KEY POINTS:
Senior members of the Republican party are in open mutiny against John McCain's presidential campaign, after a disastrous period which has seen Barack Obama solidify his lead in the opinion polls.
From inside and outside his inner circle, Mr McCain is being told to settle on a coherent economic message and to tone down attacks on his rival which have sometimes whipped up a mob-like atmosphere at Republican rallies.
Two former rivals for the party nomination, Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson, went on the record over the weekend about the disarray in the Republican camp.
And a string of other senior party figures said Mr McCain's erratic performance risks taking the party down to heavy losses not just in the presidential race but also in contests for Congressional seats.
Mr Thompson, a former governor of the swing state of Wisconsin, said he thought Mr McCain, on his present trajectory, would lose the state, and he told a New York Times reporter he was unhappy with the campaign.
"I don't know who is," he added.
Some Republicans seeking election to Congress have begun distancing themselves from Mr McCain.
In Nebraska, the Republican representative Lee Terry ran a newspaper ad featuring support from a woman who called herself an "Obama-Terry voter".
Last night, the McCain camp was reportedly considering launching a new set of economic policies, on top of the plan for government purchases of mortgages which he had given a surprise unveiling at last week's presidential debate.
Possible options include temporary tax cuts on capital gains and dividends.
Mr Romney said he should "stand above the tactical alternatives that are being considered and establish an economic vision that is able to convince the American people that he really knows how to strengthen the economy".
With just over three weeks to go before the November 4 election, a new Reuters/Zogby tracking poll showed the Democrat candidate gaining momentum during the past week.
From a two-point lead four days ago, the latest reading has Mr Obama up 6 per cent.
It showed Mr Obama gaining traction among independent voters for whom the worsening economy has become the over-arching concern of the election.
These voters now back him by a 21-point margin.
Meanwhile, Mr McCain's decision to go on the attack - bringing up Mr Obama's association with a former terrorist, Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground in the Sixties - appear to have hurt his appeal to women, another crucial group, with whom the Illinois senator is enjoying a 12-point lead.
"Clearly the negative campaigning isn't working," said the pollster John Zogby.
"It is certainly trending Obama's way."
McCain campaign staffers lashed out at the media for focusing on a minority of supporters at some rallies in the past week who have gone beyond booing and hissing at Mr Obama's name, and begun calling out "terrorist" and "kill him".
Senior Republicans have sharply conflicting views about the direction the McCain campaign should take, with some arguing that their candidate has not hit Mr Obama hard enough on the shady associates from his past.
The issue of the Rev Jeremiah Wright, Mr Obama's former pastor, whose incendiary speeches about white racism almost derailed the Democrat's primary race, should be brought back on to the table by Mr McCain, many are counselling.
Mr McCain, however, has ruled that issue off-limits, for fear of being accused of playing a race card.
For all the historic significance of Mr Obama's run for the White House, which brings the possibility of the first African-American US president, both candidates have adopted entirely colour-blind rhetoric.
Instead, Mr McCain appeared keen to cool the temperature at Republican rallies over the weekend, at one point snatching the microphone from a woman in Minnesota who declared Mr Obama was an "Arab".
He chided her, and another man who said he was "scared" of an Obama presidency, and told a booing crowd to be respectful.
"He is a decent family man, a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues," said Mr McCain.
Reining in the party's supporters may be harder, however, with Mr Obama's rise in the polls fuelling anger among rank-and-file Republicans, many of whom are spreading literature falsely describing the Democrat candidate as a Muslim.
A minister delivering the invocation at a McCain rally on Saturday obliquely raised these fears when he asked Christians to pray for a Republican win.
"There are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons.
"And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens," said Arnold Conrad, the former pastor of Grace Evangelical Free Church in Davenport.
Those comments earned a rebuke from a McCain spokesman, and both sides this weekend had to slap down supporters for stirring issues of religion and race.
The Obama campaign disassociated itself from comments by the Democrat congressman John Lewis who compared Mr McCain him to the Alabama segregationist George Wallace.
"Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division," he said.
"George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights."
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