Palin downplays plans, impact on McCain loss

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought today 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 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 Democrat 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."