Is it, honestly?  Do you honestly believe these things are symmetrical and parallel?  Is there an entire culture industry focused on ridiculing "the North"?  Is there an accepted reading of history anywhere that sees the North as having historical and genetic (exaggeration) faults that run to the core of its very existence?  The two simply aren't the same and trying to compare them (Edwards' comment was as insensitive as Dean's) constructs a false symmetry that makes the issue "easy" but distorts what is going on.  

Julia's post is dead on; the unspoken part of what is going on is economic and these questions (like all important social questions in the US) remain racialized.  Dean (and other pragmatic middle class folk) who want to ignore that or pretend the issue isn't "race" but "class" don't get it.  

BTW: What the entry is pointing out is also primarily responsible for the "anti-big government" crusade and acceptance around the country.  When people say they don't want the government doing things, they really mean they don't want the government hiring black people to do things that private industry will hire white people to do, hence more "efficiency".  That's also what they mean when they talk about government "incompetence".  This is what people in the south mean when they say this, its also what republicans in many areas mean when they say this.