New Hampshire primary

It's been practically a foregone conclusion that Mitt Romney will win the New Hampshire Republican primary on January 10th. Second only to the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd, N.H.'s "first primary" state is always closely watched.

With Romney having been governor of next door Massachusetts, his presence is long-standing; and he is leading in polls 42% to 15% for Gingrich.

Nevertheless, today the Union Leader, N.H.'s leading newspaper, which always plays a big role in politics, has announced its endorsement of Newt Gingrich.

"We are in critical need of the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership that Gingrich has shown he is capable of providing. . . . We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job. . .

"We don't have to agree with them on every issue. We would rather back someone with whom we may sometimes disagree than one who tells us what he thinks we want to hear."

But don't they know that Newt is just as big a pandering flip-flopper as Mitt? That everything Newt does is calculated? It's just that he's a lot smarter and his pandering often more subtle and couched in what sounds like superior knowledge. He's even clever enough to know, when he does flip on an issue, that it's better to just say "I was wrong, and here's why I changed," than to concoct bogus, obfuscating rationalizations for the old position and pretending that you haven't really changed your position.

He does know federal policy better than any of the other GOP hopefuls, and his mind is more clever and inventive. But he is often making stuff up or just outright lying. Doesn't the newspaper editorial board know that?

For example: today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which fact-checks politicians' statements, says that Newt's claim about the Dodd-Frank legislation was completely false.

Newt said that "Community banks are 12 percent of the banks right now and 40 percent of the loans to small businesses. And they are being destroyed by Dodd-Frank."

The AJC gives stats that show exactly the opposite. "Federal data show profitability has increased for community banks in the past 12 months. Community banks also have benefited from a reduction in fees paid to the FDIC as a result of Dodd-Frank."

That's the problem with Gingrich: he is so cock-sure and people think he knows what he's talking about. Throwing in those stats makes it sound authentic. But Newt has to know that he's lying.

If I were not a psychiatrist and therefore ethically bound to refrain from putting diagnostic labels on public figures I have not personally interviewed, I would say that he is a sociopath -- a very intelligent one, but a sociopath nonetheless. But I'm not supposed to say that, so I won't.

Ralph