Southern Democrats possess many political assets that appeal to moderate white voters in swing states. People often forget that Bill Clinton would still have won the presidency in both 1992 and 1996 without a single southern electoral vote. But Clinton couldn't have won absent the skills he gained as an Arkansas politician.

The South is more conservative than the rest of the nation, especially on divisive social and racial questions. Successful southern Democrats are unusually savvy at first winning primaries dominated by African American and white liberal voters, then turning around a few months later and winning election among the more conservative electorate in November. In short, they know how to appeal to African Americans -- and, increasingly, Hispanics as well -- without alienating whites. Typically, southern Democrats inoculate themselves against claims that they are too liberal by favoring the death penalty, identifying with gun owners, or both.

As important as the positions that southern Democrats espouse are the language and rhetoric they use to espouse them. They are far more comfortable invoking values like faith and patriotism than coastal or northeastern Democrats are. Even if their abortion-rights positions differ little from their nonsouthern counterparts, southern Dems deftly lament the frequency of abortion along with the rise in sexual promiscuity.

In short, the positioning and rhetorical skills that seem to come naturally to southern Democratic politicians make them electable in downballot races in a conservative region that is increasingly hostile to the Democratic Party.

But that doesn't mean those skills are most effectively or efficiently applied to the task of winning electoral college votes in the South. Instead, what Edwards would bring to the presidential ticket is needed help in Rust Belt and border swing states, including Democratic "nail-down" states like Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, and potential "pick-up" states like West Virginia, Ohio, and Missouri.

In short, Edwards is valuable because he can get votes in the "battleground states" which will most likely decide the outcome of the 2004 election.