Or is this just evidence that they were all a bunch of racists who just wanted to be able to vote for a white guy with a Southern accent?
Bingo.
Also, to a lesser extent, this happened with Hillary. She was arguably to the left of Obama on some issues, and yet the conservative Democratic establishment continued to support her over Obama.
Yes, but Hillary was a viable candidate. So why would the Edwards voters support someone who wasn't even in the race anymore instead of her?
Hillary also seemed to appeal more to the Northern/Appalachian blue-collar voters than to Southerners. Her working-class coalition was union members and coal miners and factory workers. Edwards' was Southern whites in right-to-work states, almost the Democratic counterpart to the kind of Republicans who supported Mike Huckabee.
I sometimes mix the two. Where I'm located, Appalachian and Southern are just about the same thing. I would disagree with you though on the characterization of Edwards and Hillary, at least relative to where they can perform well, as Edwards is an Appalachian child and Hillary is well-liked by Southerners. He's from Oconee County, SC, which is an Appalachian county and right on the NE border of Georgia. In the NE Georgia counties near there - which are heavily Appalachian - Edwards got 8-10% in the Democratic Primary on March 2, 2008. In the NW Georgia Appalachian counties, he got ~5%. In the NW GA Tennessee Valley counties, he barely broke 2-3% and Hillary was insanely popular here in 2008. Edwards didn't even break 1% in the vast remainder of Georgia. It would have been feasible for Hillary to crack 40% in North Georgia in 2008, which would have been remarkable considering the electorate.
