There is little doubt that the basic sentiment expressed by Dr. Grant, written in the deeper theological language he was known for, was a correct assessment. Though policy plays it's part, process, not policy, perhaps as often as we like to say we vote based on the issues, tends to dominate the political medium and becomes the primary method by which elections are won. Now granted, there are always that group of people that do vote solely based on policy, spending time pouring over platforms or researching voting histories to determine where or how someone stands or stood on the issues important to them but the more time that passes the more that number seems to dwindle, if it was even a great number to begin with.

Yesterday, amidst a number of problems that had been plaguing his campaign, Republican Presumptive Nominee and Senior Senator from Arizona John McCain announced a campaign shift. A year after what had become known as "Black Monday", the time last year when, trailing in the polls and finding his campaign was broke, the fundraising well dry, he shook his campaign with an organizational restructuring that included a large round of lay offs of campaign staff from the bottom to the top, Senator McCain announced a new campaign shake up. The hope, that he would able to shift the focus of his campaign, and offer a stronger direction after a series of missteps that have hurt him in his chances of winning election.

In other words, his strategy is not working, somewhere amidst the end of the Republican Primary and end of the Democratic Primary a series of miscalculations have caused him to slip in the polls, finding himself trailing his principle rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in all the tracking numbers. The actual number of the Obama lead, well that's open to speculation, with one finding everything from a very wide lead, as reported by the Los Angeles Times/Bloomburg Poll (giving Senator Obama a double digit lead), to a vary narrow one, as shown in the Gallup numbers (putting Senator Obama's lead in the margin of error with two points) and pretty much all places in between.

Still, any lead, especially a consistent one that have been listed since the Illinois Senator won the Democratic Primary, with the last states and super delegates giving him the number he needed to edge out New York Senator Hillary Clinton, has to be one that races eyebrows in the McCain campaign.

Something in his messaging just isn't seeming to resonate with the voters. Something seems to be missing, and the simple truth of the matter is that the longer it is left the more time the issues surrounding his campaign have the chance to fester, giving fodder to the Obama campaign to create a greater divide. They already have been doing it, whether it has been the message that the Republican's would run a smear campaign, attacking him based on his youth, inexperience, unique name and race or the idea that Senator McCain is running for a third term of current President George W. Bush, they have been terrifically effective at shifting attention away from the traditional brand of the Arizona Senator as a Independent minded Maverick able to work with bi-partisan support, to a candidate of what they are calling the failed policies of President Bush. Now, with the initial success of that message they are shifting focus in order to try and build an idea of Senator Obama being a unity candidate, seeking conservative voters, to not just take any independent base from Senator McCain but the base of voters which generally constitutes an important part of the Republican tent, in order to build a left wing Ronald Reagan style coalition.

If left or met with inaction there is little doubt the campaign of the junior Senator out of Illinois will be able to do it. It has already shown considerable political pragmatism to get as far as they have.

As it currently stands Senator McCain and his campaign has shown an inability to know how to react or when to react in order to maximize the effectiveness of his campaign. Their responses have been lackluster or ill timed to say the least and have shown a degree of unwillingness to confront Senator Obama directly, causing considerable weakness on his part.

Now some will say that Senator McCain's challenge for Senator Obama to meet him in a town hall setting was a direct confrontation or his attempts to label him as the next Jimmy Carter, the former President who became the first incumbent Democrat President to lose a re-election bid since Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison, but as it stands they have been either weak challenges directed at Senator Obama through another party or done in a manner that was quickly forgotten. In other words they have been largely ineffective.

In order to change that McCain needs to change the thinking in his campaign in order to change the focus and hopefully put together a strategy that has a better, stronger capacity to work for him. There a campaign shake up is the important first step to identifying the problem and beginning to rectify it.

But it's not the final step.

Without a doubt the campaign is going to be busy in the next days reworking the messages and other key components of their strategy in order to ensure what they have is a strong means to create a successful bid for the White House.

First among that is their demographic profiling. As stated earlier there just seems to be something in the McCain messaging that doesn't seem to be working with the voters that he is trying to appeal to, offering a tough fight for him to then counter the messaging amidst the Obama Campaign that seems to have considerably stronger staying power.

There they have to re-evaluate who the key markets that they are trying to bring their message to, consider how the brand management of Senator McCain is actually doing amidst those groups, and if, in fact, they are the core voters that are going to make up the groups they are targeting. If they are they need to take the opportunity to look at the priorities that these voters have based upon the data at their disposal, why these are their priorities and the way that they communicate. From there they are able to more effectively put together a stronger communication strategy that offers a keen understanding of who these people are and what makes them tick.

There they find themselves amidst the second of their challenges. A successful rebuilding of their own brand. As it currently stands the Obama campaign has been terrifically successful at creating an image of Senator McCain and his supporters. Granted some of this has been with the help of media, which have taken his claims as truth even without any proof or evidence to back them up. What that means is that McCain has to build a more effective new media strategy, essentially utilizing his own campaign and a independent structure within it to create hype. Increased access, effectively seeking out new media pundits and commentators that pull a large audience, creating perhaps weekly round tables with small groups of them and allowing more viral messaging to go out.

Despite the images that his age may invoke there lies the ability to create a strong buzz around his campaign from the grassroots up, even as the Obama campaign tries to utilize new media and claim their own stake and ownership on it. Effectively building their brand by building stronger ties and stronger in roads to new media help for them to counter the weight given to the advantage Senator Obama otherwise has, if used in the proper way.

Thirdly, the formation of a rapid reaction force for the campaign. A truth squad is great but let's face it, by and large these Truth Squads lack the means to counter claims until they are already out there and have already gained coverage. With that realization comes the further realization that there needs to be a small, sleak team with a strong background in communications, essentially on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with access to the candidate, able to respond at 11 pm at night from the side of the road on the way from one campaign location to another. Given specific areas of focus members of this team should be expected to become experts in the files that they are given to ensure they have the ability to respond as necessary and when necessary, and, if finding that crisis' are hitting, given power to effectively utilitize the communications team with maximum effectiveness to neutralize the problem.

This rapid reaction force would essentially be tasked with two specific jobs, working to counter Senator Obama's ability to set the agenda as they come out and ensuring that any potential misbranding of Senator McCain is met with fierce opposition, making sure that he then has the ability to set the course of the political dialog. There they have the means to become a powerful tool to create an effective strategy to meet the current mishaps and challenges faced by the McCain Campaign head on before they become entrenched. It might even give the chance to finally get ahead of the story before it even has the chance to break.

Finally, there is an old saying in politics, you can't stop to kick every barking dog. Regardless of what his campaign does there are going to be places and points where either he is not going to be able to change the message or win over Senator Obama, there are places where spending time responding is not an effective use of his campaign time or resources. Yet, that distinction has not been completely comprehended by the McCain campaign and some of these places where they find themselves responding they drag what would end up being a minor, one day story into a bigger multi-day story that ends up not boding well for him.

This does not mean that the McCain campaign should shrink from a fight but that they have to be more discerning in picking the fights that they will fight, otherwise it just becomes a story of the boy crying wolf and though there might be a reason for the indignation it comes across looking self serving. It has been a problem that they have to more effectively manage or find that people grow bored or get annoyed with it.

Now granted, this is not everything that perhaps needs to be done and perhaps they are currently being rectified or have been addressed, but what they do represent is a starting point for the McCain campaign to begin to turn this around. In that they have to realize that though they may have a lot of the right policies in a lot of the right areas that should theoretically win voters in those key areas they want to win them in, when the process is lacking the policies become meaningless.

After all, you can have all the best ideas in the world, if you can't get elected on them then really, having them are pointless until someone who can get elected does win with them. There how you create, manage, and execute your strategy becomes vital.

Without a doubt the McCain shakeup represents a good move by the Republican nominee, the next question has to be what will be the next move? Good first steps yield nothing without good follow through and an understanding of what comes next, after all otherwise you just end up tripping over your own two feet running the race.

But then just a few thoughts I suppose.