There’s been a flurry of speculation and rumors spinning about in New York and D.C. over the future of Gawker’s Wonkette politics gossip blog. With Ana Marie Cox, the site’s editor off writing a novel, Gawker has propped the blog up with a series of guest editors. According to a source close to the Gawker family, it has been a forgone conclusion that Cox would be leaving Wonkette permanently after she finishes her book this summer. Her ambitions? Television and punditry, which doesn’t seem so shocking. So who would take over for Cox? Word on the street over the weekend had it that Gawker would tap deep-pocketed Kelly Ann Collins of the Washington Socialites to take over. But that sounded like crazy talk, but talk that wasn’t necessarily out of the realm of possibilities.

But Lockhart Steele, Gawker’s managing editor, tells DCist that is not the case:

To my knowledge, AMC has no plans to depart Wonkette.

This all comes on the heels of the departure of Gawker’s one-time editorial director, Choire Sicha, who has settled at the New York Observer. That move has caused some blogging observers to take the temperature of the Gawker family, which may be running a slight fever.