I think what is different this year is that nobody knows how to poll a presidential contest with a black nominee. Republican leaning pollsters are being conservative about black turnout and the rest are being aggressive, which lands them in the same unrealistic place. When the exit polls are finally in we will see that the electorate is a bit more Dem than it was in 2004, a bit more Republican than it was in 2006 and close to the demographic averages of the last three Presidential years. Underneath the horserace numbers all the polls agree that in that scenario, Obama gets crushed.
NC is a patriotic state with military bases, a traditionalist religious community, and many small and medium sized towns that helped Jesse Helms withstand the Bolshevik onslaught every six years. Jim Hunt was gonna beat him. No, Harvey Gantt.
If McCain can't win NC, he is done. It's a common sense state. My mother was born there. My parents met and wed at Camp Lejeune. NC didn't fall for the Perot pied piper and voted for Bush one.
If the tarheels go over to the darkside, we're all going there, into the Obama abyss. I think too highly of them. We won't lose there.