Did John McCain pick up 9 percentage points in Georgia in a week?

A poll released Monday showed the Republican presidential candidate besting Democrat Barack Obama in Georgia by 10 points. Another poll released June 19 showed the two essentially tied.

Who's right? That's impossible to say. But pollster Matt Towery has a suggestion for McCain.

"If you're the McCain campaign and you're satisfied that Georgia is safe, then God bless you," said Towery, CEO of Insider Advantage, which produced the poll showing McCain and Obama in a dead heat for Georgia. "But, for whatever reason, the Obama campaign has polled it and they're on TV. And I don't think they're coming in to waste money."

Towery's point is underscored by the news Monday that Obama is back on Georgia's airwaves with his second ad of the general election. Obama also has about a dozen paid staff on the ground in Georgia, plus a campaign headquarters in Atlanta. McCain has neither staff nor office space.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, which showed McCain with a 10-point lead on Monday, said his poll has the potential to nearly match Towery's. The difference is Bob Barr.

Barr, the Libertarian presidential nominee, gets 6 percent in the Insider Advantage poll, but only 1 percent in Rasmussen's. But Rasmussen said they "probed a little bit," on the Barr question and found that up to 6 percent of those polled said they "could" vote for the former Georgia congressman.

"If everybody in our poll who could conceivably vote for Barr did, we'd show him getting about 5 percent," Rasmussen said. And almost all of Barr's support, he said, comes out of McCain's side.

But Rasmussen believes that would be a a stretch. In fact, he said, he typically does not name third-party candidates in polls this far out, because "you get an inflated sense of support for that candidate."

Barr in Georgia is different, he said, because of his history in the state.

The polls will firm up the closer we get to the election, Rasmussen said.

"Right now it's hard to know before the July Fourth weekend coming up what people are going to be thinking in November," he said. "As we get closer and closer, we'll have a much better handle on it."

Obama's campaign doesn't comment on polls. McCain's staff has no such qualms.

"Georgia has always been strong for Republicans," said Mario Diaz, regional communications director for McCain. "Senator McCain's message resonates well with voters in Georgia. They see an American hero who has always put country first."