Republican U.S. Senate candidates Clint Didier and Paul Akers plan to participate in a telephone town hall forum Thursday night that will include some kind of "important joint announcement."

That news - posted on the Didier web site - quickly got some speculating (like the Stranger's Eli Sanders, who noticed the announcement first) that maybe Akers was going to drop out and endorse Didier. (Or vice versa.)

I confess I had the same suspicion. It's very unusual for two candidates running in the same race to be doing a joint announcement of any sort. Both Akers and Didier are essentially competing for the same voters as longshot alternatives to Dino Rossi, the choice of the Republican establishment.

But Didier campaign consultant Kathryn Serkes cautioned against jumping to such conclusions.

And Akers' campaign manager, Bob Lodder, said flat out that Thursday's announcement won't be about either candidate dropping out of the race.

"That's a wrong read - there will be no dropouts by either of us," Lodder told me. "I don't want to say more than that."

Akers himself called shortly after I spoke with Lodder and refused to say anything about Thursday's announcement. "You'll just have to listen," he said.

The town hall event, which begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, will be conducted via a telephone conference call and moderated by Serkes. People will also be able to follow the event live at BlogTalkRadio.com

Serkes said about 100,000 Washington voters will receive robo-calls telling them how to participate.

More info, including a call-in phone number for the event, is at the web site www.takebackwashington.org