Palin At The RGA

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin spoke before the annual meeting of the Republican Governors Association today in Miami. Based on the roster of ambitious politicians in attendance -- Florida's Charlie Crist, Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, Utah's Jon Huntsman, and Palin herself have all been floated as possible 2012 contenders -- NPR's Greg Allen tells us that a speaker at one of today's sessions renamed the assembled Governors "the Republican presidential candidates association".

Texas Governor Rick Perry, the RGA's current chairman, introduced Palin before a brief press conference as "a Governor who has led her state boldly, inspired a nation with her optimism, her frank talk, her unashamed embrace of bedrock conservative principles...and I can assure you, she's just getting started" before telling Palin to "knock 'em dead".

Palin opened her statement to the media with repeated promises to keep "obsessive partisanship" out of policymaking. She then called on her colleagues and members of the media to stop looking back on the 2008 election or forward to 2012, but to focus on more immediate concerns.

As far as we're concerned, the past is the past. It's behind us. And I, like all of our Governors, we're focused on the future. And the future for us is not that 2012 presidential race, it's next year, and our next budgets, and the next reforms in our states, and it's 2010, when we'll have 36 Governors positions open across the US. That's what we're focused on, we're focused on providing good service to the people whom we are serving in our states.

Nonetheless, Palin did spend much of her speech to the governors reminiscing about the 2008 campaign and the opportunities it provided to meet some of America's now-infamous Joes and Titos. And she recounted her emotional meetings with parents of many special needs kids like her own son Trig. She told her fellow governors, "they just touched my heart."

She also managed to make light of her whirlwind time in the spotlight (don't forget she was only chosen as John McCain's running-mate about two months before the election) with a quick recap of what she's been up to since the last RGA meeting:

I had a baby, I did some traveling, I very briefly expanded my wardrobe, I made a few speeches, I met a few VIPs including those who really impact society like Tina Fey.

Looking ahead to the upcoming Democratic administration, Palin told her colleagues that with the Dems helming Congress and the White House, it will be up to Republican Governors to engineer a comeback for the GOP -- and to "reach out to Barack Obama" to show the President-elect the economic benefits of lower taxes.

Palin had mainly kind words for the President-elect, saying she wished him well and that his election was "a shining moment in American history" -- though she included a swipe that unlike legislators, Governors "are not the many voting yea or nay or present" (a reference to Obama's "present" votes as a member of the Illinois State Legislature).

-- Evie Stone

1:50 PM ET | 11-13-2008 | permalink

comments | | e-mail