REPUBLICAN VICE-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says she was "flabbergasted" by anonymous criticism of her by members of John McCain's campaign staff following last week's election.
In an interview with NBC's Today Show yesterday, Ms Palin denied that she had encouraged campaign staff to buy expensive clothes for herself and her family and suggested that she was more willing to face the media than her handlers allowed.
Ms Palin said she had never asked the Republican National Committee to spend $150,000 (€119,000) on a new wardrobe and insisted that she had not kept any of the clothing bought for her and her family.
"I did not order up these clothes," she said, adding that the people who decided what she should wear were "the New York stylists who were already there and already orchestrating what the wardrobe should look like, just like they have people to figure out the staging and the lighting and everything else".
The Alaska governor, who avoided major interviews for much of the campaign, has been on a media blitz this week, sitting down for lengthy sessions with Fox News and CNN as well as NBC. Later this week, she will address other Republican governors at a conference in Miami and she has been careful not to rule out running for president in 2012.
"Putting my life in my creator's hands, this is what I always do," she told Fox News. "I'm like, okay God, if there is an open door for me somewhere . . . don't let me miss the open door. And if there is an open door in 12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good . . . for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plough through that door."
Veteran Alaska Republican Ted Stevens is ahead in the count following last week's election for his senate race. If he wins, however, he is expected to resign his seat or to be expelled from the Senate on account of his conviction on seven fraud charges.
Alaska law requires that the vacant seat should be filled by a special election and Mrs Palin is a possible Republican candidate.
She said she wanted to be "part of the solution" to problems confronting the US but declined to speculate on whether she might run for the Senate seat.