WASHINGTON (CNN) – Help may soon be on the way to the struggling U.S. auto industry after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed off her opposition to using funds from a fuel-efficiency research program for a bailout, two congressional officials said Friday.

The significant move from Pelosi signals that the deadlock over rescuing Detroit may be over.

Congressional Republicans and President Bush support the idea of tapping the $25 billion advanced technology fund. Two officials familiar with compromise talks told CNN that the working target is $15 billion to $17 billion in bridge loans, intended to fund the struggling Big Three automakers through March.

Watch Congress mulls auto bailout

However, one senior Democratic congressional source told CNN that House and Senate committee staff will meet over the weekend to write a bill to provide $20 billion to $25 billion in assistance to the U.S. auto companies.

This aide said the "mathematicians were working" at how to reprogram the money by reducing a subsidy to come up with a figure that would be available for loans, despite an earlier report that only $7.5 billion was available from the fund passed last year for fuel efficiency research.

This aide said the bill could be on the House floor as early as Tuesday, but thought it was more likely that the Senate would vote on the bill first.

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Some GOP governors weren't happy with how Palin's press conference unfolded. (Getty Images)

MIAMI (CNN) — Some Republican governors tell CNN they were not particularly happy with the way the Republican Governors Association press conference was executed Thursday, saying that they agreed to go as a show of GOP governors’ unity — but they ended up feeling like silent Palin supporters, since it was clearly a press conference called for her.

The GOP governors spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.

One called it awkward: “I’m sure you could see it on some of our faces.”

Another Republican governor eyeing a presidential run in 2012 told CNN the event was “odd” and “weird,” and said it “unfortunately sent a message that she was the de facto leader of the party."

There has been palpable tension among some GOP governors gathered in Miami that Palin has been sucking up all the media oxygen.

In an interview with CNN, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour shrugged off that suggestion.

"That's just somebody running down a rabbit trail. There's plenty of oxygen here,” he said.

Some McCain advisers were frustrated by Palin.

(CNN) — Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin had prepared to deliver a concession speech before John McCain’s Tuesday night — and brought her remarks with her to his Phoenix concession — but senior McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt told her she could not.

Two McCain sources say Palin clearly did not understand the protocol of a concession speech, and expected she would have the chance to deliver one of her own.

Update: Palin camp fires back

McCain advisers were also upset with the Alaska governor for setting up what she thought was a call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The call, which turned out to be a prank from Quebec radio hosts, was not cleared with the McCain campaign and some saw the effort to set it up as evidence of her future presidential ambitions.

A Palin ally involved in setting up the call, however, suggests McCain advisers had ample time to object given the call was on her schedule for three days.

Two McCain sources also say Palin did not know Africa was a continent and could not find it on a map. A third source, a Palin ally, says that was a miscommunication.

Scheunemann (above, with Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin) denies he was dismissed from the campaign.

(CNN) — McCain’s presidential bid has ended, but the fireworks from inside his former campaign continue to make news: evidence is mounting that senior adviser Randy Scheunemann wasn’t fired, as several internal sources had suggested, but the target of a deliberate whispering campaign.

Top McCain adviser Mark Salter told CNN Thursday that Scheunemann, the campaign’s senior foreign policy adviser, was not fired.

Campaign manager Rick Davis denied a report he had fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"My impression is there is some silly score settling being done," Davis told CNN. "Randy was not fired."

Scheunemann himself said sources who said he had been dismissed were lying.

"I was not fired,” he said Thursday. “Anybody who says so is either lying or delusional and is certainly a whack job."

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Scheunemann bonded with Palin during the Alaska governor's debate prep, above.

(CNN) — Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials. (Update: Davis denies the claim.)

Update: Scheunemann disputes campaign sources, says he was not fired

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

Senior campaign officials blame Schuenemann specifically for stories about the way Wallace and chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt mishandled Palin's rollout — stories that the campaign says threw them off message in the critical final weeks of the campaign.

Another aide said McCain personally was "very disappointed by Randy," who worked for McCain for many years in the Senate.

Scheunemann became close with Palin during her debate prep process.

(CNN) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will likely meet later this week with Joe Lieberman to discuss whether the Democrat-turned-Independent will be stripped of his Senate committee chairmanship, a senior Democratic leadership aide tells CNN.

Lieberman currently chairs the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

This aide says that Reid, who is calling the meeting, has not yet decided what to do. The aide admits that the decision will be determined in part by the final election results tonight — and just how close the party is to a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority — but insists that the biggest factor involved is lingering anger among Senate Democrats over Lieberman's Republican convention speech.

This aide also said that Senate Democrats aren't that upset about Lieberman's constant presence and cheerleading on the campaign trail with John McCain — instead, they've been put off by the things he said about Barack Obama at the Republican convention in St. Paul.

(CNN) – Two senior aides to John McCain see "no path to victory," given the night's results so far.

The two advisors, who were crunching numbers for the Republican contender, were responding to a question via e-mail from CNN's Dana Bash, who has been covering the McCain campaign.

The aides asked not to named because the campaign is not commenting on internal discussions.

Three states that went Republican in 2004 have gone for Democrat Barack Obama, according to CNN projections — Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio.

McCain aides say a Reagan official who endorsed Obama lobbied to head the Arizona senator's transition.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNN) – Former Ronald Reagan Chief of Staff and powerhouse lobbyist Ken Duberstein became the latest member of the GOP establishment Friday to jump ship, suggesting to CNN he’ll vote for Barack Obama.

But three McCain sources tell CNN that little more than three months ago, Duberstein was pushing to run John McCain’s post-election transition to the White House — a charge Duberstein himself insists is not true.

One of the sources says he was contacted by Duberstein in July with a request to relay a message to the McCain team that he thought he would be an “ideal” person to run the Republican nominee's transition.

This source — who noted that at the time McCain was doing well in the polls — said he and Duberstein had several conversations about it, and that he did pass that information along to the campaign.

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McCain last appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2002.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (CNN) — Mandatory stops on the GOP campaign trail this year: Pennsylvania. Florida. Saturday Night Live.

Two weeks after running mate Sarah Palin made an appearance on the late-night comedy show, a McCain campaign aide tells CNN that the Republican presidential nominee will appear on the NBC program tomorrow night.

The Arizona senator has appeared on the show several times over the years.

McCain's most memorable appearance on the long running show was in October 2002, when he hosted the program for a night: In a spoof commercial hawking an album called "McCain Sings Streisand," sang several of the Democratic loyalist's songs.

Joe The Plumber is hitting the trail with John McCain.

(CNN) — Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, is set to team up with John McCain on the campaign trail Thursday.

He will appear at the Arizona senator's first event in Defiance, Ohio. Wurzelbacher also campaigned with Sarah Palin Wednesday.

The RNC has increased ad spending in Montana.

QUAKERTOWN, Pennsylvania (CNN) — In a sign of last-minute concern about a traditionally red state, the independent arm of the Republican National Committee is launching television ads in Montana.

Democrats have only won Montana twice in the last half century, but Barack Obama has been using his vast resources for an aggressive push there — an Obama spokesman says they have 19 offices and 14,000 volunteers. John McCain has no Montana campaign offices.

"It's a cheap insurance policy" said a Republican official involved with the ad buy told CNN. "We don't expect a crash there, but we may as well buy insurance in case we do."

Recent polling has suggested McCain’s edge over Obama in the state may be in single-digit territory.

By law, the so-called Independent Expenditure arm of the Republican National Committee can produce TV ads and buy air time, as long as it does not coordinate with the party.

The Republican official said they spending $300,000 dollars in the relatively inexpensive media Montana media markets.

Montana now has two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor. Obama’s campaign already has an organization in the state thanks to the Democratic primary in June, which he won.

A senior McCain aide told CNN they are relying on a "very good state party" that has a few offices around the state.

(CNN) – McCain aides expressed relief Wednesday night that the Arizona senator “finally” used a line that took on one of Obama’s central campaign themes.

Watch: I'm not Bush, McCain says

“Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush,” he said. “If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago. I will take this country in a new direction."

McCain advisors – who said they had been pushing him to stress that distinction more explicitly than he had in the past — immediately uploaded the quote to YouTube, and circulated it to reporters.

(CNN) – Sen. John McCain said Monday that Rep. John Lewis' controversial remarks were "so disturbing" that they "stopped me in my tracks."

Watch: McCain responds to Lewis

Lewis, a Georgia representative and civil rights icon, on Saturday compared the feeling at recent Republican rallies to those of segregationist George Wallace.

"That's not from some quote party official, that's from one of the most respected people in America. It's unfair. It's unfair and it's outrageous," he said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Dana Bash.

"I never believed that Lewis, who is an American hero whom I admire, would ever make a comment of that nature. He even referred to the bombing of a church in Birmingham. That's unacceptable," he said.

Lewis on Saturday said in a statement that McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin "are sowing the seeds of hatred and division."

"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. 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. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama," wrote the Democrat.

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McCain's aides say they will peg Obama as 'risky' and 'dangerous.'.

(CNN) — John McCain’s aides say they are certainly happy to turn the corner away from the bailout package — but insist the campaign’s stepped-up focus on Barack Obama’s character does not mean the Republican presidential nominee is going to stop talking about the economy.

Instead, they will try to reframe the economic issue as part of their overall theme against Obama: You don’t really know this guy — and you can’t trust this guy. The words in their new ad say it all: “risky… dangerous.”

Watch: Obama, McCain advisers discuss why their candidate is best for the economy

As Obama and running mate Joe Biden take a break from the trail Monday, McCain and VP nominee Sarah Palin are each pursuing a different part of that strategy.

In New Mexico this afternoon, aides say McCain is expected to revive his attacks on Obama — a top recipient of campaign cash from from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — for taking money from the failed mortgage giants, and for not coming up with solutions early in the crisis. The Arizona senator will once again talk about his own call two years ago for reform of Fannie and Freddie.

Last month, the McCain camp released ads highlighting Obama’s ties to former Fannie and Freddie officials — but that line of attack had not been prominent since a New York Times investigation alleged that campaign manager Rick Davis may have benefited financially from his firm’s links to the lenders until their collapse last month.

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John McCain and Sarah Palin held a joint campaign event in Michigan last month. (Getty Images)

(CNN) — A senior McCain adviser confirms to CNN that the campaign is "shifting resources" from Michigan to Ohio and Pennsylvania, and "opening up an offensive front” in Maine.

Michigan was always a long shot for John McCain, who lost the state to native son Mitt Romney in the Republican primary. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won there in two decades, since George H.W. Bush’s 1988 victory. But McCain had a surprisingly close showing in some polls, and made a significant time investment campaigning in the state this year.

The most recent CNN poll of polls in Michigan shows Obama with an 8 point lead in the state. (View more state polls)

Macomb County – home of the original Reagan Democrats — was one of the first stops for McCain and running mate Sarah Palin on their post-convention tour of battleground states; they held a town hall in Grand Rapids two weeks ago. (McCain lost Macomb County to Romney by more than 20 points)

Local republican officials told CNN they were thrilled to have Palin on the ticket, saying her accent and love for guns made her someone independents and Democrats uncomfortable with Obama could relate to.

But nowhere does the economy loom larger as an issue than in this hard-hit industrial state, suffering from a decade-long slump. The Obama campaign has tried to capitalize on the Democratic nominee’s polling advantage on the issue, running ads in the state that accuse McCain of not doing more to protect Michigan jobs. (Related: Obama stumps in Michigan Thursday)

As the campaign pulls resources from Michigan, it is ramping up its efforts in Maine, where Republican Senator Susan Collins is beating national trends in her re-election bid, holding a healthy double-digit lead, along with with a strong organization in the state.

A second McCain aide says that their polling shows that “Michigan isn’t even a long shot” — but the campaign is hoping to capture at least one of Maine’s 4 electoral votes, which are designated by congressional district. This year, "every electoral vote will count," says the aide.

Gov. Sarah Palin will prepare for Thursday's debate from Arizona.

(CNN)– Gov. Sarah Palin will now spend two and a half days near Sedona, Arizona, to prepare for Thursday's debate, instead of prepping in St Louis, as originally planned.

Sarah Palin will be at John McCain's rustic creek side home outside Sedona for what a top aide calls "debate camp."

The aide, who's part of the team prepping Palin, tells CNN they decided to take her to debate camp there because it is an "invigorating and enjoyable place to prepare for Thursday."

"SP [Sarah Palin] loves it and has her kids and Todd coming," wrote the aide in an email.

The aide said "John McCain himself came up with the idea after thinking it would be great before his next debate.

Pailin has already been hunkered down for four days in a Philadelphia hotel for debate prep with advisers.

She will take a short break Monday to attend a rally with McCain in Ohio, before heading to Arizona.

McCain is working on the bailout latest from the D.C. area Saturday.

(CNN)– John McCain is at his national campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia at this hour. His campaign tells us he's meeting with advisers regarding the proposed $700 billion federal bailout and
the latest negotiations and developments on Capitol Hill, and is "making a lot of calls to make sure that things stay on track."

The campaign says that Senator McCain will head to Capitol Hill later this afternoon. They weren't clear exactly what he's going to actually do when he gets there.

The campaign is touting that, as one aide puts it, McCain's "the glue that is going to potentially bind together House Republicans and Democratic members of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's caucus."

But McCain isn't engaging with House Democrats and currently isn't directly involved in the current negotiations, so it's unclear how he's the so-called glue.

When pressed on that, the campaign aide repeated the point that Camp McCain's been making for 24 hours, that McCain is the one who pushed House Republicans back to the negotiating table.

The McCain campaign is also highlighting the contrast between McCain hard at work "showing leadership" and Obama on the trail today in North Carolina, a state the McCain camp says "he won't win."

UPDATE: CNN Political Producer Tasha Diakides reports that Senior McCain Campaign Adviser Mark Salter says it looks like Senator McCain is not going to the Capitol today and will instead make phone calls from the McCain Campaign HQ in Arlington, Virginia. Salter says the Republican presidential nominee will continue that effort tomorrow, although he can't say definitively that McCain is not traveling tomorrow.

Rob Portman played the part of Obama in McCain's debate prep.

OXFORD, Mississippi (CNN) — After days and days of denials that they had anyone playing Obama in debate prep sessions, two McCain campaign aides admitted to CNN they were using a stand-in for the Democratic nominee: former GOP congressman and OMB director Rob Portman.

Portman has been playing Obama in mock debates, including a two-hour session Thursday night in McCain's Virginia apartment, and one at an Oxford high school hours before tonight's debate.

Ironically, in 2000, Portman played Joe Lieberman in mock debates for then VP candidate Dick Cheney.

Now Lieberman is a close friend and supporter of McCain's, and a regular on the road with him.

Biden and Palin are set to debate October 2.

(CNN) — McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Mississippi, currently slated to be the site of the first presidential faceoff this Friday.

Watch: Obama camp pushes for debate

Graham says the McCain camp is well aware of the position of the Obama campaign and the debate commission that the debate should go on as planned — but both he and another senior McCain adviser insist the Republican nominee will not go to the debate Friday if there's no deal on the bailout.