Interestingly, this list lacks much in the way of strong blue-collar towns. It's mostly ceiling-hitting in Cali -- although certainly there are some entries (such as in San Francisco) where blue-collar elements kicked in against Obama.
Yeah, rural hatred of Obama is certainly overplayed, as it's primarily a southern/Appalachian phenomenon. Obama did quite a bit better than Gore or Kerry in rural areas outside of the South. Not as much better as his improvement in urban or suburban areas, of course (especially suburban areas, since they can swing a lot more than urban areas which are more maxed out). And not as well as Clinton obviously, whom he did approximately as well as nationally.
But as you say, the urban maxing out thing overrode the rural hatred thing. I'm sure similar lists for other non southern states would show the same thing.
I'd also mention that McCain was a better fit than Bush for many of the cities on the list of highest Republican swings/lowest Democratic swings. That did play a part, I'm sure.
My anecdotes are no more relevant than those of any of the other 7 billion people on the planet, but in my experience even people who voted for McCain around here are at least cheering for Obama, and willing to give him a chance. They just want things fixed, and if it turns out they were wrong about how to do that, they are more than ok with that. I've yet to meet someone who wants Obama to fail (sorry, Rush).
