Any effect on the Salazar/Coors race?  Or is that compartmentalized from President?

I'm not surprised; it makes more sense for Kerry to make sure he gets to 270 than try to run up the score. I mean, we think Ohio is in the bag, but the Bushies may still have an extra bullets and we may need money to stop the supression effort in Ohio.

a little bit.  According to the Post on Sunday, Governor Warner's staff asked the Kerry campaign for  $25K to buy some (relatively cheap) media time in rural areas; the Kerry campaign made it $50K.  It's not what they were going to do a month ago; but combined with the likely large margins in Northern Virginia, it could give Kerry a chance here.

that ballot initiative which could wind up netting the winner one net electoral vote

That we can advertise this and then the 527s help pick up the slack.  The best way to coordinate the uncoordinatable groups is to use the media.  Brilliant.  PA, OH, and IA or WI.  And the White House

As far as I know, all of the Kerry staff is still here. All of the organizing and planning for GOTV are going ahead full steam. Actually, the television advertising has so saturated the airwaves that frankly I think it is a waste for Kerry to be on the air much more here.

And Kerry and Edwards have been here plenty. 12,000 folks turned out for the Pueblo rally. Frankly, I don't know where else Kerry, himself, could go to campaign here. Denver-Boulder is about as solid as it can get. The Pueblo trip was a smart trip to turn out the voters in that Democratic area with a historic low participation rate.

So, I think this terminology of "pulling out" has too downcast a tone to it.

Colorado is a tough place for a Democrat, but Kerry could win here. If he doesn't it's going to be close and the Kerry effort may help elect Salazar to the US Senate.

I have no evidence of this, but living here in Boulder, CO, it sure doesn't feel like we're losing.

The GOTV efforts are in full swing and there is a lot of anti-Bush angst here.

That, and Salazar has this really great new radio commercial with a fake New Zealand phone call help desk handling Coors bear customer service calls representing the 1500 jobs Coors recently outsourced to New Zealand.  With all the techies out of work in the Denver metro area, outsourcing is considered a 4 letter word.  Salazar can easily win here!

I am not a Coloradan, but for any Democratic media folks in CO, WY, MT and NM, here is a link to a story in the LA Times on how a Federal whistleblower from the Denver EPA office has disclosed that Cheney's office was instrumental in skewing an EPA study on the possible  contamination of underground sources of drinking water by the fracturing fluids produced by Halliburton and used by the coalbed methane extraction industry.

A PDF file of the whistleblower's letter and analysis is also available at the LA Times site.  

Last week, an email from "Michael Whouley" to 600,000 supporters shares the "secret" strategic decision to "go for it" in Colorado. Today the local press reports Kerry has "scaled back", despite no specifics.

Folks, its a lot of smoke and mirrors designed to confuse the opposition.

You can't trust the Rocky.  When I worked there, the employees even used to call it the Mucky Rotten News.