Party on the Mason-Dixon Line?

An op-ed piece in the Washington Post today notes the departure of Northern Libertarian-leaning voters from the Republican Party, and the consolidation of the Republicans as the party of "Southern values." The traditional geographic dispersal of the Democrats began to shift northward when the party espoused the idea of civil rights in the 60s. Then, the parties began (continued? I don't know enough about US politics...) to align along social issues. In every region, you find people who don't want "big government," or who "support our troops," but does that really matter?

Could it be that the age-old question of North vs. South is still applicable? This is not to suggest that either bloc is, well, a bloc, but does pose the question of whether people vote on issues, or on cultural perception. Or do we just vote the way the people around us vote? Do we create the "popular" crowd in politics the same way we do it in middle school?

If the parties' support bases really have been shifting over the past 40 years, they've certainly supported a North-South divide. Just take a look at a red-state/blue-state map from the last Presidential election. Are our cultures really so different that we respond to starkly divergent political messages? Or do we just vote what we know?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103101312.html