Palin denies run in '12, declines blame in McCain defeat

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought yesterday to quash two pieces of speculation - that she's hankering to run for president in four years and that she's to blame for John McCain's crushing defeat.

"Right now I cannot even imagine running for national office in 2012," she told CNN. "When I say that, of course, coming on the heels of an outcome that I did not anticipate and had not hoped for . . . 2012 sounds so far off that [I] can't even imagine what I'd be doing then."

The Alaska governor also chafed at suggestions that her growing unpopularity with voters, who were skeptical of her readiness to be vice president or president, played a role in Barack Obama's sweeping victory.

"I don't think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit . . . that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain's loss to me," she said. "Now having said that, if I cost John McCain even one vote, I am sorry about that because John McCain, I believe, is the American hero. I had believed it was his time."

GLOBE STAFF

Post-election, there's the blame game of what went wrong among the losers. But there's also the credit game of claiming some part of the victory among the winners.

In the latter category, two entries arrived yesterday: MoveOn.org, the grassroots antiwar group that was one of Barack Obama's earliest and most important backers, and the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation that provided an army of volunteers.

MoveOn.org announced yesterday that since endorsing Obama in February, its 4.5 million members gave more than $88 million to Obama - $58 million directly and $30 million to independent efforts. Also, it said, more than 1 million members worked in the field, including 600,000 in battleground states.

"For our members, this is the culmination of a decade of work to build a progressive, people-driven politics in America," Eli Pariser, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

The AFL-CIO also sought its share of credit, declaring that it delivered a critical bloc of support in swing states. It cited election night polling that showed union members supported Obama 68 percent to 30 percent in key battleground states and that Obama won several demographic groups among union members - white men, gun owners, and veterans - that Obama lost in the general public.

The federation also said that high turnout among union voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan "formed a foundation of support for Obama," and that more than 250,000 members who hit the streets represented "the largest independent voter mobilization in history."

Also vying for attention: NARAL Pro-Choice America, which took a bit of heat when it became the first major abortion rights advocacy group to jump from backing Hillary Clinton to Obama. It said it repeatedly contacted about 290,000 households about McCain's antiabortion rights record and noted that Obama won all eight battleground states where it contacted voters on his behalf.

FOON RHEE

For all the talk of change in this election, money still talks loudest.

That's according to a nonpartisan watchdog group that reported yesterday that besides Barack Obama, who broke all presidential fund-raising records and was the first major-party nominee to reject public financing, the candidate who spent the most money won 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of US Senate races that had been decided by mid-day.

The Center for Responsive Politics, basing its findings on candidates' spending through Oct. 15, as reported to the Federal Election Commission, said the trend is par for the course. In 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. And in 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to the biggest spender, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

"The 2008 election will go down in US history as an election of firsts, but this was far from the first time that money was overwhelmingly victorious on Election Day," Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said in a statement.

FOON RHEE

NEW YORK - With President Bush reportedly interested in writing about his White House years, publishers have a suggestion:

Take your time.

"If I were advising President Bush, given how the public feels about him right now, I think patience would probably be something that I would encourage," said Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf, which in 2004 released Bill Clinton's million-selling "My Life."

"Certainly the longer he waits, the better," agreed Marji Ross, president and publisher of the conservative Regnery Publishing, which is more likely to take on anti-Obama books in the next few years than praises of Bush.

"There's a pent-up frustration among conservatives that will focus their attention on a Barack Obama presidency and lead them to buy a lot of books about Barack Obama. But that's not the kind of emotion that anyone is going to use to turn to reading a memoir by a conservative president."

In a poor economy, it's not a great time for anyone to shop a book, and certainly not for a deeply unpopular president. Bush's approval ratings are in the 20s, and Republicans are at a low moment after Tuesday night.

ASSOCIATED PRESS