The Concord Monitor came out yesterday with something unusual, an anti-endorsement. The paper, rather than telling us who they think we ought to support in the upcoming Presidential primary, decided to tell us who they thought we should avoid....Mitt Romney. The editorial board of the Monitor is quite liberal, which means I usually disagree with them. This time, though, I have to agree with their core assessment, which is that Mitt Romney is a phony.

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1994, he boasted that he would be a stronger advocate of gay rights than his opponent, Ted Kennedy. These days, he makes a point of his opposition to gay marriage and adoption. There was a time that he said he wanted to make contraception more available - and a time that he vetoed a bill to sell it over-the-counter. The old Romney assured voters he was pro-choice on abortion. "You will not see me wavering on that," he said in 1994, and he cited the tragedy of a relative's botched illegal abortion as the reason to keep abortions safe and legal. These days, he describes himself as pro-life. There was a time that he supported stem-cell research and cited his own wife's multiple sclerosis in explaining his thinking; such research, he reasoned, could help families like his. These days, he largely opposes it. As a candidate for governor, Romney dismissed an anti-tax pledge as a gimmick. In this race, he was the first to sign. People can change, and intransigence is not necessarily a virtue. But Romney has yet to explain this particular set of turnarounds in a way that convinces voters they are based on anything other than his own ambition.

Read the whole thing. Romney supporters can talk all they like about why the Liberals on the Monitor editorial board have an agenda, which they do, and are supposed to dislike a "conservative" like Romney, or that they are afraid of him as the best possible candidate to beat the Democratic nominee, etc., etc., but I use that excerpt for a reason. As a former Massachusetts resident, and a New Hampshire resident who lives near the border, I have followed Romney's career and well remember his campaigns, especially the Senate campaign. Long before the Monitor wrote this editorial, I came to the same conclusion about Mitt Romney, the man who will say whatever it takes to get elected.

Meanwhile, the latest polling data here in New Hampshire shows John McCain, a man who is well known for saying things, from time to time, that do not help him get elected, continues to gain ground. For New Hampshire Republican voters like me, watching the rise of Mike Huckabee, the revelation of Rudy Giuliani's baggage, and contemplating the blow-dried phoniness of Mitt Romney, John McCain just looks better and better (despite his maddening stubbornness on issues like immigration and campaign finance reform).