Newt Gingrich wins important New Hampshire endorsement

New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, the Union Leader of Manchester, announced today that it wants former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to be the Republican presidential candidate.

"We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing," the New Hampshire Union Leader said in a front-page editorial, the New York Times reported.

The endorsement from the newspaper is a shot in the arm for Gingrich as he vies for votes in New Hampshire’s Jan. 10, 2012, primary.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is leading Gingrich by 42 points in a Granite State poll released last week from the University of New Hampshire and WMUR-TV, the New York Times reported. Romney owns a vacation home in New Hampshire and has been called a "nearly native son of New Hampshire," The Associated Press reported.

“I can see a scenario where the Union Leader points its poison pen Romney’s way, which will help set up the contrast that Gingrich ultimately wants,” New Hampshire strategist Mike Dennehy, who ran McCain’s successful primary campaign in the state, told Politico. “But it must be stated that Romney is still very popular in New Hampshire, and his ground game is second to none.”

According to the New York Times:

The Union Leader’s publisher supported Sen. John McCain in 2008 over Mr. Romney, although the paper’s track record of picking winners has been mixed, having endorsed Steve Forbes in 2000 and Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996, neither of whom won the Republican nomination.

In an appearance on CNN today, Union Leader editorial page editor Drew Cline explained why the newspaper picked Gingrich over Romney, Politico reported. Cline described Romney as a “play-it-safe” candidate more suited for the presidency in the “late 19th century.”

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