Pat McCrory clarified his criticism of Louisiana today.

In previous speeches and debates, the Republican gubernatorial candidate has compared recent scandals in North Carolina state politics to Louisiana.

"I want to make sure we're not like Louisiana," he said at a WTVD debate in mid August. "I want to bring back good government to North Carolina. And that starts at the executive branch right here in Raleigh."

This morning, McCrory rode on a bus tour with former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer.

Coincidentally or not, he amended his speech line during a gubernatorial forum on ethics in downtown Raleigh around noon.

He spoke about an "ethical breakdown" in state government over the last eight years, saying they "more resemble Huey Long Louisiana politics than the good government we've always been proud of."

Long was governor and senator in Louisiana in the 1920s and 1930s; Roemer in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Verenda Smith says Kentucky, Louisiana and Arkansas are in the Southeast, but not West Virginia.

The interim director of the Federation of Tax Administrators says she would use climate, history and economy to define the region. She says Southeastern states have muggy weather, often border the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and were in the Confederacy.

That last quality would eliminate Kentucky, which did not secede, but Smith argued as a native of the state that it was divided by the Civil War. She would include Louisiana and Arkansas because of their warmer climates and Confederate membership.

"West Virginia is harder because they are geographically different from the rest of the Southeast, up there with Pennsylvania and Ohio," she said. "They don't have the growing seasons and the cotton, and they were on the Union side."

Still, Smith said it's an academic exercise.

"The question has no single answer," she said.

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.