It’s a refreshing and healthy tonic for our wounded body politic when an average citizen seeks public office by attempting the brazen act of running for office and, out of innocence, tries to do so according to the rules.

Of course, I’m speaking about Tamyra d’Ippolito, the only announced Democrat seeking to replace the retiring Evan Bayh as Senator of Indiana. You might think she’s running against a Republican.

She’s says she’s running against “the machine” by which she means the official Democratic Party of Indiana. Tamyra says “the machine” spiked her appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show:

“The machine has asked me to step down,” she said, in a reference to the Indiana Democratic Party. She added that she had been scheduled to be interviewed last night by Rachel Maddow but that, mysteriously, the machine got the interview killed.

“The car was coming,” she recalled. “Fifteen minutes before, I got a call saying, `We’ve cancelled the interview.’”

The machine strikes again:

All that was a reaction to her claims that she’ll have the required number of signatures by the filing deadline today (as in noon today) and her open invitation to all Hoosiers to sign her petitions, Republicans included.

And again:

D'Ippolito was not specifically aware of Republicans who signed her petitions in order to cause problems for the Democrats, but she didn't have a problem with it: "I have no way to know that for sure, but I'm sure that is happening. It's common sense, I think that would be realistic."

Conservative, frenetic bloggers at Redstate lend her a hand.

If she gets the magic number, she’s the only Democrat on the ballot this November.

And:

If D’Ippolito gets on the ballot, that’s it. She’s the nominee. The Democrats won’t be able to challenge it or caucus to get another candidate on the ballot. They won’t be albe to get Ellsworth to run or any other viable Democrat. If you have time, make sure you sign the petition.

Ah, it seems our new friend Tamyra d’Ippolito is a little math-challenged. The machine wins by her default.

The Indianapolis Star reports:

D’Ippolito needed 500 signatures of registered voters in each of Indiana’s nine congressional districts. In the 7th Congressional District alone, which is entirely in Marion County, she filed only two petition signatures, 498 short. She also filed one signature in Marion County for the 5th Congressional District.

Democrats now will have their state central committee meet to settle on a nominee.

Vice President Joe Biden is famously nice in person, famously long-winded and famously in love with the U.S. Senate. On the subject of himself, why, it’s his fave! Seriously, he’s had thousands of long discussions with himself on all the important issues of the day — over many decades! -- and each time, he’s comes out on top.

He had one of those discussions with himself just yesterday. Well, he wasn’t completely alone as Bob Schieffer and the CBS crew from Face the Nation was there to record it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6207628n&tag=contentMain;contentBody Fortunately, with a pro like Bob Schieffer involved it wasn’t overly long. Nothing like his days chairing Senate hearings where then Senator Biden would ask “just one more question” at which point, you could catch the first few sentences, go clean out your garage and still be back in time for his summation...of that “one last question.”

You’ve heard the news that yesterday on dueling Sunday chat shows, that Veep Joe took swipes at former Veep Dick (ahem) and vice versa. Score that squabble however you will. The fight I prefer was Joe vs. new Senator Scott Brown. See this from one of Sunday’s live blogs on Politico:

Sen. Scott Brown, the recently sworn in Republican from Massachusetts, needs to get his facts straight before he goes criticizing the Obama administration on its handling of terrorists, Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday.

Responding on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to Brown’s comments that the United States should be spending money catching terrorists, not spending money to give them a lawyer, Biden said, “I don’t know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer too.”

“So, it’s good if we begin to learn the facts about all these things. You get a lawyer whether you’re in a military tribunal, or you’re in a federal court,” Biden added.

Today, Politico quotes a response from the new Senator from Massachusetts:

Sen. Scott Brown thinks Vice President Joe Biden was “off base” when he suggested Sunday that the Massachusetts Republican get his facts straight on the legal procedures for military tribunals.

“It was insulting,” said Brown, who frequently jabbed the administration during his Senate campaign for giving suspected terrorists legal representation.

On CBS's “Face the Nation” last weekend, Biden shot back that he doesn’t “know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer, too.”

“He’s trying to give me a lesson on military law, and I didn’t think it was appropriate,” Brown told POLITICO. “And I thought he was off base when it comes to explaining to the American people that somehow I need a lesson on whether people get attorneys — of course they get attorneys. There’s a difference as to what type of attorney they’re going to get and when they’re going to get that attorney, and how are they treated, and what rights do they, in fact, get.”

Brown said he is particularly incensed by Biden’s remarks because he’s served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for more than 30 years and is currently the Guard's top defense attorney in New England.

Score that for the new guy.