In the wake of Evan Bayh’s decision not to seek re-election, Campaign Diaries reports on a potentially decisive election-procedure wrinkle in the Hoosier State:
Bayh’s retirement also sets up a very confusing situation because it comes just 24 hours from the registration deadline for statewide candidates! While Indiana’s filing deadline is on Friday, Senate candidates need to deposit 500 signatures from each of the state’s nine congressional districts by noon tomorrow to qualify for the fall ballot.
The twist: If no Democrat whatsoever has qualified, party officials can appoint a replacement for that vacancy. This should be the party’s saving grace since it is virtually impossible for anyone to collect 4,500 signatures within the next 24 hours. The first question, then, is whether any Democrat who was already running can qualify for the ballot by tomorrow. It looks like only one person was planning a challenge to Bayh: Tamyra d’Ippolito, who entered the race as a progressive critic of the senator. Just three days ago, d’Ippolito said she was 1,000 signatures short. If she finds them by tomorrow, Democrats need to either stick with her or convince her to withdraw; if she fails, a party committee made of up 32 Democratic officials (ethnic caucus leaders, county leaders) will get to choose a replacement who could bypass a primary.
Put another way, as blogger Hoosierpundit says: “If Tamyra D’Ippolito is on the ballot, then that’s all she wrote. They can’t pick anyone else. She will be their nominee, period.”
Now, look, I don’t know anything about Tamyra D’Ippolito, and I don’t have time to research it in-depth right now. But — just a guess here — a “progressive critic” of Senator Bayh, who was planning to challenge him from the left (despite what must have been despite overwhelming establishment opposition to such a move), is probably not the Democratic Party’s ideal candidate for U.S. Senate, from an electability perspective, in reddish-purple Indiana, particularly in a political climate where Democrats are clinging to dear life amid mounting public anger and Tea Party madness and liberal PANIC!!!!!! In an e-mail exchange with my dad, I speculated that D’Ippolito is probably a “wingnut.” I don’t know if that’s true — maybe she is a wingnut, maybe she isn’t — but either way, she’s almost certainly not the type of candidate who is particularly likely to keep Indiana blue in the current political environment. If D’Ippolito is the candidate, Indiana probably becomes even more “solid R” than North Dakota, and the Democrats effectively start their November math from a base total of 57 seats.
Furthermore, in terms of her profile and, er, plausibility or seriousness or mainstream-ness, or whatever you want to call it, I’m thinking it’s not a good sign that her official campaign website includes, as one of its top “Current Topics,” a story (actually a message-board posting, apparently by the candidate herself) headlined “IDS just called they are doing an article.” The “IDS” is, ahem, the Indiana Daily Student — the student newspaper of the University of Indiana. So, to review, the candidate is super-duper happy, to the point of trumpeting it as breaking news, that the student paper at her hometown school (she lives in Bloomington) is OMG!!!, doing an article about her. Also, did I mention her website is purple?
Ladies and gentlemen, this could be your Democratic nominee for Senate in Indiana, if she — with the help of the Indiana netroots, or whatever portion of it is myopically ideological and anti-establishment enough to think that D’Ippolito’s candidacy would be Great News! For Democrats! — can drum up 1,000 or so signatures (in the proper geographic regions) in the next 24 hours. Her Facebook Page makes clear she understands the stakes, and is actively trying to accomplish this.
As I wrote to my dad, “assuming she gets the signatures, and further assuming that she refuses with withdraw (which, if she’s a wingnut, is a good bet), this is going to become a big-time kerfuffle in the Hoosier State, with the Democrats desperately trying to find some way to twist/change/ignore the rules.” Can you say New Jersey?
AFTERTHOUGHT: Come to think of it, forget the netroots; if the Indiana Republicans are smart, they should start collecting signatures for her, right now. I’m serious. And if the GOP institutionally isn’t behind such an effort, the Tea Party crowd should do it. If there was ever a moment for a “Limbaugh Effect,” this would be it. (Of course, such meddling would also give the Dems an argument for twisting/changing/ignoring the rules.)
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