Hours after John McCain said that he was departing the presidential stage for good, leaving wide open the field of Republican White House contenders for 2012, the fight to succeed him began in earnest yesterday amid the palm trees of southern Florida.

The opening of the Republican Governors’ Association meeting in Miami put on full display a lineup of politicians including Sarah Palin who are making early moves to become the next presidential candidate and standard-bearer for the party.

The two-day event is giving a starring role to Mrs Palin she makes a speech this morning after no fewer than eight television interviews this week and a half-dozen other governors all eyeing up possible White House runs against Barack Obama in four years’ time.

The opening lunch was hosted by Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota, who was seriously considered by Mr McCain as a potential running-mate. Others vying for attention in the early stages of what will become a bruising battle to succeed Mr McCain included Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, and Florida’s Charlie Crist.

The governors gathered the morning after Mr McCain made clear on Jay Leno’s Tonight show that his White House ambitions were over.

Asked about another run in 2012 when he would be 76 the Arizona senator said: “I wouldn’t think so, my friend. It’s been a great experience, and we’re going to have another generation of leaders, and I’ll hope that I can continue to contribute.” He will continue to serve in the US Senate.

The battle to succeed him is not just one of personality but ideology. This first big gathering of Republicans since Mr Obama’s sweeping victory last week and another bloody night of losses in Congress comes amid a gathering internecine war over the future direction not only of the party but of conservatism itself.

Frank Luntz, the veteran Republican pollster, told a seminar attended by most of the governors that the Republican Party was in “deep trouble” because it had lost touch with ordinary Americans.

He later told The Times that there was now a “Sarah Palin wing” of the party: “grassroots, antiintellectual, small-town and culturally conservative”. A new poll suggests that Mrs Palin, who in recent days has been hitting back at Mr McCain’s aides who had briefed against her, would have a head start for 2012. Two thirds of Republicans said that she would be their choice as White House nominee.

The Alaska Governor has certainly not faded from view. She has invited various television networks into her home and conducted a string of interviews. After she called the anonymously hostile McCain aides “mean-spirited” and “jerks”, she said yesterday that having a woman on the next Republican ticket would be a good thing. She said that her high-pro-file status was due to what she represented and not about her personally.

On CNN she said that it would be “an honour to assist and support our new President” and that now was the time “to all be working together”. Yet she had a piece of advice for Mr Obama. Referring to her son, who is serving in Iraq, she said she hoped that the President-elect would surround himself with good commanders because “my son’s life is in his hands”.

Other Republicans believe that the party will be thrust farther into the wilderness if it focuses too heavily on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, alienating moderate and independent voters.

They say that men such as Mr Crist, a nonideological pragmatist, and Mr Jindal, a young, intellectually brilliant reformer, are the future.

Mr Crist said: “We need to have an emphasis on the issues that affect people every single day.”

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