On this morning's "10 News Conference" with Jim Taricani, Justin Katz, managing editor for the conservative Ocean State Current, accused the Anthony Gemma campaign of being part of a conspiracy to help Rep. David Cicilline's run in the first congressional district. Katz was appearing with Bob Plain, the editor of the progressive blog RI Future.

At 11:04 into the video, Katz says, "Well, I always get nervous when I start to think of conspiracies, but, as an observer, it's been awfully hard not to con... to start to suspect that Gemma isn't really running so much to win as to lose and give the media writers an opportunity to write headlines like 'David Cicilline, comeback kid.'"

Katz describes what he sees as evidence in the way Gemma's campaign is run, concluding, "Perhaps it's just being badly done, but it makes you wonder."

I'm sure that the Gemma campaign will have a contrasting point of view.

FYI, if you're not following RI Future this election season, this would be a great time to start. Plain does a wonderful job at curating progressive content from around the state.

Should anyone have doubts about exactly what the "Center for Freedom and Prosperity" and "Ocean State Current" stand for, just go check out their web sites. I particularly like the comment on the Ocean State Current wrap-up of this story which criticizes Bob Plain's haircut and says that he looks like he's homeless. It's not quite 'get a job' but, wow.

Full disclosure: My writing has occasionally appeared on RI Future.