Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Walters chooses Smith over Griswold

Vice Mayor Claudia Walters has chosen to endorse Scott Smith over former fellow councilmember Rex Griswold. This certainly has to hurt for Griswold, because no matter how much he tries to spin this notion after the fact, this is what he said after the election:

"I'm very pleased that 60 percent of the people want experienced leadership," he said, pointing to the combined backing he and Walters received.

My prediction is that Griswold is going to go back to shying away from his council experience, and now try to reinvent himself as some sort of agent of change You can already see it at the end of the article when he starts talking about challenging the "status quo."

So, which is it? Do you want to lump your experience in with Claudia Walters to get that 60% or now do you want to distance yourself from it? My question is, how does he make a credible argument that Scott Smith is the status quo?

The more I think of this, its not as much as an endorsement of Smith as a complete vote of no confidence in Griswold. This person has served with him for 5 years, and even after all of that, she opted going for the candidate she clearly fought with throughout the Election. What does that say about her confidence in Griswold?

I know that there are lots of people who have negative feelings about Claudia Walters, but she gathered 28% of the vote. She is not some fringe candidate that didn't have a chance.

ETA: Someone pointed it out, and I looked it up and confirmed. Griswold did beat Walters by 226 votes on Election Day.

I still maintain that she did have some momentum going for her. I still see this as an advantage for Smith.

3 comments:

Etan said...

"Plus, someone pointed out to me, she beat Griswold on Election Day."

Did you check to see if this was true?

Walters won the west Mesa districts: 1, 3, 4.

Griswold won the east Mesa districts: 5, 6

They nearly tied in district 2, but Griswold won that as well.

Mesa Issues said...

Looked it up on the recorder's site:

GRISWOLD, REX
Early = 11806
Election Day = 3827

SMITH, SCOTT
Early = 12264
Election Day = 5972

WALTERS, CLAUDIA
Early = 9459
Election Day = 3601

Unknown said...

Yup, when the final numbers came in and provisional ballots were counted- Griswold took election day. The first results had him beat by about 200 or so.