The bus tour that stands to return her to the 2012 spotlight is taking her to the part of the country that’s the least friendly to her — the northeastern U.S.

It’s a part of the country she’s mostly avoided since 2008, conspicuously not setting foot in early presidential state New Hampshire at all during her two book tours and her 2010 tea party campaign swings. Now, however, with her luster dimmed and her national relevance in question, she has chosen to venture into the belly of the beast.

“There’s no doubt in my mind the northeast is the least favorable area of the country to Sarah Palin,” said Terry Madonna, a longtime Pennsylvania pollster and analyst who directs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “But she has to show she can broaden her appeal. She can’t just go to where she’s already won voters.”

Nevertheless, it’s clear Palin is picking her spots carefully.

Though the tour begins Sunday in Washington, D.C. — home to the political establishment with which Palin has a well-documented relationship of mutual loathing — it’s at a motorcycle rally, the annual Rolling Thunder bikerfest that streams over the Memorial Bridge en route to the Vietnam Memorial.

In Maryland, where the candidate Palin endorsed in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary got less than a quarter of the vote, she’s going to the Civil War battle site of Antietam, in the rural western arm of the state — far from the coastal population centers of Annapolis and Baltimore.

In Pennsylvania, where America’s most famous hockey mom was booed in 2008 when she dropped the puck at a Philadelphia Flyers game, she’ll visit another small-town Civil War battlefield, Gettysburg. She’ll also make a return foray into Philadelphia — a stop at the Liberty Bell.

Palin is wrapping herself in American history, tapping into the hyper-patriotism that is her hallmark. Her destinations are historic islands, refuges amid the most urbanized and Democratic territory in the nation.

This is the way the itinerary is described on her political action committee’s website: “This Sunday, May 29th, Governor Palin and the SarahPAC team will begin a trip through our nation’s rich historical sites, starting from Washington, DC and going up through New England,” it states. “The ‘One Nation Tour’ is part of our new campaign to educate and energize Americans about our nation’s founding principles, in order to promote the Fundamental Restoration of America.”

Below that, there’s a donation button, and below that is a Google map of the U.S. — with no stops marked on it.

Palin’s plans, details of which are still hazy, will also take her to New Hampshire for the first time since she was on the GOP ticket with John McCain.

But after all her time away, Granite Staters aren’t feeling particularly warm about her.

A CNN/WMUR poll of New Hampshire Republican voters last week found Palin had the support of just 5 percent, good for fifth place and trailing non-candidate Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who has dipped his toe in the presidential waters of late.

Among the New Hampshire electorate as a whole, Palin is viewed favorably by just 28 percent, according to a recent survey by the Democratic automated pollster Public Policy Polling.

In PPP surveys in 31 states over the last six months, just three states had smaller proportions of Palin fans, and all were in the northeast: New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. (Though the firm is partisan, its results generally track with polls by other organizations. PPP’s results were used in this analysis in the interest of consistency across different states.)

Palin’s highest ratings, in the low 40s, were in states like Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska and Texas, according to PPP.

In Pennsylvania, Palin likely has pockets of support in the rural center of the state and among tea party activists, said Jim Roddey, chairman of Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Republican Committee.

“Overall, most of us feel she could be an important force in the party, but I would hope she would not run for president,” said Roddey, who hasn’t endorsed a 2012 primary candidate. “I don’t think she has the intellectual capacity or the depth of knowledge to be president.”

Madonna, the Pennsylvania pollster, said there’s evidence that putting Palin on the ticket hurt McCain overall in Pennsylvania by turning off the suburban swing voters — particularly women — that are crucial to winning the state.

Her social conservatism and anti-intellectual posture are a poor match for that segment of the electorate, he said.

“The overall style, her manner, her approach, doesn’t sit well with college educated, independent-minded women,” he said. “They’re looking for a different persona in their candidate.”

Over the past couple of years, Palin has been kryptonite to many northeastern Republicans. The leading GOP candidate for governor in Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, had a scheduling conflict when she came to the state for a tea party rally in April 2010 — and so did his running mate.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie publicly said he didn’t want her help in his 2009 campaign, and since being elected he’s continued to take potshots at her. When late-night host Jimmy Fallon suggested Palin could be president, Christie rolled his eyes.

After Maryland’s 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee, Robert Ehrlich, was passed over for Palin’s primary endorsement, he criticized her failure to complete her term — “she quit” — and added, “If you look at the categories of potential nominees, most people do not mention her as a tier-one candidate.”

One northeastern GOPer, Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy, said he welcomes Palin to the neighborhood because of the effect she has on Democrats.

“She annoys the left to the point of apoplexy, and I love it,” he said. “My liberal friends, when I say her name at a barbecue, they completely come off the rails.”

Palin, he said, generates plenty of passion on both sides. But if she were to embark on a presidential campaign, her image would have to change.

“She has to prove that she can broaden her appeal,” he said. “If she has the capacity to grow into a leading candidate has still not been determined.”