Obama 'unity' plea in final week

Senator Obama has been drawing huge crowds at his rallies.

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama aims to change the tone of his campaign on Monday, in the final week before the election.

Mr Obama is expected to stress the need for national unity, as he outlines his case for change at a rally in Ohio.

His Republican rival, Senator John McCain, will warn that a Democratic sweep of the White House and Congress will give the party unbridled power.

He will focus in the last days on swing states that voted Republican in 2004.

Any serious Republican has to ask, 'How did we get into this mess?' Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives

Mr Obama is expected to adopt a more positive tone in the final week, calling for an end to partisan attacks and trying to unify the country.

"We're all in this together," he told a rally of 100,000 people in Denver, Colorado at the weekend, his biggest crowd yet.

"We don't have the luxury of relying on the same political games and the same political tactics that are used every election to divide us," he added.

From Ohio, Mr Obama will travel to Pennsylvania - the only big state that voted Democratic in 2004 where Mr McCain is still actively campaigning.

Later in the week, he will be in Florida with former president Bill Clinton, and on Wednesday his campaign will broadcast a half-hour documentary across all major television networks.

Republican divisions

Mr McCain and his vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, will spend the final week of campaigning mainly in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana, all states which voted Republican last time but are now up for grabs.

With the Democrats also leading in many key Congressional races, Mr McCain will be warning voters of the dangers of one party controlling both the executive and legislative branch - and saying that this could mean higher taxes.

He will also be trying to distance himself from the unpopular Republican administration.

"The fact is I am not George Bush. The fact is I was not popular in my own party," he said in a US television interview.

And he repeated his claim that he is closing the gap in the opinion polls and "will be up all night" on election day.

But in-fighting has broken out among Republicans worried about the scale of any possible defeat.

"Any serious Republican has to ask, 'How did we get into this mess?'", former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who led the Congressional Republicans to victory in 1994, told the New York Times.

There are also signs of demoralisation on the Republican side.

Mr McCain's fellow Republican senator from Arizona, John Kyl, told the Arizona Daily Star newspaper: "Unfortunately, I think John McCain might be added to that long list of Arizonans who ran for president but were never elected."