Anti-Endorsement II: The Anti-Endorsening

The New Hampshire Union-Leader joins in on the fun started by the Concord Monitor.

THERE IS A reason Mitt Romney has not received a single newspaper endorsement in New Hampshire. It's the same reason his poll numbers are dropping. He has not been able to convince the people of this state that he's the conservative he says he is.

Like a lot of people in New Hampshire, we wanted to believe Romney. We gave him the benefit of the doubt. We listened very carefully to his expertly rehearsed sales pitch. But in the end he didn't close the deal for us. Now, two weeks before the primary, the same is happening with voters.

In a sense, this is self-serving for the Union-Leader, who has endorsed McCain and has an interest in being right. But it's amusing to me that the establishment elites were so keen on lining up behind Romney because he could keep the fragile coalition together, but any actual voter who takes a look at him can smell the inauthenticity.

Mitt Romney has not. He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized, not heartfelt.

Last week Romney was reduced to debating what the meaning of "saw" is. It was only the latest in a string of demonstrably false claims -- he'd been a hunter "pretty much" all his life, he'd had the NRA's endorsement, he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. -- that call into question the veracity of his justifications for switching sides on immigration, abortion, taxes and his affection for Ronald Reagan.

In this primary, the more Mitt Romney speaks, the less believable he becomes.

Tagg Romney reportedly responded by saying, "Oh yeah? Well,... um... you too!"