A Florida professor has weighed in on the definition of the South.

In a piece in the St. Petersburg Times Sunday, English professor Diane Roberts quotes Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, on the litany of reasons people give for removing North Carolina from the South:

"Every time a Southern state starts voting for Democrats, people say, 'Oh, that's not the real South,' " says Kromm. When Barack Obama won North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, some "wanted to magically declare them somehow un-Southern."

The "Southern" parts of the South seem to be shrinking, at least to those who define "Southern" as white right-wingers who say "y'all." ...

North Carolina isn't Southern because it's attracting Midwestern retirees, Latinos and tech types. Plus, there's the Research Triangle, the constellation of great universities, labs and libraries so despised by Sen. Jesse Helms. Real Southerners don't cotton to book learning.

Roberts argues that North Carolina, Virginia and Florida are not aberrations, but the beginning of the "New South we've been promising ourselves since 1865."

Previously: Whistling Past North Carolina, parts 1, 2 and 3

Chris Kromm says Barack Obama can win North Carolina.

In an interview in Harper's Magazine, the head of the Institute for Southern Studies argues that Demographic changes and turnout could hand the state to the Democratic candidate:

He could definitely pull it off and his chances are growing. If he wins, it will be for a number of factors, starting with the economy. Unemployment could hit 8 percent here and two key sectors of the economy, manufacturing and finance, have been devastated. That’s been critical in terms of Obama winning support from unaffiliated white voters and conservative Democrats who often vote for Republicans. Second, Obama has really mobilized the core Democratic base of African-Americans and urban voters, far more than Al Gore or John Kerry did. And third, core Republican voters here are just not exited about McCain. A lot of Christian conservatives don’t identify with him. The situation is really ripe for Obama to take the state.

He adds that economic problems in the mountains could depress the traditional Republican strength there.

Chris Kromm revisits the potential spoiler.

In a post on Facing South, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies notices a trend in the presidential polling in North Carolina:

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, the former Congressman from Georgia, will be on the ballot in NC (despite the state's enormously restrictive ballot access laws). But most of the polls that showed double-digit leads for McCain in North Carolina didn't include Barr.

Since August, any poll that has included Barr has shown McCain with no more than a six point advantage, or even put Obama in the lead. The last two polls — from PPP (Democratic) and Civitas Institute (Repulican) — include Barr, and they show McCain and Obama exactly tied.

According to Pollster.com, Barr has received between zero and six percent support in polls done since May.

Earlier: Presidential spoilers in N.C. history. 

Chris Kromm wonders if Barack Obama is leaving the South.

In a post on Facing South, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies points to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal that says Obama has focused on the traditional swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan this month.

Kromm wonders what effect a narrower map would have on North Carolina.

"A lurking question: if Obama pulls up stakes in North Carolina and other used-to-be-battlegrounds in the final weeks, what will that mean for down-ticket Democrats counting on his voter-turnout coattails?" he writes. "Or has the Obama base in those states already been energized?"

Chris Kromm says the Jesse Helms obituaries missed the point.

In a lengthy post on the Facing South blog, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies said the mainstream media "down-played, ignored or even denied Helms' prejudices."

"To say Sen. Helms held deep prejudices against many — especially African-Americans and gays and lesbians — isn't a matter of opinion; it's all part of the historical record," he writes.

He attacks the idea that Helms was a "straight talker."

"Helms the strategic politician ... knew that by cultivating a straight-talk persona he could shift attention from the regressive content of what he was saying to a defense of his right to 'speak his mind' — but his fans and voters got the real message," he writes.

And he says Helms was not an "iconoclast."

"Helms' antics and positions did on many occasions put him at the far-right extremes of political debate. But he was by no means a marginal, fringe politician, and such a portrayal ignores Helms' ongoing popularity and his central role in U.S. politics for three decades," he writes.

"Lamont Williams" also made calls in Ohio.

The bogus robocaller — currently being hunted by the State Board of Elections for giving misinformation to black voters in North Carolina — also made calls in Ohio last year, according to Facing South.

Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, found the connection with help from a reader:

Facing South has learned that these calls -- even down to the name of the supposed caller -- are very similar to calls used last year in Ohio. In November 2007, a voter in Columbus, Ohio wrote in to the Buckeye State Blog with this eerily familiar story:

I just got a weird robo-call that I suspect may be a form of voter suppression, albeit kinda braindead. From memory, a stentorian voice reminiscent of James Earl Jones says: "Hello. This is Lamont Williams. In a few days you should be getting a voter registration form in the mail. Please fill it out and return promptly and you will be able to vote. Thank you.

Update: Voters also received similar calls in Virginia. 

Chris Kromm argues that the N.C. Democratic Party is siding with Hillary Clinton over a proposed debate.

In a post on Facing South, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies says that the state party is favoring Clinton by making plans for a debate in North Carolina on April 27.

Barack Obama had earlier called for an April 19 debate, which would be shortly before Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. But Clinton said the debate should not be held then because of Passover. She then countered with a proposal for an April 27 debate.

Obama has not yet agreed to the new date.

So why is the Democratic Party making arrangements with the RBC Center for April 27 and post notices about tickets online?

"The reason is clear: Because the North Carolina Democratic Party — supposedly neutral in the primaries — was, and is, taking Clinton's side and making her plan look like a done deal," Kromm writes.

Chris Kromm says that the number of unaffiliated voters is growing.

The executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies says a closer look at voters who have registered in the last three months shows that a plurality are Democrats.

In a post on Facing South, he notes that 46 percent of the newly registered voters are Democrats, 37 percent are unaffiliated, and 17 percent are Republicans.

Meantime, 63 percent of the growth in North Carolina Democrats are black voters, who make up 45 percent of registered Democrats and 20 percent of the overall electorate.

Also, the number of voters who identify as Hispanic as grown by 10 percent, and "other" by 4 percent.

"Those two groups still represent a relatively small share of the state's voters -- 134,000 state-wide, or just over 2% of North Carolina voters. But in a close primary, that could make a difference," he writes.

A recent report by the Pew Research Center found the number of self-identified Republicans had dropped significantly since 2004.

Correction: The numbers in Kromm's post were wrong and have since been corrected.

A small group of protesters targeted U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's Raleigh office today.

Led by the Institute for Southern Studies, 15 protesters said that a Senate committee has held up a bill that would provide housing assistance in New Orleans.

Nana Nantambu, a former resident of New Orleans, said she will not return because of exploitative rents charged by landlords and poor housing stock.

"It is a violation of our human rights," she said.

In the video above, Ajamu Dillahunt with the N.C. Justice Center says he will deliver a letter to Dole asking her to help pass Senate Bill 1668.

"New Orleans needs homes for the holidays," read one sign.

Jon Stewart's fans are a pretty knowledgeable bunch, but so are Bill O'Reilly's.

In an aside on a post yesterday about the Virginia Tech shootings, Durham blogger Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies argues that two WRDU radio hosts are ill-informed, perhaps because of what they watch:

maybe it's Fox News, which a recent Pew Center study found was the news source most likely to produce uninformed viewers (those most up on current events, Pew found, where watchers of The Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central).

But click through to that study and you'll see two things wrong with the summary:

* The audience for "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" was essentially tied with that of major newspaper Web sites, Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" on PBS, "The O'Reilly Factor" on the previously mentioned Fox News Channel, National Public Radio and Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

* The study does not say that watching the show informed the audience, necessarily.

As the authors write:

The fact that a particular news source's audience is very knowledgeable does not mean that people learned all that they know from that source. As noted earlier, some news sources draw especially well-educated audiences who are keenly interested in politics.