The South isn't going to swing in the current state of the Democratic Party. They'll move away from us as fast as they add numbers to Democratic totals. A populist candidate could easily change that.
I never thought of the south as being especially economically liberal. How economically liberal, if you were to assign a PC score, would you give the south as a whole?
If you made the south the confederacy+ Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia, I'd say -.5. It would be close. Yet, I'd say the social score would be about +3. When I say populist, I don't mean nessicarily just economically left, socially right, yet anti-elistist, pro-family values, and common-sense.