As hard as Republican candidate John McCain has tried to distinguish himself from US President George W Bush, Americans are indicating they don't want another four years of a Republican in the White House.

With Barack Obama also making inroads in many Republican states, the party is bracing for big losses in the US Congress.

And while Senator McCain isn't throwing in the towel, some Republicans are already looking beyond him.

His running mate, Sarah Palin, has been described as a diva and a whack job by some Republicans who blame her for dragging down the ticket.

There are others who suspect she's already positioning herself for her own White House run in 2012.

So if the Republicans don't win next week's Presidential election, will Ms Palin consider it?

"I'm just thinking that it's gonna go our way on Tuesday November 4," she said.

"I truly believe that the wisdom of the people will be revealed on that day as they enter that voting booth they will understand the stark contrast between the two tickets."

But she's also making it clear she hasn't been put off by the some of the criticism that has come her way, from both the media and the Republican Party.

"If I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that would bring this whole ... I'm not doing this for nought," she said.

"No, we're gonna progress, we're gonna keep going forward. So it is all worth it and I'm not complaining about any of it."

'Bloodletting' begins

Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W Bush, says he is not looking forward to the Republican post-election conversation.

"Usually a loss results in a circular firing squad of recrimination and anger, not a healthy discussion of the directions of the future," he said.

"And the reality is we're already beginning to see that right now."

Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, says the Republican criticisms have been harmful to Senator McCain.

"Normally the bloodletting waits until after you've lost," he said.

"It's pretty unusual to have it occur in such an open way, really two weeks before the election and it's been pretty damaging to McCain.

"Part of it because some of this has happened between the people around McCain and the people around his running mate Sarah Palin.

"And it's also clear of course that she has anticipated what might happen and is already planning what future she's going to have in the party as we head towards 2012."

Party crisis

Mr Ornstein says there's a broader factor at play than whether people are jumping ship from Senator McCain to Ms Palin.

"You have a crisis right now within the Republican party's ranks. What does the party stand for? You know to use the old cliché; there is a struggle for the soul of the party," he said.

"A part of it is that we've had some real questions about what the core economic policy is.

"Remember the old Republican party, which was a business dominated party, was, at its core, fiscally conservative; it was for balanced budgets.

"And now we've gone through the biggest deficits in history, you have a Republican party that's stood for limited government.

"We've had this dramatic expansion of government even before this financial meltdown and now we've got almost $1 trillion of government involvement in the financial sector, including government owning a piece of the major banks in the society.

He says as well as business issues, there are also social issues.

"Now throw into that the tension between the neoconservatives and the realists in foreign policy and you've got quite a witch's brew here," he said.

He says it is never too late to be grooming Ms Palin as the next Republican flag bearer.

"But there's no clear sense of who's going to be the flag bearer," he said.

"What we do know about Sarah Palin is she emerged from nowhere, she had this initial burst of enormous enthusiasm that cut across a lot of boundaries, but within a few weeks she had become a drag on the ticket generally with a core of enthusiastic support from among many in the party's base, but almost nobody else.

"But that core support in the party's base and her undeniable skills as a campaigner leave her in a position where she is going to be a serious figure under a couple of conditions. Give Sarah Palin three years to bone up on the issues."

Senior Republicans are already planning a rural retreat in Virginia days after the presidential election to discuss how to rebuild their party.

Adapted from a report by Kim Landers for PM on October 31.