John Podesta: The health of America’s political system “sucks.” That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

That until-now little known, minor candidate in the Indiana Democratic senate primary, Tamyra d’Ippolito, just told our Eric Kleefeld that she now has the requisite number of signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Bear in mind, the deadline for filing the signatures is today. So if d’Ippolito has the signatures and as long as too many of them aren’t thrown out (a real question), that would leave her as the only name on the ballot in the Democratic primary, effectively making her the Democratic nominee. Holding this seat this year is going to be a serious challenge regardless of who they field. But observers don’t seem to think d’Ippolito would have a shot even in the best of years.

The logical fallback for Dems is to consolidate around an alternative candidate and mount a write-in campaign. That’s doable but not an easy road.

Another remaining question is what role if any Republicans may have played helping her get those signatures lined up on 18 hours notice.

As some of you know, Evan Bayh didn’t get started in politics on his own. His dad, Birch Bayh, was a big-deal senator from Indiana before him and a presidential hopeful himself. A bit of bonus trivia, it was Sen. Birch Bayh who was in that plane that crashed almost killed Ted Kennedy back in 1964. Bayh dragged the almost-dead Kennedy out of the wreckage of the plane. Ironically, Bayh got driven from office by none other than Dan Quayle in 1980. In some ways, Bayh’s whole career and politics are built around a reaction to that election.

We’ve put together a great slideshow of other pols and the parents who gave them their ticket. Many you’ll know and others you may not know as political legacies. Click the photo to see the whole slideshow.

Our Eric Kleefeld has spent the morning trying to make heads or tails of what’s going down in Indiana. Thing are still a bit hazy, but it looks like Democrats have avoided ending up with a political unknown as their nominee to succeed Evan Bayh in the U.S. Senate.

Today is the deadline for prospective candidates for the Democratic primary to file with each county clerk the petitions required by law in order to appear on the ballot. Earlier this morning Tamyra d’Ippolito — calling her a longshot is probably too generous — told us she already had all the signatures she needed to qualify. But shortly thereafter she told Greg Sargent that she didn’t really have them but she would have them by the noon deadline. Read More

Last we heard James Anderson, husband of accused triple murderer Amy Bishop, was telling members of the media that not only did he have no idea his wife was going to go on a shooting spree but that he didn’t even know his wife had or owned a gun.

Now he says that yeah, he knew she had a gun and the two of them actually went to a shooting range for practice a few weeks before the killings.

In other news, retired Braintree Police Chief John Polio, is now changing his tune, saying something may have been fishy after all about Bishop’s shooting of her brother in 1986.

Virginia governor bragging on stimulus money from stimulus bill he said represented end of the universe.

CPAC, the premiere annual conference for establishment movement conservatism starts Thursday. And we’re going to have three reporters on hand covering it for you. Each year CPAC is a big hit at TPM. But it sort of creeps up on folks. So in the interests of getting you back in the CPAC watching mindset here’s our slideshow from the scene last year.

Part Two of our slideshow tomorrow.

The police records of Amy Bishop’s shooting of her brother back in 1986, which had been thought to be missing since the late 1980s, have been found. You can read them here.

Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY) has a few awkward moments visiting with voters in Rochester.

Did your hooker go to the tabs? Awkward open mic moment? Maybe that bank account in the Caymans wasn’t as secret as you thought? Well, no one ever said life was fair. But that doesn’t mean you can’t face it like a man (or woman) with a first rate crisis response plan. And if you need help with that fabled spinmeister and Fox News analyst Lanny Davis has founded a new crisis response blog “Legal Crisis Strategies.”