Sarah Palin’s N.H. posse rallies

Boston Herald.com: Sarah Palin’s N.H. posse rallies

Some rock-solid Granite State voters for Sarah Palin are carrying a torch for the former Alaskan governor as presidential material — despite the straight-talking reality star’s plummeting popularity in New Hampshire and uncertainty over whether she’ll run — their hopes renewed last weekend as Palin vowed, “I can win a national election.”

Warren Rasmussen, who chairs the New Hampshire chapter of Organizers 4 Palin, said the Newsweek interview confirmed what he’s long believed.

“We have a crew of volunteers, and we’re anxiously awaiting her announcement,” Rasmussen said. “Everything that she’s doing right now leads me to believe she’s in.”

Palin caused a sensation when she stopped in Seabrook, N.H., last month during a media-swamped bus tour — grabbing headlines the same day former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney officially announced his presidential candidacy. She’s said she is seriously considering running for president but has offered no timeline as to when she’d make a final decision.

She told Newsweek in an article published last weekend, “I do believe I can win.”

Sam Cataldo, a Republican state representative from Farmington, said Palin’s got an electric touch that none of the declared Republican candidates can match.

“She’s a mom, she’s a wife, and she’s a fighter,” said Cataldo, 74. “We need somebody who can bring people back together again, and she can do it.”

A recent poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center of 773 likely Republican voters gave Palin only 3 percent of the vote. The poll, conducted between June 21 and July 1 with a 3.5 percent margin of error, also found 23 percent of Republican voters wouldn’t vote for Palin under any circumstances.

“The only one with worse favorability ratings was (former U.S. House Speaker) Newt Gingrich,” said Andrew Smith, director of the Survey Center, who also noted that Palin’s New Hampshire organization is nonexistent.

But die-hard supporters such as Derek Kittredge of Rochester dismissed the polls as meaningless this early in the primary season.

“I don’t think you can take the polls very seriously at this point. Until she announces, it doesn’t mean anything. There are very strong advocates, and they will get out of their chairs if asked and work for her,” Kittredge said. “She’s doing everything she needs to do to be the most serious candidate out there.”

Nashua resident Sandra Ziehm added, “I’ve been told she can’t take New Hampshire, but I think that’s cockamamie. I think she has the fight and she can do it.”

A Palin spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Rasmussen, who’s never met or spoken with Palin, said he’s got roughly 100 people committed to volunteering for her, and he’s ready to roll out a phone-bank fund-raiser in the near future. He expects her upcoming SarahPAC fund-raising report will reflect her political clout.

Steve Duprey, a national Republican Committee man for New Hampshire, said Palin has no official team in the Granite State and hasn’t been actively canvassing.

"She is not following the script, but then again Gov. Palin has found her own unique way of gaining supporters,” Duprey said. “If any candidate can run for president and do it without pre-planning, she’s probably it.”