Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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We had seen signs and reports of this earlier, but now it's official:

WASHINGTON - Bowing to political realities, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has canceled plans to begin broadcasting television commercials in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and the perennial battleground of Missouri.

So I guess it's not much of a "perennial battleground," now is it?

The decision to shrink his political playing field reduces Kerry's strategic options — at least for now — in the homestretch of the campaign. George W. Bush won all four states in 2000, and Kerry can't win the White House without taking a state or two from the Republican incumbent.

While pulling back from some states that Bush carried, Kerry is still strongly competing in several GOP-leaning battlegrounds, including Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

COUGH. Ahem. "In a telephone survey last week of 600 registered voters who are likely to vote [in Colorado], 51 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Bush while 39 percent said they would vote for Kerry. The poll was conducted by Ciruli Associates of Denver. The margin for error in the poll is 4 percent."

Ads were scheduled to begin airing Oct. 5 in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri as part of a $5 million investment through Nov. 2, but campaign advisers concluded Kerry isn't doing well enough in the states to justify the cost.

The campaign, which has reserved commercial time in 20 states through Election Day, notified television stations in the four states that Kerry would not follow through on his plans for the first week of October.

Plans are still in place to air ads starting the second week of October, campaign officials said, but those will likely be tabled, too.

But wait! Zogby's Internet polls had Kerry with a .1 percent lead in Arkansas because of sympathy over Bill Clinton's health!

[Posted 09/23 09:22 AM]