Virginia, which are part of the Atlantic Coast Conference but are undoubtedly in the Southeast. It also skips West Virginia, a borderline case.

The definition is important because a recent political ad compares tax rates in the Southeast, which obviously differ depending on which states you include.

How do you define the Southeast?

We here at Dome headquarters have been poring over some tax data this morning as part of a fact-check, and we came across this interesting epistemological problem.

The general consensus of our group of reporters was that it includes the following states:

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

We did not include West Virginia, but the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis does in its regional breakdowns. That means a number of other groups, such as the Tax Foundation, also use it.

The U.S. Census Bureau does not define the Southeast.  

Tropical Storm Fay has forced Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to scrub an unannounced trip through Eastern North Carolina this morning.

Obama had planned to fly from Orlando, Fla., to Kinston to hold a campaign event, Rob Christensen reports. He then would take a bus across Eastern North Carolina and make several unannounced stops on way to his rally in Raleigh tonight at the N.C. State Fairgrounds.

But the near-hurricane in Florida caused him to cancel the eastern swing. He is still scheduled to appear tonight in Raleigh.

Although the Eastern swing had not been announced, a group of Raleigh reporters were picked up in vans at the Fairgrounds Tuesday morning, and the vans made it as far as Wilson County.

The vans stopped in Sims and sat in the parking lot of Sam's Country Grill before the trip was canceled and the news media was returned to Raleigh.

Opponents of same-sex marriage are making another attempt to amend the state's constitution to ensure such unions do not become law in North Carolina.

Today, they announced new legislation that gives voters the opportunity to vote for a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman at one time," Dan Kane reports.

Several Republican lawmakers at a news conference today said the recent court decision in California throwing out that state's ban on same-sex marriages makes it urgent that lawmakers take up the legislation. North Carolina law already prevents same-sex marriages.

"We think because of the importance of marriage, as the real building block of our society, we feel that the people of North Carolina deserve the right to vote on should our constitution be amended to make sure that someone's lawsuit filed somewhere in our state, that falls upon the ears of a favorable judge, can not be used to invalidate the law of this state," said Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican.

No Democrats attended the conference, but supporters provided a list of 66 House members, including several Democrats, who have signed on as sponsors. House and Senate leaders, however, have blocked efforts in the past several years to bring the referendum legislation to the floor for a full vote.

More after the jump.

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More than 20 North Carolinians will be on the bus to Washington.

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters plans to leave on a chartered bus at 2 a.m. to rally outside the Rules & Bylaws Committee deciding the fate of delegates from Michigan and Florida tomorrow morning.

Garner resident Almedia Cruz, a Clinton volunteer who organized the caravan, said the idea came from local supporters, though the national campaign found them a nicer bus after it got wind of the trip. The new bus, which seats 55, is normally used for sports teams.

The bus will make two stops to pick up more supporters along Interstate 95. Separate buses from Charlotte and Greensboro organized by backers there are also heading to D.C. tonight.

Supporters will pay $25 to cover the cost of gas and a driver. They're bringing their own signs and T-shirts and plan to come up with some chants during the five-hour drive.

"We haven't been given any instructions at all," Cruz said. "This is not being organized by the campaign. It was organized by our people here."

She said the group is a "united front," with all members agreeing that Clinton should get the delegates she won in Michigan and Florida and fight onto the convention.

"I believe that she has suffered in the press and been terribly disrespected," she said. "I've never seen this happen before, and I think it's because of the fact that she's a female. I'm just really disheartened with our country."

A group of Triangle-area Hillary Clinton supporters are going to D.C.

Catherine Evangelista, a full-time political volunteer who helped set up the Clinton Meetup group before the May 6 primary, said a number of Clinton supporters will leave on a chartered bus at 2 a.m. tomorrow morning to attend the Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting.

The 30-member committee will decide what to do about delegates from the Michigan and Florida primaries. The two states moved their election date up in defiance of the Democratic National Committee, which originally stripped them of all delegates.

Evangelista, 45, of Cary, says the group believes — along with Clinton — that she should receive the delegates from those states, even though no Democratic candidate campaigned in them and Barack Obama's name was not on the Michigan ballot.

"Obama talks about having judgment," she said. "He tends to focus on the fact that he didn't vote for the war, but it was his judgment to pull his name off the ballot, and my understanding is that was political positioning prior to the Iowa caucuses. ... I think that shows a little more vision and planning on her part."

She also noted that Obama aired ads in media markets neighboring Florida, so some Floridians would have seen those ads.

Evangelista, who took a year off from a job in marketing to work on political causes after a car accident, said she does not see any reason for Clinton to concede the race until Aug. 28 — the last day of the Democratic national convention.

Tony Rand doesn't want to drop out of the Electoral College.

Though a bill is before the legislature this session to join North Carolina to a national compact to elect the president by popular vote, the Senate majority leader told Dome he's not interested.

"I don't think that's really a short session kind of bill," he said. "I think that would be one where we'd want to have a little more time to think about the implications."

As a Democrat, Rand said he wishes North Carolina had not been a consistent red state since 1976.

"It pains me deeply, but that's not the system's fault," he said.

The Fayetteville senator reserved the right to change his mind, though, since he's set aside time this Sunday to watch the HBO movie "Recount" about the 2000 election troubles in Florida. If that doesn't do it, he said the fall elections might.

"Call me in November right after the presidential election," he said. 

Chelsea Clinton dived into specific programs her mother has proposed.

After a brief introduction at the Young Democrats convention today, the former first daughter began answering audience questions on a variety of topics.

She earned loud applause from the audience when she said that Hillary Clinton has proposed eliminating the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, which college applicants must fill out in order to receive college aid, in favor of a checkbox on your tax form.

Among other things, she said that Clinton would forgive student loans for people who work in public service jobs, create universal health insurance, end the war in Iraq, expand the AmeriCorps program, reinstate the estate tax for people with assets of more than $7 million, make school lunch programs available year-round, reform food stamps and tie the Earned Income Tax Credit to inflation.

In response to a question about seating the Florida and Michigan delegates, Clinton said that the former has an "unfortunate" history of not counting votes.

"I wish that I were standing here after seven years of President Gore," she said.