Republic Endorses Scott Smith and Phil Ausin

So, did anyone else see that the Arizona Republic endorsed Scott Smith and Phil Austin today? I saw it in the Mesa Republic section, but I am completely unable to find it online.

ETA: Here is the Republic's Endorsement of Smith. Here is the Republic's Endorsement of Austin.

The new AZCentral looks pretty, but it has made it harder to find things. In fact, I think they just barely brought the Mesa campaign section back online and its only been hastily edited to reflect the remaining races.

All of that aside, the Arizona Republic did a very nice write up of why they are supporting Smith in the May Election. After they endorsed Walters in the primary, I think its only logical for them to pick Smith in the run-off for three reasons:

1. Walters picked Smith. If he is good enough for her, he is good enough for them. Its sort of a transference thing.

2. Its good to pick a winner. After picking the person who lost last time around, they are smart to pick the person who is most likely to win especially since they are sticking with Austin in the D5 race.

3. Smith is the only one who has made any sort of effort to continue to hone his message. Griswold is still talking about the same old stuff that he talked about last time around, what would motivate them to change their mind?

Overall, it was a pretty good write up in favor of Smith talking about his ability to build coalitions and bring change. Much to the chagrin of Rex "We don't need no stinkin' endorsements" Griswold, Smith has been able to get a lot of mileage out of the endorsments from Walters, Richins, Finter, Kavanaugh and the others.

As for Phil Austin's endorsement, I don't know how much of this one was him actually deserving it and how much of it was the Republic not wanting to look foolish by switching their endorsement. It would have been awkward for them to say, "We had no idea that Higgins was going to work so hard, so yeah, we like her chances better."

So, instead, they stuck with the experience angle and made sure to say enough nice things about Higgins so that they could go back to her later if they had to. In the end, I think that this race is still too close to call. I haven't heard much about what is going on, but I didn't really hear much last time either. It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.