Eh.

John Humphries charged fellow state schools superintendent challenger Lowell Holtz promised him a six-figure job at DPI if he dropped out of the primary and Holtz beat incumbent Tony Evers in the April general election.

But Holtz on Wednesday said the offer was a “rough draft” of ideas and that the deal wasn’t aimed at getting one of them to drop out of the race. Rather, he said, the job offer was part of a possible deal to ensure the primary loser backed the other challenger in the general election against Evers.

The document, which Humphries’ campaign provided to WisPolitics.com, called for one of them to get a three-year contract with annual pay of $150,000, full benefits and a driver.

Holtz brought the document to a Dec. 22 breakfast meeting at a Milton family restaurant.

Here’s the thing that bugs me about this… if this really did occur, Humphries sat on it for almost two months for the express reason of dropping it into the news cycle the week before the election. I got the long, detailed accusation in my email from Humphries’ campaign manager a few days ago like everyone else. That was after I saw both of these candidates at the CSCWC meeting a couple of weeks ago and Humphries didn’t mention a thing about this. If this was so outrageous, then why would Humphries sit on it for so long? Obviously it was to time it to enact maximum political damage, but that just belies a lack of sincerity.

Humphries has struck me as a slimy character and this move just enhances my gut feeling about him.