by Jill Zuckman
Dover, N.H. – A week after excoriating Mitt Romney, The Concord Monitor endorsed Sen. John McCain today, praising him for his integrity, dignity and bipartisan style.
“McCain’s willingness to break with his party on issues like climate change and immigration, his honesty and his refusal to pander make him the Monitor’s choice in the Jan. 8 Republican presidential primary,” the editorial said.
With the Monitor’s endorsement, McCain has racked up 25 newspaper editorial boards choosing him as the best candidate in the GOP primary. At his first town hall meeting of the day, McCain was greeted by a standing room only crowd at the Greek Orthodox Church here. And using an overhead projector, the campaign displayed the names of the newspapers that are supporting the Arizona senator.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has not received any endorsements in New Hampshire and his campaign has dismissed the Monitor for being a liberal newspaper. He didn’t find support from his home state newspapers, either. Both The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald endorsed McCain.
Last week, The Concord Monitor called Romney “a phony,” and said that with his constant change of position on the issues “you’re left to wonder if there’s anything at all at his core.”
Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Romney, said it wasn’t surprising that the Monitor endorsed McCain. “I think it says a lot that they cited John McCain’s willingness to go against the Republican Party as a reason for their support,” he said.
Polls show that McCain and Romney are locked in a race for first place in the state, with Romney launching a negative ad against McCain Friday. The ad accuses McCain of pushing for Social Security benefits for illegal immigrants and supporting amnesty, too.
FactCheck.Org, a non-partisan watchdog group, calls those charges “untrue,” and says the ad is misleading in other ways, including the claim by Romney that he cut taxes in Massachusetts. The analysis said that while he enacted business tax credits, tax rates remained unchanged and he raised state revenues by increasing fees and closing corporate tax loopholes.
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In Iowa, Romney told reporters that “we worked very hard to make sure [the commercial] was accurate and honest and looks at contrasting issues.”
McCain responded with his own ad, using the Monitor’s words to call Romney “a phony.” McCain said this morning that he would not respond further to Romney’s ad.
“We’ve said what we had to say,” he said. “Move on.”