Counties that voted for McCain more than Bush (2004)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What does this tell you?  It tells me Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, large parts of Texas and central Appalachia are surprisingly more racist than Mississippi and Alabama.

No it means they don't have enough blacks to generate enough new voters to cancel out the racists.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

On the other hand, according to this page, Alabama whites voted for Kerry 47% more than Obama and Mississippi 21% more whereas the national average was to vote for Obama 5% more.  The map below shows the states where the whites voted for Obama 15% more than Kerry (blue) and 15% less (red).

So maybe AL and MS are just as bad.

AL and MS have more blacks, which Obama was able to turn out at a higher rate, which offset any loss in the white vote.

As for the map, outside of Mass. and Ariz., which of these counties have sizeable populations--possibly some in western PA and some in TN.

Why would South Carolina whites vote for Obama at a much higher rate than Alabama or Mississippi whites?

SC actually has some non-redneck areas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A lot of the Louisiana parishes are attributable to Katrina causing more Democrats to leave the state than Republicans.

Not really. That was just a small portion of the parishes in the state.