Back at the very beginning of June, the manager of Linda McMahon's U.S. Senate campaign, former state senator David Cappiello, sent an e-mail to the two highest-ranking Republicans in the legislature.

Back at the very beginning of June, the manager of Linda McMahon's U.S. Senate campaign, former state senator David Cappiello, sent an e-mail to the two highest-ranking Republicans in the legislature.

After a divisive early stage of the party's Senate primary that had just been capped by McMahon's victory in the Republican endorsing convention and former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons' subsequent announcement that he would suspend his campaign but remain on the August 10 primary ballot, Cappiello wanted peace.

"Now that Rob is (kind of) out of the race, I think it would be good for everyone to get to spend some time with Linda and for everyone to know we want to work with them," Cappiello wrote to Senate Minority Leader John McKinney and House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr.

But that reception didn't go off as planned. Instead, the McMahon campaign's peace offering managed to anger Cafero, an early endorser of Simmons who was furious to see an invitation to the June 14th event that he thought could lead others to assume he'd switched his endorsement to McMahon.

Cafero dashed off an e-mail of his own, one that has made the rounds in Republican circles over the past several days.

"I want to make something perfectly clear," Cafero wrote. "I was invited to McMahon Headquarters by David Cappiello to tour the facility and see the campaign equipment. I was (asked) to bring along staff and any reps that would like to come. I was told we might go across the street for a reception. I was then asked if it would be ok to mention I was coming, along with McKinney in an invitation being sent to reps. Without the invite being run by me it went out and gives the impression that this is a campaign event and that I'm endorsing McMahon. I have not nor have I indicated I would ever endorse McMahon. Please let these facts be known. I have contacted the McMahon campaign and told them I would now not be attending any meeting or reception on Monday, and that I expected a retraction and an apology."

In an interview on Tuesday, Cafero confirmed that he had been "angered" by the wording of the McMahon invitation, though he said he did not believe it had been an intentional effort to mislead by the McMahon campaign.

"It turned into giving a mis-impression that I felt I had to clear up because I wasn't pleased that that impression got out there," he said, adding later that he believed the wording had been an "innocent mistake."

Cappiello too said that both sides have squashed the beef.

"Larry and I have been friends for almost 20 years," Cappiello said in a brief phone interview. "It was a simple misunderstanding between the two of us that has since been resolved."

The exchange shines new light, however, on what remains the most interesting intra-Republican question in this Senate race (barring, of course, a massive change in fortune for McMahon's other nomination rival, Peter Schiff): Whether the Republicans most loyal to Simmons, or most in agreement with his criticisms of McMahon's "character" and pro-wrestling background, will now swing to fully support her for the nomination and the general election in the fall.

In his initial June 2 e-mail about the reception planning, Cappiello wrote like a man trying to bring peace to the two camps. Cappiello hoped to get both leaders, along with other members of the legislature, to visit McMahon's West Hartford headquarters and attend a reception in the name of pulling the party together behind a single nominee.

"Five out of twelve senators and twenty-three out of thirty-seven reps supported Rob," Cappiello wrote. "Although both Linda and I have reached out to various members who had previously supported Rob, and most are receptive to her, we both know there is some work to be done with some to build relationships and trust, and put the past where it belongs—in the past."

And a McMahon campaign spokesman said the campaign is succeeding in doing that.

"We've seen no evidence of slippage in support among Republicans for Linda," said the spokesman, Ed Patru, in an e-mail. "On the contrary, we've seen growing momentum behind Linda both in terms of the response she's receiving on the trail from voters, as well in our internal polling. Her position has improved every month since she entered the race."

Of course, "no evidence of slippage" doesn't apply to those who never supported McMahon in the first place.

One such group, the Republican Town Committee in East Lyme, made only one endorsement, of Simmons, before the party convention.

Monday night, the committee voted unanimously to urge Simmons to "rethink his decision" to suspend his campaign after McMahon won the party endorsement.

"Rob Simmons is very popular in this part of the state," East Lyme Republican Town Chair Holly Cheeseman said in an interview. "There are people who feel that he would be the better candidate and deserves to be the candidate and I think that's what motivated my members last night."

The reasons were not purely geographical, Cheeseman said. (New London Republicans and those in Simmons' hometown of Stonington have passed similar resolutions.)

Asked if concerns about McMahon's background at World Wrestling Entertainment, complete with lingering questions about the company's programming and practices, had played a role in the committee decision, Cheeseman said, "I think there is that."

"I think there is also among some people a certain amount of dismay that she may have bought--her resources allow her to spend a lot of money," Cheeseman continued, adding, "I am not one who is going to make a judgment on that, because she has worked very hard. She hasn't just spent money and sailed into this."

"They feel Rob would be a stronger candidate and from an emotional point of view, he's the preferred candidate," she said.

The committee had sent a message to Simmons' about its resolution and received a message in respose: "The sentiments were that he was pleased and touched by our gesture, not that he would be jumping back into the race or something. I think he was touched by our gesture."

Meanwhile, back to Larry Cafero, the high-profile leader of Republicans in the state House, and a resident of Norwalk, down near McMahon's end of the state. Cafero has not yet updated his endorsement in the Senate race to account for Simmons, whose name will appear on the ballot but who has stopped campaigning and whose staff have begun to take jobs with other Republican campaigns around the country.

Why not endorse McMahon, then?

Cafero said he'd been focused on his own reelection and the effort to grow the 37-member House Republican minority, but his silence so far also involved "human nature kind of stuff."

"I know he had a bitter defeat," Cafero said of Simmons. "I know that those things take some time to get over. He's got to figure out what he's got to do. I don't want to -- before the body's cold -- jump ship."

There are two schools of thought about Simmons' current position, especially given that his approval rating rose by 10 points in the Quinnipiac University poll after he halted his campaign.

"If there's something, she implodes, who knows," Cafero said. A candidate might think, "I might get lucky."

"But you have to ask yourself, OK, let's say you stay in for that purpose, are you prepared on Aug 11 to go after a very well-financed, very well-prepared Democratic nominee? If they can't win because they haven't raised five cents or they have a poor campaign operation, then what good is it?

"Right now he's sort of in limbo," Cafero said. "'Yeah, my name is on the ballot but I've suspended my operations,' and that's going to give people pause, like 'what are we doing here?' That's the process I'm in right now."