IN-Sen: d’Ippolito Says She Has the Signatures, INDP Says Otherwise (Updated)

News that will make you sweat:

Restaurant owner Tamyra d’Ippolito (D) has enough signatures to make the ballot in the race to replace Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), she told Hotline OnCall in a brief interview.

Reached at her home, d’Ippolito said she was on her way out the door to drop off more signatures at the county clerk’s office. D’Ippolito’s backers have until noon to submit 4,500 signatures, including 500 from each of the state’s 9 districts, to the appropriate county clerks.

“To my knowledge, yes we do. There’s people putting in signatures as we speak,” d’Ippolito said when asked if she has the signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. “The answer is yes.” […]

GOPers, sensing an opportunity, have mobilized in some places to help d’Ippolito make the ballot. In a posting on her campaign website, d’Ippolito says she needs more signatures in the 8th CD, specifically in Terre Haute and Evansville.

Smart play by the GOP here — if they manage to get d’Ippolito on the ballot, they may move this race all the way over to Safe R. That is, unless the Democrats can manage to run a Charlie Wilson-style write-in campaign to get a more viable contender through the primary. In any event, it’s sounding increasingly likely that Brad Ellsworth is the guy that Democrats want on the ballot:

Meanwhile, Dems are increasingly looking to Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) as the candidate they want on the ballot to replace Bayh. House strategists are quietly beginning to prepare for his Senate bid, which means they will have to find another candidate to run in the competitive 8th district.

UPDATE: The Indiana Democratic Party says that d’Ippolito is off her nut:

In an interview with TPMDC, Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker strongly denied that cafe owner Tamyra d’Ippolito has obtained the necessary ballot-petition signatures to appear on the ballot in the Dem primary for Senate — disputing d’Ippolito’s earlier claim to have to have obtained the 500 required in each of the state’s nine House districts.

“I am monitoring the situation with our boards of voter registration and our county clerks’ offices. Those are the places where petitions have to be submitted for certification,” said Parker. “They have to be certified in the counties and then brought to the Secretary of State’s office by Friday. As of this moment, other than Evan Bayh, there’s one candidate, who is a Democratic candidate [d’Ippolito], who has 22 signatures statewide.”

LATER UPDATE: Reid says that d’Ippolito has missed the ballot:

An official in Marion Co. (IN) tells Hotline OnCall d’Ippolito turned in just 3 signatures in the 7th CD, the district with the highest percentage of Dem voters. The noon deadline has passed, meaning d’Ippolito failed to meet the requirements to get on the ballot. She would have been required to submit 4,500 signatures, including at least 500 from each of the state’s 9 districts.

129 thoughts on “IN-Sen: d’Ippolito Says She Has the Signatures, INDP Says Otherwise (Updated)”

  2. Let’s see how many signatures she really has.  Anyone involved with one of these things knows  you typically need to collect about twice the required number, because so many get thrown out or challenged.  Regardless, there is no way that she’s our candidate on the ballot in November.

  3. At the very least, he could have not screwed over his party by giving a credible candidate the heads-up before he announced that he wouldn’t be running again.  What an ass.

  5. If it worked for Wilson in OH-6, it can work statewide in Indiana where there will be a lot more publicity.  The problem would come if someone like Ellsworth doesn’t want to chance it.

  6. Obama failed and the Dem. Caucus failed also.

    Senators like Bayh & Dorgan doing the absolute right thing – RETIRE.

    Obama needs to move to the Center – NOW otherwise Game Over for Democrats.

  7. In New York City we’ve had instances of wealthy candidates who file inadequate signatures getting judges to put them back on the ballot.  Same way we have instances of poorer candidates being tossed perhaps less than fairly.

    Of course you still need half a pretense of being adequate.  And not sure even the best lawyer can spin 3 signatures (!!!) to be anything other than an abject failure.

  9. “If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.”

    What a jerk!

  10. So it’s super-confirmed that she doesn’t have the signatures, yes? Running the Orly Taitz of the left, while hilarious, is not really what we need in Indiana this cycle.  

  12. Even if she really did have the signatures in every other CD – which I seriously doubt – she obviously never took the time to make the drive from Bloomington to Indy to collect even a few signatures. The two aren’t that far apart, you know. Furthermore, with the way Marion County machine politics works, I’m sure they could find a way to get rid of her signatures if they wanted to.

    I’m glad she has no base outside of Bloomington, so trying to Nader the Democratic nominee with a write-in campaign is a non-starter. She should use the publicity to run for an office she can actually attain, like State House or State Senate or City Anything, or maybe Dogcatcher. Frankly, she just isn’t Federal officeholder material – and I say that as someone who was seriously tempted to sign her petition a couple of months ago before I read a little further and realized she was in way over her head.  

  14. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…

    Bayh talked so openly yesterday about this being an advantage for Dems in terms of avoiding a primary.  When I first read this, my first instinct was that this could have resonance – the meme being that Democrats deliberately circumvented the voters to gain an advantage in the general election.

  15. And that the 500 signatures per CD were due Friday? Apparently she not only turned in only 3 signatures in IN-07, but only 16 signatures in IN-01. I know that the Republicans are trying to help her get the signatures, does anyone know if the signatories have to be registered Democrats?  

  16. Since whats her name didn’t get enough signatures. Looks like Brad Ellsworth is going to get in, that bring up my question: His open seat. How hard do you think Van Hollen and Co would press Evansville Mayor Jonathan Winzepel to get into the race? It’s obvious at some time we wanted to be a Congressman as he ran for the seat in 1996 when he was a State Rep but narrowly lost to Hostettler.

  17. At least Scott Lee Cohen was competent enough to somehow win a state-wide election.

    (Plus obviously, a Senate seat is about a thousand times more valuable than IL-Lt.Gov. though he easily might have dragged Quinn to a loss costing us the Gov.)

    Claiming 500 certified signatures when the actual number is 3?? I doubt a delusional person like this could have been easily talked into going away the way that Mr. Cohen did for us.

  20.  I moved to New York City where I lived for the next 20 years. I worked on Wall Street for Salomon Smith Barney and later for Lehman Brothers.

    -Tamyra d’Ippolito describing her work experience

    How did she go from working on Wall Street to being the dog shit lady?  

  21. Some local Republicans wanted to go around gathering signatures for her this morning. I was thinking about skipping my morning classes and driving to Bloomfield to get some signatures. Apparently nothing came of that. Thank God I didn’t waste my time, lol.

    Anyways, Tamyra D’Ippolito has a reputation for being a nutcase here in Bloomington. You all should be very grateful that she’s not going to be on the ballot.

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