New Hampshire Union Leader Retracts Christie Endorsement
BOSTON (CBS) -- "Boy, were we wrong."
Those are the first words of New Hampshire's largest newspaper's un-endorsement of former Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, published after Christie's weekend endorsement of Donald Trump.
The New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed Christie back in November; Christie dropped out of the race after a disappointing finish in the New Hampshire primary.
The Union-Leader's publisher, Joseph W. McQuaid, penned the editorial, titled "Christie was our bad choice." In it, he writes that the paper's staff thought Christie had the most experience in leadership, and that he was the best candidate to take on Trump--but that New Hampshire's voters knew better.
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McQuaid writes that it was Christie's endorsement of Trump over the weekend--after he had sworn never to give Trump his support--that spurred the retraction of their previous endorsement:
Watching Christie kiss the Donald's ring this weekend — and make excuses for the man Christie himself had said was unfit for the presidency — demonstrated how wrong we were. Rather than standing up to the bully, Christie bent his knee. In doing so, he rejected the very principles of his campaign that attracted our support.
The paper has a history of tension with Trump. After they published a front-page editorial declaring "Trump campaign insults NH voters' intelligence," the paper and its publisher were the target of attacks by the Republican candidate.
"You have a very dishonest newspaper, it's also a failing newspaper," Trump told a New Hampshire crowd in late December.
As for McQuaid, he wrote that he hoped Christie's about-face on Trump would spur Trump voters to wake up--and that the paper's staff would look forward to that, "just as soon as we get the egg off our face."
