NASHUA, N.H. – Margaret Winn Sandown of N.H., an ardent Rep. Ron Paul supporter, has a message for political journalists trying to press the Texas Republican on whether he’d run as a third party candidate if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination: you’re wasting your time.
“Nobody controls us,” she told me following a huge rally at an airplane hangar here. “Not even Ron Paul. So if he doesn’t run third party, it doesn’t matter, we’re writing him in. There are tons of us.”
Many political observers have speculated about whether a third party run by Paul would split the Republican vote, and thus hand the election to President Obama.
His passionate following was apparent at this rally, where he was introduced by his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. He received a rousing ovation from the crowd, who offered rousing applause throughout the speech and showered him chants of “President Paul! President Paul!” But his supporters tend to represent a different voting block than you’d find at a typical partisan GOP event.
Sandown, 47, said she and her husband, both independents, had heard about Paul back in 2008, but were turned off by media accounts that portrayed him as “crazy.” Her husband ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and she voted for Obama, which she said now makes her “ashamed” because he didn’t live up to his promise.
In the intervening years, she came to love Paul’s message of returning to the constitutional principles and putting an end to wars as the economy soured. Now, she’s a volunteer, and along with her 24-year old son and their friends, makes homemade signs and t-shirts in their garage using stencils.
“This party better wake up and start accepting a new part of the party,” she said of Republicans. “People make you afraid that if you write him in, then Obama might get it, because you’re splitting our vote. Well you know what, I have to put my head on my pillow at night, and I need to know that nobody coerced me into it, I did it of my own free will.”
