ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin blames the Bush administration for the failure of the McCain-Palin ticket, thinks people need to move on from the so-called “Troopergate” controversy and has no plans to stop charging the state per diem for time at her home in Wasilla, Alaska, or having state-funded travel for her children. Palin also said she loved her time in the national spotlight and won’t rule out a run for president or vice president in 2012.

Those were some of Palin’s responses to questions posed Sunday afternoon in a wide-ranging interview with the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU at her Wasilla home.

Palin remains a national media obsession; Greta Van Susteren of Fox News had just finished an interview with her and was chatting with the governor and her husband in the kitchen. Moose chili cooked in the crock pot and moose hot dogs lay on the table. Palin insisted they weren’t a prop for the national media but just how the family likes to dine.

Seven-year-old Piper Palin walked around with an apron and a notebook, asking people what they wanted to drink. Outside, an Entertainment Tonight crew waited.

Q: Why did your campaign lose?

A: I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a 10 trillion dollar debt in a Republican administration, how have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration.

If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party had been representing. People desiring change I think went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could . . . It’s amazing that we did as well as we did.

Q: There’s been an enormous amount of information about you that Alaskans have been exposed to the past couple of months – and lots of it very critical. What are Alaskans supposed to make of all this?

A: Regarding information regarding my record, that it now out there much of it that was based on misinformation was a very, very frustrating thing to have to go through when the record was never corrected. And we would try to correct the record and too many in the media chose not to make those corrections.

Q: What misinformation are you talking about?

A: Some of the goofy things like who was Trig’s mom. Well, I’m Trig’s mom (raises her hand) and do you want to see my medical records to prove that? . . . And banning books – that was a ridiculous thing also that could have so easily been corrected just by a reporter taking an extra step and not basing a report on gossip or speculation but just look at the record.

It was reported that I tried to ban “Harry Potter” when it hadn’t even been written when I was the mayor. So gosh, we have so many examples, I mean every day, especially the first few weeks, every day something that was thrown out there.

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