Back in January, Valrico attorney Paul Phillips announced that in the year of the Tea Party, no incumbent shouldn't be challenged, and took on local GOP heroine Ronda Storms in state Senate District 10.
But today he announced that he would not run against Storms, paving the way for the Valrico based former County Commissioner to automatically qualify for the Republican nomination for the seat, and apparently win re-election easily, since only a non party affiliated candidate named Michael Brett Smith has filed (but not yet qualified) for the election.
In an interview with CL in January, Phillips said he didn't disagree much with Storms policy positions. “I think our approach may be different,” he said at the time.. “To the extent that when somebody disagrees with your morally, I don’t think you necessarily need to be aggressive against that stance.”
This article appears in Jun 17-23, 2010.