A Right-Left Alliance for D’Ippolito (Who Could Use a History Lesson)
David Dayen of Firedoglake talks to the potential Democratic spoiler in Indiana, gets some of the same canned quotes from Tamyra D’Ippolito as Jonathan Martin, but basically plays it straightforward.
“„D’Ippolito told me she is the first woman to ever run for the US Senate in Indiana. Her impression from working on prior campaigns and from this one is that Indiana political culture is a “tight old boys school, it borders on sexism.” In a state where the population is 52% women, D’Ippolito says “in the future, we women of Indiana are not going to tolerate” the chummy, insider culture.
Worth pointing out, since D’Ippolito has repeated her “first woman ever” quote to multiple reporters — the 2008 Indiana Democratic candidate for governor was Jill Long Thompson. She was, and is, female. She was also the party’s unsuccessful 1986 candidate for U.S. Senate against incumbent and future Vice President Dan Quayle. D’Ippolito doesn’t really know what she’s talking about.
Interestingly, the comments on Dayen’s article broadcast some immediate support for D’Ippolito — whose nomination would functionally hand the Senate seat over to Republicans. One Republican who realizes that is Erick Erickson, who’s encouraging RedState readers to get signatures. But that’s less surprising than the FDL reaction, which is of a piece of that site’s turn against Democrats seen by readers to be puppets of Rahm Emanuel.
UPDATE: The conservative, Anschutz-owned Washington Examiner runs an item instructing readers how to help out the D’Ippolito effort.