Well, the weather here is basically intolerable except in late fall and in winter, which sticks out to me as Tennessee's worst trait. Aside from that, the politics are awful, but they could be much worse, and that doesn't have a huge effect on my view of states generally. I'm not really fond of the high levels of religiosity, but it doesn't bother me that much.
On the other hand, the Smoky Mountains are really nice, and I like a lot of the music that comes from eastern Tennessee and the surrounding area. I also think the people here are quite friendly, but that may also be true of most states (I haven't spent a whole lot of time in other states.).
I used to despise the state, but I've developed a much less negative view over the last year or so. I'd still say it leans HS, but I have the problem when answering questions like these, that I don't have much experience with other states or even different regions of my own state; I haven't experienced much outside of the Knoxville metropolitan area (or indeed even outside Oak Ridge), although I have visited Chattanooga, the Tri-Cities, and Nashville several times. I have, however, only been to West Tennessee a handful of times. I believe I've been to Memphis once and I was so young then that I don't remember it at all, so I don't have much to say about that city. I'm not really familiar of enough with other states to really compare and contrast them with Tennessee (never mind foreign countries), but I feel like the majority of most or all U.S. states must be at least okay places to live.
tl;dr: I'm not particularly fond of Tennessee, but I don't hate it, either, and I don't feel like I've experienced enough of the state or of other states to form a definite opinion.
How come Tennessee Republicans seem to be less flagrantly vile than Republicans in other deep red states (or even swing states)? I mean, like you said, you guys could definitely do a lot worse than Corker/Alexander/Haslam.
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