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When Newt Gingrich took fire last week for his comment that some illegal immigrants should be able to gain legal status, New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid went on Twitter to defend him.

"Whoah, Gingrich must be gaining," McQuaid tweeted. "He is being crucified for sensible approach on illegals."

On Sunday, the influential New Hampshire newspaper officially endorsed Gingrich, writing that while the former House speaker may not be the ideal conservative prophet that Republicans desire, he remains "the best candidate who is actually running."

In a sign of just how salient the illegal immigration issue may become for the surging candidate, the Union Leader printed a separate editorial Sunday defending his stance in more detail, calling it “neither new nor radical” and chastising Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann for unfairly tagging Gingrich with a “scarlet letter” over the matter.

As the Union Leader augments its case for Gingrich in the coming weeks, it may have no more critical role to play for him than defending his immigration stance as one that is both practical and consistent with core conservative principles, especially as some of Gingrich’s rivals appear to smell blood on the issue.

Over the weekend, the Romney campaign began distributing direct mail in Iowa touting the former Massachusetts governor’s tough stance on illegal immigration, while Bachmann highlighted a 2004 letter signed by Gingrich in which the former Georgia congressman expressed support for President Bush’s guest-worker program.

"This letter is a clear indication that Speaker Gingrich has a deep history of supporting amnesty," Bachmann said in a statement.

While both Romney and Bachmann have themselves made past statements seemingly in line with Gingrich’s call to allow some long-term illegal residents to stay in the United States, sound-bite-ready attacks on Gingrich’s recent comments nonetheless could create problems for him in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

And it is in answering such criticisms that New Hampshire’s only statewide newspaper could play its most impactful role.

“Because the Union Leader is a conservative paper, that in itself will provide cover on issues like immigration,” said New Hampshire Republican strategist Mike Dennehy.

The controversy figures to be a focus in New Hampshire this week, as Rick Perry is set to campaign in the state with Joe Arpaio -- the Arizona sheriff whose hard-line stance on illegal immigration has made him a revered figure in Republican presidential politics.

Back in September, Perry suggested in a debate that those who don’t support in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants’ children “don’t have a heart” -- an ill-advised comment that was instrumental in damaging the Texas governor’s once high-flying candidacy, and a comment he later took back.

The fallout from the Perry flap demonstrated that while just about everyone agrees that the presidency will ultimately be won or lost on the economy, illegal immigration may be a tripwire with the potential to sink an ascendant candidate in the GOP primary fight.

Though the majority of voters might not list the issue as their top concern, its inherently emotional nature makes it ideal fodder for intra-party attack ads.

In the run-up to the Granite State’s 2008 primary, the Iraq War was at the top of GOP discourse there. But operatives involved in that race recall the Romney camp’s direct-mail campaign accusing Rudy Giuliani of making New York a “sanctuary city” for illegals, and they say it was perhaps the key factor in Giuliani’s decision to practically give up on a state that once looked promising for him.

New Hampshire GOP strategist Rich Killion agreed that the Union Leader endorsement’s most vital benefit for Gingrich may be in providing a counterbalance to attacks from rival campaigns, which may become more prevalent if Gingrich’s rise in the polls continues.

“Illegal immigration is a gut-level issue on fairness, and to take a different perspective on it is very hard to explain,” Killion said. “The Union Leader has the potential to weigh in on it in a way that would not only be a tremendous benefit to Gingrich, it could have the potential to reposition how the issue is viewed in the Republican primary as a whole.”

The Union Leader has a mixed record of picking past winners, and the value of any newspaper’s endorsement in the modern media climate remains an open question.

But the Manchester-based daily has often been particularly emphatic and sustained in its front-page advocacy for its preferred presidential candidate -- a trait that figures to guarantee broader coverage of editorials that reinforce Gingrich’s position on what could be one of his most vulnerable issues.