Will it all come down to Colorado?

According to CBS News, McCain's post-convention bump now has him tied, 42 percent to 42 percent, with Obama. If the trend holds, we're looking once again at a nail-biter of an election.

But the CBS poll reflects only the national popular vote, which is, of course, completely meaningless in the American Electoral College. There, too, we're in for a ride.

Take, for instance, Karl Rove's recent breakdown of the swing states as of September 3:

Here, Obama leads 260 to 194 in the Electoral College, with only 84 electoral votes in play.

Assuming that the map stays as it is, the good news for Obama is that if he wins Ohio, Virginia, or Florida or a combination of New Hampshire and the states in the American West, he's in. But given this electoral map, McCain's choice of Palin starts to make sense. As a evangelical, frontier-state governor, she can campaign strongly in western states, and as a pro-life Christian feminist, she may be able to energize Christian conservatives in Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, perhaps enough to tip the scales away from Obama. That leaves only New Hampshire in the Obama column, which leaves him short.

The McCain-Palin strategy is this: Win by forcing Obama to lose. And it could pay off.

Take a look at today's electoral map from Politico.com, which has Obama winning the Electoral College 273-265:

Obama wins by losing every swing state except for New Hampshire and Colorado. This is a much different electoral map from the past, where states like Ohio and Florida decided the race, and it puts the DNC's decision to have the convention in Denver in a new light. The Democrats believe that Colorado, not Ohio, is going to decide the 2008 race for the White House. That's a bold strategy—probably depending primarily on the immigration issue—and it turns on a knife's edge, because Palin could campaign well among the state's evangelicals.

So it's going to be close. A nail-biter, decided late in the night, and perhaps early the following morning.