Historically,GOP cand endorsed by the UL have over-performed their preendorsement polls by 11 points

[Pirate Smile]

Good news for Newt. Bad news for Mittens' New Hampshire firewall:

According to Nate Silver: Historically, GOP candidates endorsed by the Union Leader have over-performed their pre-endorsement polls by 11 points.

Newspaper’s Endorsement Has Been Leading Indicator in New Hampshire

By NATE SILVER

On Sunday, The Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, endorsed Newt Gingrich for president. The endorsement represents one of the most tangible signs of parts of the conservative establishment coming around to Mr. Gingrich, who to date has received very few endorsements from Republican elected officials. It also represents a blow to Mitt Romney, who had led all polls of the state.

-snip-
What I’ve done, therefore, is compare how the Republican candidate endorsed by The Union Leader finished in each of the past six competitive New Hampshire primaries compared with how he was polling at the time of the endorsement. By default, I use an average of all statewide polls conducted in the three weeks before the endorsement, although there were no polls within this window in the 1980 and 1996 cycles, so I use the first poll just after the endorsement instead. I do not consider races before 1980, as we have no New Hampshire polls for those years in our database.

As it happens, although only three of the six Republicans endorsed by The Union Leader during this period won their primary, all six outperformed their polling. Mr. du Pont, for instance, finished with a fairly meager 11 percent of the vote in 1988 — but this was better than his 4 percent standing in the polls at the time of the endorsement.
On average, the candidates endorsed by The Union Leader finished with 29 percent of the vote in New Hampshire — an 11-percentage-point improvement from the 18 percent they averaged in the polls when the endorsement was made.

-snip-
Nevertheless, this is a pretty good sign for Mr. Gingrich. If you do take the results of the regression analysis to be tantamount to a prediction, they imply that New Hampshire could be quite close, with Mr. Romney finishing with 36 percent of the vote and Mr. Gingrich at 30 percent. What I think is fair to say is that Mr. Gingrich would at least have a shot at winning New Hampshire if he also wins Iowa, a result that could be devastating to Mr. Romney’s campaign.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/newspapers-endorsement-has-been-leading-indicator-in-new-hampshire/

I think this is good news. I hope Newt wins the GOP nomination.

I usually find Newt's over-the-top pompous, self-important condescension and grandiosity amusing because he is such an asshole, plus with all of his personal and ethical baggage and flip-flops, there is no way he could win the General Election.

However, dealing with this garbage for the next year will be like nails on a chalkboard:

Newt Gingrich Says He’ll Let President Obama Use Teleprompter In Debate

http://www.mediaite.com/online/newt-gingrich-says-hell-let-president-obama-use-teleprompter-in-debate/

Of course, we are going to have to deal with lies and smears for the next year no matter who wins the Republican Presidential nomination.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I'd prefer a GOP nominee that's more easily differentiated from Obama

policy-wise.

Newt scares me: he's bat-shit crazy, but it often isn't obvious.

[izquierdista]

2. Bachmann for VP?

:shrug:

Not our call, Manny, but if you're looking for obvious bat-shittiness.......

[Cosmocat]

4. I would take Nwet over Romney in a heartbeat ...

Romney CAN beat Obama in a general where the election will just be about general American stupidity vs the R primary where the election is half about beating BO and half about out crazying each other.

Nwet is full of shit, no doubt, but in a general, one on one with Obama, he loses in the battle of looks (Mitts greatest general election strength) by a mile and his personal demenor and overall line of BS will be a net negative in comparison to BO with the mushy middle.

The hard core Rs and R loving media will THINK Nwet is killing BO on substance with his meandering BS - but the dull minded electorate would not understand what he is saying and be left with the sense he was full of shiite vs BO, who whatever all his faults real or imagined are, the non hard right people at least like and trust him.

[SkyDaddy7]

3. Why do so many think...

Newt's "personal and ethical baggage and flip-flops" will hurt him in the general election?

PLEASE tell me when this has EVER hurt a Republican? That's right, it has not. Republicans are not held to the same standards as Democrats!

...PLUS with the +BILLION $$$ that will be spent by Right Wing Super PACs to keep the MSM chasing "SQUIRRELS" rather than doing their job exposing all of Newt's "personal and ethical baggage and flip-flops" I could easily see Newt being the next POTUS!

The 1%-5% that decide elections for POTUS are not that informed or knowledgeable when it comes to American politics...They make a decision in October based on ads! The meme that "Well informed Independents" decide elections is PURE BS!

My point is we should not get complacent just because someone other than Romney wins the GOP nomination...We are talking about an American public that are SUCKERS for Right Wing Authoritarians & tend to embrace STUPIDITY!