The stimulus package may be old news in Washington, where Congress and the White House have moved on to other legislative battles. But in the states, political warfare over stimulus funds is just getting under way, and it will be fought in the shadow of the looming 2010 and 2012 election seasons.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford , a Republican, kicked off a fight with the state’s legislature and congressional delegation Tuesday with a proposal to use $700 million in stimulus funds to pay down the state’s debt, rather than spend on local programs. Gov. Haley Barbour ’s rejection of funds for unemployment compensation has sparked a similar battle in Mississippi. Governors who embrace the funds, meanwhile, are under intense pressure from both federal watchdogs and local interests, all looking to make sure funds are meted out in ways that best meet their standards and agendas.

There are 38 governors’ seats up for grabs in 2009 and 2010. Meanwhile, a handful of Republican governors, like Sanford and Barbour, are looking ahead to 2012 — hoping to burnish their conservative credentials in advance of the GOP presidential primary. And though they ultimately have limited control over the federal stimulus money being sent to the states, the nation’s governors know that, as Democratic Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky put it, “the buck stops with me” — they’re the ones voters will hold accountable for the way the money is managed.

Out of the $787 billion provided in the new law (PL-115), governors control about $8.8 billion in multipurpose money, said Michael Bird, a policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

And even then, the state executives have to working their own checks and balances from their state legislatures. “When you talk about absolute total discretion, we’re talking about very little that falls into that world,” Bird said.

Perhaps the governors’ biggest task, then, is public relations.

In the past month, governors have kicked their public outreach operations into high gear. State executives in Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Vermont are among those who have appointed stimulus “czars” or coordinators, while other states, like Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas and Missouri, have established various types of task forces to oversee how funds are processed and distributed. Virtually all governors now have some manner of Web portal, many launched in the last week, that enable the public to monitor stimulus spending and allow varying levels of participation. Some, like Democratic Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jay Nixon of Missouri, have gone so far as to encourage constituents to submit funding proposals via their stimulus Web sites.

It is all part of an effort by governors to reassure constituents that they are using the funds, as Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said, “for their intended purpose in a transparent and accountable way.”

In addition to outreach, governors do have a substantive role to play in shaping the way the funds flow, beginning with deciding what portions of the federal money to accept.

The process of certifying their intentions to use the funds has generated ongoing controversy thanks to a handful of Republican governors who are resisting taking some of the money directed to their states.

Sanford sent a letter to state lawmakers Tuesday night, in which he laid out his intent to seek a waiver from President Obama to use stimulus funding to pay off debt. “In the unfortunate case that the president would deny our request, I will not seek the [$700 million in discretionary] funds,” Sanford wrote. That drew a sharp rebuke from House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn , as well as resistance from both Republican and Democratic legislators. The state legislature has already voted to accept all the stimulus funding, and can go over Sanford’s head thanks to a provision inserted into the law by Clyburn, who anticipated the governor’s opposition.

In Mississippi, lawmakers are also taking advantage of that authority. The state House voted last week to override Barbour’s decision to bypass some funding. But Mississippi’s state Senate must also agree to the override, which is not a foregone conclusion.

And despite the funding formulas that govern much of the stimulus money’s distribution in the states, observers say governors still have some discretion over the lists of eligible projects and the funding priorities.