Edwards 4 Obama = NC Swing State?

Why do I believe John's endorsement seals in Obama as NC's choice for president and makes NC a swing state for the first time in a long time?

I supported Edwards initially, donating to his campaign, going to a couple of rallies, meeting him, and volunteering at his national HQ here in Chapel Hill and I'm glad to see Edwards endorsing Obama today.

I'm glad to see this partially because after Edwards dropped out I moved on to volunteering for, donating to, and going to rallies for Obama. I think on a number of issues they have a strong overlap. One important initial overlap was Edwards apologizing for his pro-war vote, Obama being against it from the start, while Hillary was still standing beside her vote and I've seen several more overlaps since.

But the main reason I'm glad to see this is that I think it will help unite the party and put all of NC's democrats into the Obama pool. Don't get me wrong Hillary is a great democrat and major player in the party, but Obama obviously had a lot of support here already to win on May 6th and at his victory speech in Raleigh he said he considered this a swing state that he would campaign in. A lot of the kinds of people who support Hillary should be influenced by John's endorsement and pro-Obama speech.

The primary lasting this long has strengthened our party in my opinion. Interning with the Jim Neal for US Senate campaign for nearly half a year showed me first hand that a lot of new people were registering to vote, and learning how to get involved with campaigns in terms of donating, canvassing, putting up signs, phone banking, and getting into NC's democratic politics in numerous ways. I saw a lot more grassroots activity this year including getting the chance to go to local hang outs and speak to people with Neal such as in this NBC report:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OccKNdnVNVU

I recently asked a political science professor when we were on NPR (WUNC specifically) on The State of Things program and he agreed that the primary was ultimately more constructive than it was divisive for the party:
http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0506a08.mp3

I've even considered running for a local office after the positive experiences I've had this primary season:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15887256639&ref=ts

Ultimately I feel with this endorsement added in that there is a strong chance that NC will get attention in the general election instead of just the primary which is a good thing in my opinion to have the parties fight for our votes regardless of who you support or which party you support and that we might even have a Blue NC on the national level after this general election.