Time's Mark Halperin, who runs their political website, The Page, unleashed his campaign season calendar highlighting what he predicts to be the most important dates in the presidential race. Worth noting for followers of Evergreen State politics is the final date on the calendar, Nov. 4, 2008. That's election day, on which he calls Washington one of 14 "states to watch."

Fourteen is too large a number to get terribly excited about, given that it puts Washington only in the top 30 percent of battleground states. But still, included in the same group are notorious win-or-go-home states as Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Pennsylvania.

In other words, get those hiking boots out. John McCain might just be coming back to the woods.