Washington  - Sarah Palin is saying more than a prayer as she sheds the baggage of the 2008 presidential election and prepares for the next - convinced that God will show her the way to the White House.

In the first of numerous post-election interviews, the Republican Party's 2008 vice presidential candidate was asked if she would run in 2012: "Faith is a very big part of my life and putting my life in my creator's hands this is what I always do - I'm like, okay, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere. This is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door."

She told Fox News: "Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plough right on through that, and maybe prematurely plough through it. But don't let me miss an open door."

Some might think it's a little early for Palin to seek such divine intervention, but it appears that the 44-year-old Alaska governor has already started her campaign for the next presidential race.

Palin has been more available to the media since the November 4 election than when she on the campaign trail with Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

She has been serving up quotable interviews - and the occasional meal. One journalist got comfortable in her kitchen in Wasilla, Alaska, where she cooked moose chilli and made sandwiches.

Another reporter and Palin's husband, Todd - whom she anointed the "First Dude" during the campaign - hopped onto a snowmobile and ploughed through - not into the White House - but the pristine white snow in the continent's north-western corner.

Palin has been deftly using the numerous media opportunities to set the record straight, or at least to defend herself against apparent leaks from within her own party in the post-election period of bitter introspection.

"She wants to rehabilitate her image and get everybody to love her again," Larry Persily, a former Palin advisor, was quoted as saying in the Washington Post.

CNN analyst Glora Borger said: "That she has been preoccupied with clearing her name ... is an indication that she's got big plans for the future."

Palin has been criticized for being a drag on the Republican ticket, with many blaming her for McCain's defeat.

"I think the economic collapse had a heckuva lot more to do with the campaign collapse than me personally," she told broadcaster NBC.

She has had to fend off a string of curious and alarming stories about her since the Republican debacle. Anonymous McCain aides leaked stories to the media claiming that she thought Africa was a country, not a continent, and that she could not name the three countries in NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Other sources described her as a "whack job," accused her of acting like a "diva" and shopping for clothes - including silken boxer shorts for Todd - worth 150,000 dollars at expensive New York stores. There were even rumours of her greeting McCain staffers in a hotel room, wearing only a towel.

Palin was quick to lash out: "This is cruel and mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional, and those guys are jerks. ... It's not fair, and it's not right."

Far from disappearing quietly, Palin was the centre of attention at the annual Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, Florida.

On Thursday, she even held a news conference - something she never did during the election cycle - taking just four questions. She wasn't inclined to discuss the 2008 race for the White House, stating: "The campaign is over."

Asked whether she would run in 2012, Palin said: "I, like all of our governors, we're focused on the future."

"The future for us is not the 2012 presidential race. It's next year and our next budget, and the next reforms in our states. And in 2010 we're going to have 36 governors positions open across the US. That's what we're focused on."

Apart from God, if Palin has faith, it's that public memory will be short and that the electorate is forgiving. (dpa)