Italic close to Slavic?

[ECOLING at aol.com]

For Italic,
is there any argument that on balance
the geographic position of Italic in the earliest
stages of PIE dialect network would put it
closer to Slavic, or Armenian, or etc.,
because of a few shared isoglosses with those
which might be common innovations?
Or are any sharings retentions?

In either case,
Perhaps shared verbal conjugations?
If so, shared with which other IE groupings?

I am trying to dredge up some old memories.

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics