Long ago the citizens of Indiana voted to send Evan Bayh to the
U.S. Senate. His two largest donors in 2008 were Goldman Sachs
($123,750) and Eli Lilly ($65,722). Also in that hall of shame are Blue
Cross and the corporate welfare case AIG. Billions of your tax dollars
bailed out overcompensated AIG executives who then put nearly $27,000
into Evan Bayh's pocket. Where his loyalties lie are clearly visible to
everyone in Indiana.
I'd like to put a stop to corporate interests trumping the needs of
Indiana voters. I'm running against Senator Bayh as a Progressive
Democratic candidate and I need your help to get on the ballot.
My name is Tamyra D'Ippolito and I operate a restaurant in
Bloomington, Indiana. You might guess I'd have a bit of an accent picked
up from my grandparents with a last name like that, but I was happily
married to that Italian immigrant until last spring. As
small business owners Renato and I couldn't afford health care.
Looking back the warning signs of the massive heart attack that took
him away from me were there. A simple test might have revealed the
condition, a simple angioplasty might have resolved it, but in Evan
Bayh's America the profits of insurance companies come before the lives
of his constituents. We have the highest health care cost of any
industrialized country and our care is 29th out of 30 in effectiveness.
That has to change. If they don't get it done this year you can be sure
that if I'm elected I'll be leading the charge to make sure no other
American woman has to bury a husband that needed a simple surgery and an
overnight hospital stay.
Even with a national health care system designed to provide care
rather than profit for insurance companies it's of little use if a third
of us are unemployed. Right now the real unemployment numbers are only
half that bad, but without immediate, forceful banking reform it could
come to that. I worked on Wall Street for EvilBank for a number of years
after college and I've seen first hand the culture of disinterest for
Main Street's needs, exporting our jobs and gambling with our 401k
accounts and pension funds. Goldman Sachs has been the big winner in the
untraceable $700 billion giveaway known as TARP, and Evan Bayh pocketed
over a hundred thousand dollars of that money. I don't need a wad of
cash from the banking sector that looted Main Street- the small,
individual donations of Indiana voters will be enough if you're
willing to do some work to help me get elected.
I've never held any office before, let alone a top federal office
like this, so I'm going to need your help not only for the election but
for the legislative work that comes after winning. I think there are
some similarities between what a Senate office does and what a
restaurant does. Someone has to be busy in the back, making that
legislative sausage, while someone else has to be out in front making
sure the patrons (that's you!) are receiving good service. If you send
me to Washington it won't be a one way trip- I'll be all over the state
every chance I get, while my staff will be picked from among the ranks
of Indiana's small business leaders. We're going to be too busy doing
things for you to even take time to meet with the lobbyists that flood
Evan Bayh's office.
It's a six hundred mile drive from the state capitol in Indianapolis
to the nation's capitol in Washington, D.C. If I'm ever going to make
that trip I need 4500 Hoosiers- 500 in each of Indiana's 9 districts to sign the
petition getting me into the Democratic primary.
If you live in Indiana or know anyone who does, please go to my
website at http://www.tamyra4senate.com and download the petition...
sign it...get all of your friends and neighbors and strangers you meet
on the street to sign it and then send it back to me at the address on
the website. I have to turn in my first set of signatures on January 4
but I have until Feb. 13 to get all 4500 signatures turned in and I'm hoping
to actually turn in the names of 6000 fellow Hoosiers who like me, believe
that Indiana needs to be represented by a Senator who is there to represent the
people- not big pharma and Wall Street.
What else can you do to help? Send email to everyone you know in Indiana
asking them to visit my website. Join my group on Facebook.
You can also follow me on Twitter at Tamyra4Senate. And you can visit my diaries
as I plan to come back to Daily Kos and get your input
on my campaign as it progresses.
I'm also looking for campaign staff so if you know anyone in Indiana who
wants to get in on the ground floor of this exciting journey, please have
them email me at Tamyra4Senate at gmail dot com.
Thanks for your time today and please, ask any and all questions
in the comments below. I will be around for at least the next hour
and will check back throughout the day as time allows. I look forward
to getting to know you and working with you to retire Evan Bayh-
as they are saying "Bye Bye Bayh!"