The shake up marked a major turning point for McCain and for his campaign, the communication strategy shifted, the messaging changed, he had an easier time coming off more natural and he stayed on point, focusing his attention to the areas of his greatest strength. He would take a victory in New Hampshire, the first real test of his strength, sail to an easy take in South Carolina and, in a winner take all fight, would secure his status as the front runner in Florida.

Within a short time he was an unstoppable force. First it would be former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, then Guiliani, before Romney and finally Huckabee, each of them falling in their own time, leaving an unrestricted road to the convention and the nomination for the Senator most were, at one point or another, willing to write off.

Now, amidst a few gaffes and missteps, with polling numbers that trail his principle rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, it seems that Senator McCain is hoping to rekindle that magic and use it to get his campaign back on the right track.

It's perhaps not hard to see why...

There has been very little that have changed in the polling numbers between Senator Obama and Senator McCain according to the recent daily tracking numbers according to the Rasmussen Report's Daily Polls. Last week the Arizona Senator claimed 40 percent of the hard support, while the Democrat hopeful claimed 46, a week later it remains a 40 - 46 split. The difference lies in the soft support though, the voters crucial to both campaigns if they hope to win. While Obama has remained consistent at 49 percent of that support McCain has dropped from 45 to 44.

It perhaps seems like an essentially insignificant drop and if the two of them were within the margin of error of each other it might very well be, but with Senator Obama holding a 4 to 5 per cent lead among the undecided and independents, almost at 50 percent, it represents a threat to Senator McCain, a candidate who has needed these votes and who made his career appealing to them, building a reputation as a maverick with a strong independent streak.

But CNN and Gallup perhaps represent better news for the Arizona Senator.

With the field remaining equal as it was right now the race is considerably tighter according to both sources. As CNN conducted their poll they found that without any third party or independent candidates McCain trails Senator Obama by five points, Senator Obama taking 50 per cent of the vote compared to McCain's 45. But add the presence of Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Candidate former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, and McCain still trails but finds himself well within the margin of error. With a 3.5 percent margin McCain then takes 43 percent to Obama's 46 percent, Nader then taking 6 per cent and Barr taking 3.

Gallup though offers the best results for McCain. With a margin of error of +/- 2 percent Gallup puts the spread between McCain and Obama as a dead heat, the Republican Candidate taking 44 percent of the vote, his Democrat rival taking 46 percent. Though, like the Rasmussen polls, there is an absence of third party candidates in their tracking there can be little doubt that it would perhaps yeild similar results as it did for the CNN polls. Their explanation of the 5 to 6 point lead by Senator Obama? The unity bump felt by one time rival Senator Hillary Clinton joining his campaign.

Still, it's hardly even close to a lead for Senator McCain and is perhaps too close for comfort with all things considered.

Now granted there is an inevitable bump that will be felt with the convention and the choice of running mates, especially if the Republican nominee picks one with appeal in the two areas where he is hit the hardest, domestic issues and the economy and amidst the conservative wings of the Republican Party. Consistently the numbers show him as strong on foreign policy and national security issues but taking a hard hit on domestic and economic issues, and even a stronger message there seems to have little resilience among voters. There, poising himself as a foreign policy/national security candidate means that he has to balance himself out with a strong domestic policy/economic security candidate who is able to sell the message with greater persuasive abilities than McCain has shown.

Combine that with someone who is able build strength amidst conservative voters by speaking their language, a candidate who would be recognized as a solid policy maker, able to bring clearly consistent message to the table and have it recognized as a strong course, a candidate who would help sell Senator McCain's message on appointing judges with a constructionist view of the Constitution, for example, and his numbers will go up, winning a core demographic of the Republican Party that has remained carefully allusive to him.

There it becomes more and more apparent that he needs a Mitt Romney or a Bobby Jindel, the young, charismatic governor of Louisiana, to even out the ticket and to make significant in roads into that base.

But he also has to realize that he can't wait that long nor can he allow for Senator Obama to potentially gain ground until the time is necessary or right to announce his Vice Presidential pick.

It is necessary then for Senator McCain to realize that something just isn't clicking amidst his current strategy and make the proper steps to rectify the errors before they become synonymous with his campaign. It represents not just the basic understanding that politics is, by and large, sink or swim and that there is little room for mistakes to be made in the course of the campaign, but also the understanding that something is broken and that, for the message of his campaign to resonate with voters, there needs to be a shift in gears to alter the thinking that would have otherwise have seen few results better than what has already been seen.

Without that the problems become more deeply rooted, more ingrained and harder to remove.

Regardless, even with the numbers showing a Obama lead over McCain, the vast and varying nature of them seem to perpetually prove that old adage "The only poll that matters is the one on election day." As that is consider it is a wonder if, between the neck and neck polls and the strong lead for Senator Obama polls, if there is going to be a point where they offer a consistent look at the 2008 election?

But then just a few thoughts I suppose...