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FAIRBANKS -- Gov. Sarah Palin had less-than robust support for Sen. John McCain in his presidential quest earlier this year in the run up to the Alaska Republican Party’s presidential preference balloting.

Palin, as recently as one week before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday vote, had not made up her mind about which candidate to support. She told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner at the time that she had narrowed her choice to McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“I would ideally love to speak with them personally on their positions on resources and national security,” she said.

Palin said she was trying to find time to learn about the two candidates’ views on national security, resource development, and a North Slope natural gas pipeline and had placed calls to both campaigns.

On the day of the vote, Palin told reporters at an afternoon news conference on another topic that she still had not made up her mind but that she had spoken to Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“We’ve just been so doggone busy here,” she said.

Of McCain she said that, while not ruling out a vote for him, that she “[took] issue with his issues” and wanted him to explain his views on developing Alaska’s resources.

McCain finished last in the GOP field. Romney won the Alaska event handily with 5,988 votes, or 43.7 percent of the total. Huckabee finished second, with 21.9 percent, and Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul came in third with 17.2 percent.

McCain, never much of a favorite in Alaska because of his opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, received 15.6 percent of the GOP vote.

Among Alaska’s top political leaders, Romney had the support of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, while Huckabee had the support of U.S. Rep. Don Young. Sen. Ted Stevens, who has clashed with McCain over federal spending in Alaska, didn’t appear to offer a pre-vote endorsement. Huckabee appealed widely to religious conservatives, a key and vocal component of the base of the Republican Party. Those voters largely distrusted the sincerity of views espoused by Romney and McCain during the campaign.

Palin laughed when asked if an endorsement from Alaska’s governor could affect the presidential race.

“In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter who Sarah Palin or any other governor picks,” she said.

Palin’s encounters with McCain and McCain’s advance knowledge of Palin have been the subject of much media scrutiny in the days following Friday’s announcement that he had picked the second-year governor for the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket. McCain’s vetting team was still working on clearing Palin on Thursday, the day McCain settled on her — a person little known outside of Alaska.

Palin and McCain did spend time together in February, when McCain made a visit to the annual gathering of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C..

Palin met with McCain twice that Saturday, Feb. 23, including at a dinner with his wife, Cindy. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Palin was “one of just a few governors who McCain, shopping for a running mate, met for a private 90-minute session” at the NGA gathering. The Times wrote that Palin and McCain later that evening “followed up at a private reception, where McCain pressed Palin for her views on energy issues. Aides said McCain was ‘extremely impressed.’”

Palin told the Daily News-Miner, in a story published Feb. 25, that she and McCain spoke about his plans to curb the use of congressional earmarks, a device used by members of Congress to direct money to specific projects. They also spoke about the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline.

“Sen. McCain and I disagree on ANWR, but he recognizes that we’ve got to be energy independent for national security reasons and for our economy,” Palin said in the February story.

On earmarks, she said “Alaska is not going to be able to request that the rest of the United States pay for projects that are going to be perceived as solely benefiting Alaskans anymore.” Projects, she said, “are going to have to have national implications.”

“I know that I get criticized from some for saying things like that because they say, ‘but we are a young state and we’re lacking in the infrastructure that other states have benefited from for many, many more decades then Alaska has.’

“Maybe so. So be it. But the reality is from Congress to the White House on down, Alaskans are being told wake up, you have to be less reliant on the federal government.”

She said, also in the February story, that she believed Alaskans would support McCain in November if he were to become the nominee.

“I appreciate that he’s a maverick,” she said. “He’s independent from excessive partisanship. All those things I think that resonate very well with Alaskans.”