Apples to Apples

I'm on vacation, so I have time to read stuff like this:

While I think Edwards should be taken more seriously than JPod does — if only because so many Democrats and pundits take him seriously — let's not forget that Edwards didn't help Kerry in the South at all. If memory serves, Edwards didn't even boost Kerry's percentage in Edwards' home state of North Carolina by even a single percentage point over Gore's in 2000. We were told when Kerry picked Edwards that the move would put all of the South in play. That was obvious nonsense. But, if he's the guy who can win in the South, shouldn't he have helped the ticket in his own state just an eensy-weensy bit?

Well, OK, but Al Gore was a southerner himself. If Edwards didn't shift many southern states toward the Democrats relative to 2000, that probably had something to do with the fact that his ticket was more-or-less the inverse of Gore's, which featured a southerner at the top and relegated the scary New England character to the bottom.