South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) on Thursday didn’t rule out possibly running as a vice presidential candidate in 2012. 

Haley, the newly elected conservative governor of the Palmetto State, left the door open to rounding out the party’s ticket next fall, in a fairly stock answer in which she embraced her current role as governor.

“I think I am very aware that I am the flavor of the month, which is what happens in politics,” she said on the Mike Gallagher radio show. “And I will tell you, they need to focus on the top of the ticket.”

Haley’s answer is pretty boilerplate for candidates with ambitions of higher office. She didn’t want to appear too eager to trade jobs, and she played up her current work in South Carolina, where she’s only four months into her governorship.

{mosads}”I love being governor of South Carolina,” she said. “I have loved fighting ObamaCare from the state leadership level. I have loved fighting these labor unions from the state leadership level. There’s a lot of federal issues that are being pushed on the states. And the more they pushed on us, the more I’m pushing back.”

Haley has been reluctant to tip her hand about her preferences for a Republican candidate in South Carolina’s primary next year, an influential early contest in the cycle. But she was hardly Shermanesque about her chances for joining the ticket, and didn’t rule out a run in the way that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appeared to rule out serving as the vice presidential nominee. 

“Right now, I’m incredibly happy being the governor of South Carolina,” she said. “We’re doing great things.”

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