Visits to Colorado last week by a presidential candidate and a vice presidential candidate are proof, as if anyone still needed it, that the state is important this fall.

Despite the attention from Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama and Republican veep nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, it's still just the little guys who matter.

Colorado will still be won like any other state: By whomever gets out more voters on Election Day.

To get people energized, both campaigns are ramping up get-out-the-vote operations around Colorado, including in Fort Collins, where phone-bank callers and be-sneakered canvassers are busy seemingly every night.

Last week, the McCain campaign opened a new Fort Collins volunteer headquarters, and volunteers walked precincts on Sept. 13.

They phone-banked in Denver and even had an Iron Chef competition using a secret ingredient -- lemon, in homage to a comment Obama made about people who cling to guns and religion because they're bitter.

McCain Colorado spokesman Tom Kise said the campaign has 10 offices, including the one in Fort Collins, and is working with 13 county party offices acting as satellite offices.

"We've got a very aggressive (get-out-the-vote) program, aggressively reaching out to people through phones, person-to-person contact," he said. "We're doing that through targeted efforts, making sure we're finding people how they live, who they are, versus just a shotgun approach of walking down the street and talking to every person on the street."

Volunteers and organizers are working every day, he said.

"Occasionally they'll take a breath for Broncos games -- you don't want to call people during a Broncos game," he said. "But other than that it is nonstop reaching out to voters."

Obama's volunteers also have been busy. They've had an office in Fort Collins since this summer, but the campaign is on a roll -- they were slated to help open the campaign's 29th Colorado office Thursday in Estes Park, followed by two more later in the week, bringing the total to 31 offices statewide.

The offices have been busy places: Fort Collins volunteers held a phone bank for women on Wednesday, as part of a campaign-wide Women's Week of Action.

What's more, Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien helped the campaign Thursday in a forum with voters on pay equity issues of concern to women.

The campaign has offices in every corner of the state, from Denver suburbs north and south to far-flung locales like Alma and Montrose.

The goal is to reach as many people as possible, according to the campaign. The headquarters serve as home base for volunteers and supporters, and people can come by and find out how to help -- as well as pick up campaign materials when they're available.

What's that URL?

When the Internet was still in its own version of the Cambrian explosion, Saturday Night Live did a skit about a fake financial company that was seemingly the last in the world to go online. The only URL left was something involving a clown and male genitalia, funny but inappropriate to reprint in a family newspaper.

It seems politicians are in a similar conundrum this year.

There are plenty lame-sounding Web sites devoted to campaigns or issues, many of them seemingly because Web designers either weren't creative, or the Internet is simply running out of names.

Other sites probably could have gone with other names, but chose ones that would stick in voter's minds, like DrugDealerCindy.com. The site is a project of the group Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, which lobbies for the legalization of marijuana. The group calls Cindy McCain a drug dealer because her family owns a beer distributorship -- "As the head of (Hensley & Co.), Cindy makes millions of dollars dealing a drug far more harmful than marijuana: Alcohol."

There are those who would argue alcohol is not a narcotic in the traditional sense, but the Web site name is hard to forget.

Then there are sites like Notyouraveragejoseph.com. That's Joseph, not Joe. And it's not the Technicolor Dreamcoat Joseph.

It's a new site devoted to Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, who does go by Joe, just to be clear. Apparently the Republican Party, which runs the site, had to use his full name because Notyouraveragejoe.com was already taken, by a Dallas photographer named Joe Grisham.

Average Joseph? Not quite the same ring, but memorable nonetheless. At least they still got a .com.