Can Edwards Carry the South?

My girlfriend's mother was gushing on the phone to her brother.

"You know, the ticket should be Kerry-Edwards. That way we have experience at the top, and Edwards can carry the south!"

Now it does give me another reason to hate my potential mother in law.

But it does beg an interesting question:

Can a liberal populist one-term senator from North Carolina (an increasingly conservative state) carry southern states?

I'm not convinced the guy can even carry NC, let alone another Southern state.

Is regionalism overblown by pundits and pols?

Does anyone care where Edwards grew up? Does that make him "one of us"?

As a native southerner myself, I don't see why he is particularly attractive to anyone, let alone intensely attractive to Southern moderates.

What do you think?