Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has opened his first campaign offices in Nevada and is furiously building a staff here, according to Paul Jackson, McCain’s Nevada state director.  These moves come as a new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows McCain with a lead in the state for the first time since May.

“We’ve been working day and night,” said Jackson, describing McCain’s newly-minted Nevada effort.  “Little sleep and lots of coffee.”

Nevada’s Jan. 19 Republican caucus has been largely overlooked by the Republican field, with the exceptions of former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and Tex. Congressman Ron Paul, as they’ve focused instead on Michigan’s primary Tuesday and South Carolina’s Saturday.  Despite McCain’s new efforts here, his campaign will have a lot of catching up to do to compete with the strong organization that Romney, in particular, has built in the state.

“Opening new offices with less than a week to go really just increases pressure, not votes,” said Romney senior adviser Ryan Erwin today.  “I just can’t envision that Nevada voters are going to be easily swayed by opening an office for five days.”

Nonetheless, McCain does have a following to appeal to in the state, as the Reno Gazette Journal’s newest poll shows.  In the poll of 500 likely Republican caucus-goers, McCain led the pack with 22 percent followed by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at 18 percent and former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee at 16 percent.  Romney rounded out the pack of frontrunners at 15 percent.  Ron Paul, who has invested considerable resources in Nevada, is polling at six percent.

Jackson downplayed the results of the poll Monday.

“Four points is probably within the margin of error,” said Jackson.  “We are not discounting any of the Republican candidates.  They’re all good candidates.  Only a fool would underestimate any of the candidates left in the Republican pool.”