A fair assumption

[phk]

Would it be fair to say...

Democrats do best in presidential elections in their home state.

Only on how much local pride the candidate has.

[phk]

well yeah, I mean he is the exception.  But consider this: Clinton did best in 1992 in Arkansas.  Georgia was Carter's biggest state.  Mondale only won his home state.  Kerry did best in his home state. 
Bob Dole did best in Utah, as did George W. Bush.  I think Reagan also did, in at least one election.

It only depends on how popular they are there.

[phk]

not in the case of Al Gore....

Gore had spent eight years as VP in which he didn’t make any noticable effort to retain his Tennesseeness.  I wouldn’t consider Tennessee his home state any more than I would consider New York to be Hillary’s home state.

Well, at least Gore had slept in something other than a hotel within the state before he ran for president.  But I see your point.  He really didn't even grow up there, but officially that was his home state (nobody is going to use DC).

My opinion is that the Lewinsky scandal, and Gore's over-the-top defense of Clinton with respect to that scandal, cost Gore the southern states like Tennessee and Arkansas that Clinton had won in 1996.  He lost his southern appeal by backing Clinton's adultery.  At least that's my theory on why those states flipped.

Gun Control and wedge-issues. Southerners commit adultery more often than thier Northern counterparts.

By 2000 most people had moved on.

[phk]

Southerners commit adultery more often than thier Northern counterparts.

You may be right about that, but they still a lot less likely to vote for someone who does it, or supports it.  I believe that by 2000, enough southerners had not moved on from the Lewinsky thing to cost Gore the electoral votes of all the southern states that had voted for Clinton.  There was no other objective reason for those states to flip from 1996 to 2000.

Perot played a factor.  

In reality, Clinton only had a shot at 4 Southern states.

LA, AR(he is from there), [WV, FL] <-- these states aren't "sufficiently" Southern either.