The publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper took direct aim at GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Friday, accusing him of discounting the Granite State primary voters.
“Young Rubio must think New Hampshire a bunch of rubes,” the editorial said.
The conservative-leaning paper endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the GOP primary race.
Joseph McQuaid, the publisher of the state’s largest paper, criticized Rubio as “the national pack media’s Flavor of the Week.”
He slammed the “fawning stories of how the Republican ‘establishment’ seeks to coalesce behind him” and downplayed Rubio’s recent polling surge.
“Young Rubio must think New Hampshire a bunch of rubes,” McQuaid wrote. “He hasn’t spent much time here but is trying to sell himself with TV ads as someone who can go to Washington to clean up the Washington mess.”
“Earth to Rubio: You are a U.S. senator,” he continued, knocking Rubio’s attempts to capitalize on the anti-establishment fervor gripping the 2016 presidential race. “The Senate meets in Washington. You are hardly an outsider.”
The publisher also set the stakes for other GOP candidates banking on New Hampshire, saying “Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich are being dismissed in New Hampshire because of their low finish in Iowa.”
“Rarely mentioned is that neither campaign spent more than a few dollars and very little time there. Their test comes here, in the first primary,” McQuaid wrote.