Holtzman Vogel v. Tate v. ???

I've heard that the 27th State Senatorial Committee has decided that there will be a primary to pick the nominee to replace Russ Potts. The date for the primary will be June 12th. While I prefer conventions/mass meetings to pick nominees because they get activists involved to a greater extent rather than just voting, I'm just glad that Russ Potts will not be on the ballot.

It appears that there is some rumormongering going on over at Not Larry Sabato as to whether Russ Potts has put up a candidate that doesn't agree with any of his core principles in an attempt to defeat Mark Tate. This is about as far fetched as a rumor could be. While I agree that Russ Potts is along the lines of a movie monster, everyone in politics knows who Russ Potts is and what he stands for at this point, and I don't think someone who would seriously run for state senate would base his entire campaign on Russ Potts telling him to run. In addition, Russ just recently attacked both candidates in the press.

This reporter is going to do some more digging before he starts believing a conspiracy on this grand a level.

Update: I think I came off sounding a little biased earlier this morning so I've edited my previous entry a little.

While the rumor about the Potts plant may be true, it is, at this point, uncorroborated, and it does strike as me as a little too reminiscent of some of the whisper campaign that was going on previously. I think Mark Tate is a great guy and would make a fabulous nominee (just as Jill is a fabulous woman and would make a great nominee). It's always been my goal to help keep this race clean until the primary and accusing Jill of being the Potts annointee is neither clean nor constructive.