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.
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Re: Guillory: Seaboard South is different
It's a good thing Guillory isn't a music writer. If he heard a country band play, "My Window Faces ther South," he might just ask a followup question:
"Now which part of the South would that be--the Seaboard South or the rest of it?"
But Guillory makes an important point, interesting too from the historical perspective in that in earlier eras of American history, the "Mid-South," or sometimes the Gulf Coast South, has often led the region in economic activity and prosperity.
David P. McKnight