Associated Press
RAN 2/16
By HILLARY CHURA
Associated Press Saff
   With five days left before the first-in-the-nation primary, the battle
   for state newspaper endorsements is on. As of Thursday, Bob Dole had
   five, Dick Lugar two and Pat Buchanan one.
   
   The Concord Monitor endorsed Dole on Thursday, noting it had
   criticized him in the past but arguing he would ``provide a measured
   judgment Republicans will need if they want to remain the majority
   party in November and beyond.''
   
   The Telegraph of Nashua gave Dole the nod Sunday, saying the
   presidency is no place for a rookie. The presidency ``needs someone
   who won't require an apprenticeship during the first two years in
   office, someone who has an intimate knowledge of the workings of
   Congress and the federal bureaucracy,'' it said.
   
   Buchanan grabbed the endorsement of the largest and only statewide
   newspaper in September. The Union Leader called him ``a leader whom we
   can trust, who has moral integrity, who would put America first and
   who is capable of sending Bill Clinton back to Arkansas.''
   
   The Telegraph and the Monitor and its sister newspaper, the Valley
   News of Lebanon, and Foster's Daily Democrat of Dover and its sister
   paper, The Citizen of Laconia, mentioned Dole's experience.
   
   ``We are hearing the `insider vs. outsider' attacks this year,''
   Foster's wrote. ``The attacks are as absurd as they are self-serving.
   Distinguished service in government adds to a person's credentials for
   high office. It doesn't detract from them.''
   
   The Valley News said Dole has used ``the last couple of months to
   remind voters of the virtues of level-headedness.''
   
   ``Dole is the only Republican candidate in the field whom voters could
   put in the White House and remain confident that they would not be
   incurring any undue risk,''
   
   Lugar, who has remained above the mudslinging, received the
   endorsement of The Keene Sentinel on Thursday and the Portsmouth
   Herald on Sunday.
   
   The Herald said Lugar was more than just the best of a sorry lot.
   
   ``While other candidates have spewed attack ad after attack ad, Mr.
   Lugar has steadily - if almost anonymously -- stuck to simply telling
   New Hampshire voters what he would do if elected president,'' the
   Herald said.
   
   But the endorsements were not without criticism.
   
   The Sentinel, although it lauded Lugar for his ``positive,
   issues-oriented campaign,'' referred to his anti-abortion stance and
   his ``misguided'' positions on homosexuality and education. It even
   said he was not the ideal candidate for president, but ``no one in the
   current crop of Republicans is.'' It said, however, that Lugar has
   offered ``his conservative credentials to voters without the venom and
   deceptive blather characteristic of some other candidates.''
   
   The Telegraph came out starkly against millionaire publisher Forbes
   and his plan for a flat tax.
   
   ``He's selling voters a megadose of feel-good optimism and a revised
   version of the old trickle-down economics that failed in the Reagan
   administration,'' the paper wrote.
   
   
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