Palin Steals GOP Show

By Catharine SkippGone were the ruby red lips and matching peekaboo pumps; the big wink served up with red meat. There was no updo. The look was sedate, save for a maverick-y black leather jacket. The famous accent was toned down; there was nary a “You betcha” to be heard. But Sarah Palin made her mark, nonetheless. With 11 somewhat somber fellow governors at her back at this week’s Republican Governors Association Conference in Miami, Sarah Palin was introduced by Texas Gov. Rick Perry with a hearty, “She is just getting started!”Palin sought to stay on message, as the governors pull together to remind the party faithful that the GOP power base has shifted to the state level, now that the White House is gone and their standing on Capitol Hill is diminished. She also sought to brush aside speculation about her own political future. "Let the pundits go on with their idle talk about the next election, what happens in 2012," Palin said. "Our concern should be about our state's next great reform, our next budget, our next opportunity to progress in the states that we serve." During the Q&A session afterward, it was clear she hadn’t persuaded the press to ignore 2012. “The campaign is over,” when asked why she was giving a press conference now. “I don’t want to talk about strategy within a campaign that is over. Just suffice it say that I, like every other governor, understands that it is very important that we are speaking to constituents, we are speaking to the people whom we are serving and you have to do that through the media so happy to do that today.”And at a session dubbed “Looking Towards the Future: The GOP in Transition,” Palin, the pitbull of 2008, offered nothing but praise for the incoming president. “If he governs with the skill and the grace and the greatness of which he is capable, we’re gonna be just fine. And as he prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln, know that this is a shining moment in American history." But she showed she hadn’t lost the spunky sense of humor that helped make her such a sensation this fall. Talking to the governors in the plenary session, she gave them a thumbnail sketch of what she’d been up to since last they’d met. “It hasn’t been that long I think since we all gathered, but I don’t know about you, but I managed to fill up the time,” she quipped. “Let’s see, I had a baby, I did some traveling. I very briefly expanded my wardrobe. I made a few speeches, met a few VIPs, including those who really impact society like Tina Fey. Aside from that, it was pretty much same old, same old.”