Chris Bowers was skeptical of John King's assertion that "most top people inside the McCain campaign now think Colorado is gone," not because it's not true, but only because he'd be shocked to see McCain actually pull out of the state.

King didn't say that McCain has written off Colorado (or Iowa or New Mexico), just that most members of the campaign think it is lost. They would be accurate on that count. However, I'll believe McCain pulls out of Colorado when he stops running ads there. Or, say, when his campaign stops holding rallies there, as Palin just did earlier this evening. Giving up on Colorado, where McCain trails by 4.5%, and going for Pennsylvania, where he trails by at least 10.0%, would be a colossally stupid move by McCain.

Not that the McCain campaign has ever shirked from stupidity, but in this case, Bowers seems to have read them correctly. Jonathan Martin reports on the campaign's pushback against King's report:

Two senior aides didn't deny that Colorado appeared challenging, but pointed to the two key indicators of any campaign's intent, time and money, to make the case that they were still holding out hope there.

"We didn't send Gov. Palin there for no reason," said one, a reference to the vice presidential nominee's three rallies across the state today.

Another aide pointed out that the campaign and RNC's independent expenditure committee were both still on the airwaves there.

Martin describes the campaign's version of the (narrowing) path ahead:

The campaign believes that there are different formulas to get to 270, not all of which include Colorado. But without it, as King writes, McCain must not only hold onto a number of precarious red states such as Virginia, Nevada and Florida, but also bring a major blue state such as Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes over. McCain aides have also held out hope that they could lose Pennsylvania but still win with the combination of Minnesota and Wisconsin, 20 total electoral votes, but public polls in both states show McCain down by double-digits.

Funny that Martin seems to think the whole winning Wisconsin and Minnesota is the crazy thing in this scenario. Looking at Pollster.com, it's pretty interesting to note that Obama's margin in Wisconsin (8.1%) plus his margin in Minnesota (6.9%) almost exactly equals his lead in Pennsylvania (15.2%.) So, which state is it that, on paper, actually looks like the least likely pick-up for McCain?