DEFEATED US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin urged fellow Republicans to unite to fight elections in two years for state governorships and congressional seats, rather than divide the party.
Speaking in Miami to the Republican Governors' Association, Mrs Palin repeatedly emphasised how the governors can help rebuild the party following last week's heavy election defeat.
"[They] have the experience and the leadership qualities that can help usher back into our states and our nation the bedrock principles that do make up the Republican Party," she told a short news conference.
The Alaska governor's decision to focus on uniting the governors is a response to her colleagues' unhappiness with her high profile, since more than a few harbour ambitions to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Republicans must return to their core principles of limited government, strong states' rights, low taxation and a heavy curb on federal spending, she said in a speech to the governors' association.
The cost of the Iraq war and homeland security "cannot explain" the $10 trillion debt built up under George Bush.
"Washington DC leaders spent public money in disregard of the public interest, just like the opponents that they used to criticise.
"They got too comfortable in power. Maybe they forgot why they were sent to Washington and who they were sent to serve. We're looking now at an American people having to work for their government instead of our government working for the people.
"Enough, enough of that. All of this must change if we are to lead again in Washington, in changing Washington for the better. So in the months ahead, let us build our case with actions and not just words," Ms Palin said.
Republicans must offer a positive face to Americans: "Let us resolve not to become the negative party, too eager to find fault or unwilling to help in this time of crisis and war. Losing an election does not have to mean losing our way."
During a four-question press conference, Mrs Palin refused to answer questions about her 2012 presidential ambitions. "The past is the past, it's behind us. 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."
Ms Palin could buttress her position by helping Republican gubernatorial candidates to win.
Her future intentions remain unclear, and depend partly on the Senate race in Alaska where outgoing Republican Ted Stevens, who has been convicted of corruption, is now 814 votes behind his Democratic challenger.
Approximately 40,000 votes remain to be counted. If Mr Stevens wins, he most likely will be expelled from the Senate, thus opening the way for a special election within three months.
Mrs Palin has sent contrary signals about whether she would replace Mr Stevens in the Senate, saying in one interview that she was "not planning on that" because Alaskans would "best be served with me as their governor making sure that we are prudently spending the tax dollars."
Later, however, she told another network that, "if it were acknowledged up there that I could be put to better use for my state in the US Senate, I would certainly consider that but that would take a special election and everything else."
Meanwhile, the report that Mrs Palin did not know that Africa was a continent, and not a country, was a hoax, it has emerged, fabricated by a pair of New York filmmakers, who fooled the MSNBC network which has apologised for spreading the false rumour.