The New Hampshire Union Leader had harsh words yesterday for Barack Obama.

Obama has said that he won’t attack John McCain’s motives, only his policies. But he has repeatedly attacked McCain’s motives, suggesting that he has been bought off by oil companies and lobbyists.

Obama’s greatest strength as a candidate, aside from his oratorical skill, has long been his apparent sincerity and decency. Voters attracted to him think of him as that rarest of things: an honest politician. He has claimed himself that he would never engage in the sort of deceptive politicking that he says has tainted Washington for so long.

Yet here he is violating his own professed standards. This is not the Barack Obama so many voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere thought they knew. But it is the real Barack Obama. For despite his rhetoric, he is in fact campaigning so dishonestly that even The Washington Post and The New York Times have called him on it. Which means that he is in practice no different from those regular politicians against whom his entire campaign has been built.

The New Hampshire polling prior to the Dem primary was disturbingly wrong. What had been thought to be an Obama victory around noon turned around to be a better that 5 point win for Senator Clinton. Most polls have had the state leaning Obama, although the most recent RCP assessment finds it a toss-up.

But most models have had New Hampshire’s 4 electoral votes going to Obama. McCain is extremely popular in the Granite State Does the Union-Leader’s editorial writers reflect the thinking of the state’s independent-minded voters?

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