Maryland Professor: Obama Should Cede The South

In a New York Times essay, Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, breaks down the numbers in Southern states and concludes that Barack Obama cannot win there -- except in Virginia.

In the rest of the South, Mr. Obama cannot overcome reality. Even if unprecedented numbers of black voters turn out to vote for him, the white vote will serve as a formidable counterbalance. Mr. Obama should not hope to capture states in the country’s most racially polarized region.