With a week to go, John McCain and Sarah Palin should be focused like a laser beam on the final seven days of campaigning in the Presidential race.  Instead, the big story today has been their calls for convicted Sen. Ted Stevens to resign.

McCain went first today, issuing a statement that said in part that Stevens had broken his trust with voters back in Alaska.

Palin had tried to nicely say the same thing last night, urging Stevens to "do the right thing."

To many, that was just more evidence of a divide between Palin and McCain, so by the afternoon, Palin told CNBC in an interview that Stevens had to go.

I don't know what the rules are in Alaska on this, but we have seen in recent years where parties have been able to change the name very late in the game.

That happened six years ago when Walter Mondale was picked to fill in for Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, who died in a plane crash in late October.

And it happened six years ago as well in New Jersey, when retired Sen. Frank Lautenberg came back as an October replacement for Sen. Robert Torricelli, who decided after the usual deadline that he would not run for re-election due to ethical issues.

The Democrats won the race in New Jersey (Lautenberg is running again this year) but they lost the race in Minnesota, where Republican Norm Coleman won.

Coleman is now facing comedian Al Franken, who has been leading in the polls.

So instead of talking about how McCain and Palin are making this argument and that argument as they make one final surge around the country, we are reseraching the intracacies of Alaskan election law vis a vis Ted Stevens.

That might not really be the formula for a comeback with for McCain and Palin, but it's the hand they've been dealt in Election 2008.