In unusually stark language, the newspaper in New Hampshire’s capital calls former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney “a phony” and tells its readers Sunday that he “most surely must be stopped” in next month’s first-in-the-nation primary.

The Concord Monitor published an editorial slamming the GOP presidential candidate for flip-flopping on issues. It also criticized him for his central-casting appearance.

With “an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit” along with “a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government experience” Romney espouses “some old GOP bromides — spending cuts and lower taxes — plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith,” the editorial says.

“If you followed only his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, you might imagine Romney as a pragmatic moderate with liberal positions on numerous social issues and an ability to work well with Democrats,” it said.

“If you followed only his campaign for president, you’d swear he was a red-meat conservative, pandering to the religious right, whatever the cost. Pay attention to both, and you’re left to wonder if there’s anything at all at his core.”

The editors acknowledged that people can change, but they said 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.”

The editorial then took Romney to task about torture, saying “he dodges the issue … unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won’t do it.”

And it called “chilling” Romney’s statement that he would like to double the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, which has held terrorist suspects for years without charges.

“When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney,” the editorial said. “If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we’ll know it.

“Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.”

Read More: Romney should not be the next president

Quote: “America is a country born of hypocrisy and nurtured in racism and oppression. How stupendous a hypocrite do you have to be to write a document that declares “All men are created equal” while at that very moment you have two hundred human beings chained in your back yard working as your slaves? America’s political system (which was designed by these hypocrites) is no better that a shell game which gives rich people control and the rest of us the shaft.” ….Read More