Sarah Palin hopes God will 'show her the door' to the White House

Barack Obama hasn't even been inaugurated as president and Sarah Palin is already weighing up her chances of running against him in four years time.

In what Fox News is billing as Palin's first post-election interview, the Alaska governor says she hopes God will "show her the way" to the White House if the opportunity presents itself in 2012.

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is.

"Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plough right on through that and maybe prematurely plough through it, but don't let me miss an open door," she tells the Fox interviewer Greta Van Susteren.

Susteren spent two days with Palin at her home and office, and last night Fox broadcast the first part of a wide-ranging interview with the Republican senator.

During the interview Palin defends herself against criticisms that she had an appalling knowledge of world geography and spent an excessive amount of money on clothes. She lays the blame on the media for not correcting the "garbage" written about her and on the anonymous Republican aides who leaked false information about her.

According to Palin – wearing a pink jacket bought from one of her favourite Alaska stores - she did not want or ask for the $150,000 (£96,000) worth of clothes the Republican party gave her for the duration of the campaign.

"I would have been happy to have worn my own clothes from day one," she says, adding that the clothes she wore for the campaign had been returned to the party.

She also denies accusations that she did not know Africa was a continent rather than a country.

"Never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it (Africa) a country or is it a continent," says Palin.

Although it was the not very liberal Fox News which made the Africa claim, Palin pinned much of the blame for the damaging allegations against her on the liberal commentators she refers to as "those bloggers in their parents' basement just talkin' garbage".

There's little self-criticism or soul-searching from Palin. Even when she admits going off message, she says she does not regret it because it did not harm the campaign.

"If I went off script once in a while, I can't for the life of me remember any one time where it would have harmed the ticket," she says.

Abortion, feminism, how much she "loves and honours" the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, and how her appeal lies in the fact she's "a mom, someone who loves this country so much" are also covered in last night's interview. The second part goes out tonight.

And, if any further evidence were needed that Palin is keen to capitalise on her new-found fame, there are a series of interviews with other broadcasters lined up for the rest of the week and she will take part in a press conference at the Republican Governors Association in Florida on Thursday.

Love her or hate her, she's clearly not going to just slip back quietly into the Alaskan wilderness.