Well forgive me if I sound ignorant, but I am a long ways from the south. I do know that the upper south seems to vote more for economic reasons (poor whites, coal miner unions, etc) and the deep south for cultural reasons (whites pited against blacks). Most of the south is pretty rural, so I'm guessing there's a lot of people, regardless of color, who'd like to just be left alone. Are the deep southern states more authoritarian?
Well Appalachia, I'd argue, is precisely the opposite of libertarian. Appalachians support unions, they support high minimum wage laws, they're populist. Add to that a certain cultural feeling and scepticism of social liberalism.
The Deep South is also not libertarian. The Deep South would perhaps best be described as theocratic. A majority of voters there wish to impose their religious beliefs on the entire population. This year there's a guy running for the Republican nomination in Alabama that wants to ban mosques, for example, under the pretense that Muslim immigrants should become good Americans.
Economically? Low taxes. Low taxes. Low taxes. They couldn't care less about true fiscal conservatism or balanced budgets.
Foreign policy? Bomb Iran!
