The usually rock ribbed Republican New Hampshire Union Leader has endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson for president.
In a signed editorial posted on the paper’s website Wednesday night for the Thursday edition, the paper’s publisher Joseph McQuaid said the two major party candidates boiled down to a choice between Hillary Clinton, “a selfish, self-centered, sanctimonious prig and Donald J. Trump,” who is “a liar, a bully, a buffoon.”
“Americans,” wrote McQuaid, “are being told that we need to choose the lesser of two evils. No we don’t.”
Rather, New Hampshire voters ought to go for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and vice presidential nominee Bill Weld.
The editorial played up “their records as Republican governors in politically-divided states,” arguing that they in fact would be “worth considering under many circumstances” but that now, “In today’s dark times, they are a bright light of hope and reason.”
Leading up to New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, the Union Leader endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last November. Christie finished sixth and went on to endorse Trump, which prompted a colorful response from McQuaid.
“@unionleader Christie endorsement is non-transferable,” McQuaid wrote on Twitter. “He told me he would not back Trump. I now suspect him in the Lindbergh baby plot.”
In backing Johnson over Trump, the Union Leader finds itself in the weird position of many Republican-leaning editorial pages this year, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Winston Salem Journal.
