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It will be interesting to see how the Union Leader endorsement affects the race in New Hampshire. The paper was very helpful to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Pat Buchanan in both 1992 and 1996, but less so to Pete DuPont in 1988 and Steve Forbes in 2000. (Though I suppose a case could be made that DuPont wouldn't have finished fourth in New Hampshire, in a race that included Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, and Jack Kemp as well as George Bush, without the Union Leader.)

Many polls find McCain closer to frontrunner and next-door neighbor Mitt Romney than DuPont or Forbes were to the frontrunners when they ran. But the 1996 Union Leader endorsement of Buchanan came a little earlier in the campaign, maybe September 1995.