September 19, 2008 10:20 PM UTC

Palin Canceling Events Around Country

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve just learned that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has canceled a scheduled event in Colorado for next Tuesday, when she was slated to speak at a rally at Centennial Airport.

This latest cancellation is consistent with the abrupt change in plans for Palin around the nation, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who was to star at two major California fundraisers and an Orange County rally for 15,000 next week, has canceled her two-day swing through the Golden State, campaign sources said.

The change is a shocker, because Palin’s presence had electrified the GOP base in California. Party insiders were distributing 15,000 tickets to her Sept. 26 rally in Orange County — and fundraisers reported an almost instantaneous sell-out of her two $1,000-a-head Sept. 25 fundraising events in Orange County and Santa Clara.

Both fundraisers had generated such high ticket sales that the OC Lincoln Club event was moved to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and the Bay Area event was moved from the Woodside home of Tom Siebel to the huge Santa Clara Convention Center.

The change comes in the same week a new Field Poll showed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama still leads Republican presidential candidate John McCain in California by a whopping 16-point margin.

So Palin’s pullout from her Western state swing is sure to ramp up chatter that the GOP ticket — which has insisted it will compete here — may be reassessing its Golden State presence. (Team McCain says it’s just a scheduling issue.)