An email correspondent called my attention to an oversight in yesterday’s NRO piece on John Edwards and the Democrats’ Southern Strategy. I left off my list a Southern clime, already considered a battleground state, where Edwards will spend time and may be an asset: Arkansas. Like Florida, it’s a battleground state that Bush won in 2000 and where Bush and Kerry are close in several polls right now.
My only defense is that a dozen years spent trying to forget the place, for obvious reasons, was apparently somewhat successful.
On a related note, political scientist Merle Black of Emory University — one of the masters of Southern political lore and a former teacher of mine — said yesterday that he thought Edwards would probably help the ticket most in the region in Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina. These are all former Bush states that the Dems would at least like to make Bush work for this year.