The North Carolina/South Carolina Divide

Being Tar Heel Bred(although not Tar Heel Born, unfortunately), I have always been touchy when people from other parts of the country confuse North and South Carolina. They are totally different places, with NC having all the advantages (except Charleston, I will give SC that). With all of the recent focus on the crazy state of SC politics, at Talking Points Memo today there were some interesting and funny comments from local readers on the two states:
First:

I just returned from a weeklong beach trip to South Carolina, and while I was there, I thoroughly enjoyed TPM's coverage of the state's primary mess. Driving home the other day up I-26, I realized that South Carolina may be even more conservative than I knew (and I am a lifelong North Carolinian - please never, ever confuse the two states). I expected some strange campaign signs like the gigantic "Take Back America" yard signs that greeted us. What I didn't expect were the massive billboards. One depicted a candidate with a Bible scripture and verse on it. There were anti-abortion billboards about every 10 miles or less. There was a huge board with Rush Limbaugh's face with the caption "Saving America's Soul" on it. Then, there was a creepy, malevolent sign depicting what looked like a ninja on it with the warning to beware of Islam and a website for the Islam Rising film on it. (Didn't the Dutch guy in that film actually win some seats in the latest Dutch election?) All of this craziness coupled with the bizarre Alvin Greene story and the rise of Nikki Haley and the "raghead" comments of the state senator make me wonder if South Carolina is simply ground zero for the conservative movement or is it more complex? Most frighteningly, I wonder if much of Nikki Haley's success is due not just to her charisma but to the Palin endorsement. Given South Carolina's strategic place on the primary calendar in 2012, does this mean Palin has a good chance of winning the state and maybe even locking up the nomination? I guarantee this woman would do very well there. As someone who lives very close to the state line and who has travelled to the state many, many times, I was surprised at the level of open rightwing propaganda there. When one crosses into North Carolina, it is almost a palpable change.

And then a hilarious follow up from someone who lives in SC but works in NC:

True, there's a lot to hate about SC - monster pickups, bad roads, non-existent park and rec departments (which is probably good, since the last thing you'd want your kid grabbing at 102 degrees is a piece of steel playground equipment), Baptists, stars and bars flags, in-your-face racism, ankle shredding Palmetto, Baptists, wretched trees, alien-weed lawns, Baptists, melted and re-frozen ice-cream, bad pizza and worse beer, poisonous snakes, clouds of biting black gnats, civil war subs, corruption on every level (just look at Union, SC - nearly the entire city government is either indicted or in jail), Aryan compounds, alligators in your duck pond, Baptists, and I could go on and on (and do, until someone - usually my wife - slaps me out of it). Just remember, not all of SC is swamp - much of it is jungle. As my 88 year old father said on his first visit to SC, "I've seen some rich get richer and poor get shit places, but this one takes the cake." While it's true that SC is worse by degree (and I'm not talking about temperature, it's hotter than hell in NC right now, too), all I have to mention to those proud NCer's who want to divorce themselves from the nightmare that is SC and appear somehow more progressive are two facts. Until the last presidential election, NC was as deeply red as any red-state, and secondly, the NASCAR museum. I rest my case.