So, actually quite interesting thread. The people who were saying that NC won't be in play of course didn't expect a 7% national margin, but, still, something notable happened. The huge swings in populous NC counties did materialize ahead of schedule 
North Caroline swung 12.76% this time, but of the 8 counties that registered over 100 thousand votes, all but the smallest (New Hanover) reported larger swings. And Wake wasn't by far the biggest culprit.
Wake County (Raleigh) swung 16.57% giving Obama 63,890 vote margin
Mecklenburg (Charlotte) swung 20.73%, giving Obama 100,110 vote margin (!!)
Guilford County (Greensboro) swung 17.46% giving Obama 44,383 vote margin
Forsyth County (Winston-Salem) swung 19.07% giving Obama 17,411 vote margin
The already uber-Democratic Durham County swung further 15.54% giving Obama 71,103 margin
Cumberland (Fayetteville) swung 21.19% giving Obama 22,542 vote margin
Buncombe County (Asheville) swung 14.50% giving Obama 17,222 vote margin
Every single one of these counties gave Obama more than his statewide margin (14,177 votes)!
New Hanover (Wilmington) was the sole exception, with a "modest", but still double-digit, 10.65% swing and a meagre 1,399 vote margin for McCain.
Of the counties that swung to McCain none had over 25 thousand votes cast. In fact, of the 16 counties w/ the largest number of votes cast there was a double-digit swing in every single one.
What's interesting about the swings here is that while the largest swings were mainly in metro counties that don't typify a Southern community, overall 91/100 counties here swung Obama even though most of non-metro NC is quite culturally Southern and Edwards was on the ballot in 2004.
Virginia has a similar pattern, I don't know the actual numbers but all rural counties in VA aside from the southwest swung to Obama.
SC surprised me by having only two counties swing Republican, even the the state overall swung by less than the national average.
This is in contrast to other parts of the South (OK, AR, east TX, LA, TN, northern FL, even some ultra-Republican white counties in MS and AL still swung GOP) where most counties had GOP swings or small swings towards Obama.
