Tennessee a Swing State?

An article in Slate magazine nails it:

Kerry does need to worry about Tennesseans like Troy Oatsvall—the Troy of Troy's Barbershop. Oatsvall, who's cut hair in Huntingdon for 40 years, never voted for a Republican presidential candidate before George W. Bush. He regrets his Bush vote, just not enough to check the box for Kerry. "I don't like what Bush has done in Iraq. I don't think one American boy is worth that whole country. But I don't like Kerry. Did you ever meet someone and just not like the way he looks? That's the way I feel about Kerry. I just don't like the way he looks."

For three days in Tennessee, that is practically the nicest thing I hear about Kerry from a Democrat. Tennessee Democrats say Kerry wants to take their guns, that he's more liberal than Al Gore, that they don't know anything about him and don't really care to, that the only reason to vote for him is that he isn't Bush.

A swing state? Not hardly.