From a reader:

Jonah, speaking as a conservative Southerner (expatriated for some time to CT and IA), I think you are more correct than Todd & Co. Bloomberg restricted smoking and trans-fats? So? Here in North Carolina, much of the agricultural economy is devoted to the former (ditto for KY and VA), so I don’t think that platform will score many points over the Republican front-runners. Pro-abortion? No Southern conservative I know is primed for that. Moreover, many of the Democrats who won Congressional seats in the South are quite conservative on the issue (e.g., Heath Shuler from Asheville’s district). Gun control? Are you kidding???
Hands down, Bloomberg entering the race (from the perspective of what I must believe is a great majority of Southern conservatives) hurts Democrats as a socially liberal but fiscally conservative former RINO, and could have a Perot effect to the Democratic front-runner. It may also encourage conservative Democrats who voted for Shuler & Co. to swallow the rising bile and pull the Republican lever.
Another light note: your light allusion to people down here not voting for a Jew I think is a stretch. While I would be more than willing to admit that, sadly, some of that feeling still exists in pockets, I am encouraged to believe that many white Southerners have, to take a phrase from the Liberals, moved on. I don’t think that you were trying to allude to Southern Jew bashing, but sometimes history makes us justifiably sensitive. (On a side note, I found it interesting to discover that, as a Roman Catholic, I have a Jewish synagogue and a Buddhist temple closer to my home than a Catholic church.)
Love your stuff as always.