HORSERACE NEWS - KERRY GIVING UP ON FOUR STATES
The Kerry Campaign is pulling ads in the following four states (Federal Review analysis of current margin of lead in parenthesis).

Arizona (Bush +9)
Arkansas (Bush +3)
Louisiana (Bush +16)
Missouri (Bush +6)

Still, Kerry doesn't need any of these states to get elected - they were all won by Bush in 2000. Kerry, like Bush, really just needs two out of these three: Ohio (Bush +6), Pennsylvania (Tied) and Florida (Bush +3). It's hard to envision a scenario where a candidate loses two of these but picks up enough states from the other party's 2000 total to pull it off. Kerry would have needed some combination of AZ, AR, LA, MO, Nevada (Bush +5), New Hampshire (Bush +1) and Colorado (Bush +7). Bush would need some combination of Wisconsin (Bush +5), Minnesota (Kerry +2), Iowa (Bush +2), New Jersey (Kerry +4), New Mexico (Tied) and Oregon (Kerry +2). Yes, Bush is closer to making it possible to lose 2 of 3 and still win, but I still don't see it happening.