Por qué es tan importante el endorsement del Union Leader

Primary Insider:

New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News, has announced it will back Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential nominating race, according to photos provided by the former House speaker’s campaign. The endorsement appears above the fold on doorsteps across the Granite State on Sunday morning.

And it is expected to appear on the paper’s front pages for the remaining six weeks until the New Hampshire primary. Part of what makes this endorsement so powerful — arguably the most important endorsement in this early primary state — is that the publisher is a relentless and prominent advocate for the chosen candidate, regularly pasting a nod to the candidate above or below the front page fold.

(...) When the paper endorses, it goes all in.

“We endorse every damn day,” publisher Joe McQuaid told The Washington Post in 1999. “We started endorsing Reagan in 1975 and never stopped.”

In 2008, The Union Leader endorsement of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s post-Christmas rise up to, and then above, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in statewide polls.

The paper went to bat for McCain in part by slamming Romney in a series of editorials that caused some to wonder if the paper’s endorsement this season was always out of his reach.

This year, his campaign has reportedly worked to build bridges between the candidate and the paper. Romney joined the publisher at a charity even this month; even though Romney was not on the speaking schedule, the implication was that Romney would go out of his way to woo McQuaid. “Don’t tell me I have to sit next to Joe McQuaid,” Romney joked, according to reports.

For months prior, reportedly as early as March, Romney was aided in the effort by former Gov. John H. Sununu, who arranged meetings between Romney and McQuaid.