We gained absolutely everywhere besides the south, as I showed. I fail to see how Kerry hurt us at all in any area except the south.

Well, I think there are a few logical fallacies in this statement that bear examination. First of all, the Partisan Index talks about all candidates and not just the president. In order to establish the case that this index is or is not covariant with the provenance of the candidate, you'd have to look at all of the candidates being assayed in each of the states in question, not just at the presidential candidate. Clearly, John Kerry lost IA and NM this time, while Al Gore won them, so you cannot argue that a Northeasterner did better than a Southerner in those states. in fact, Kerry himself lost ground as compared to AL Gore in 31 states, including the entire south except Virginia, and the battlegrounds of PA, MI, MO, NM, AZ, FL, and IA. He also lost in the blue states RI, MD, MA(ouch!), NJ, NY, CA, CT, DE, IL, and HI. He gained in the battlegrounds of CO, NV, OH, OR, and WI. Personally, I think his gains in NV and CO have more to do with demographic changes in those states than anything else. Rich urbanites from places like Los Angeles are flooding into the scenic mountain areas of CO and the Glitter Gulch of Las Vegas. I would bet Kerry's 5% gain in Montana has something to do with that as well.

So actually, in those states where his losses are at variance with overall gains by the Dems (NC, VA, NM, IA, PA, MI) I think that there is a good argumant that his provenance hurt him relative to the mostly indigenous Democrats who constitute the index. There are also several cases where Kerry seems to have lost more ground relative to Gore than the Democrats did overall. As far as I can tell, there are no states where Kerry outperformed the Democrats as a whole, so clearly he was not the optimal democratic candidate.