The Chicago Sun Timesthis morning reports that freshly minted Illinois Democratic Lt. Governor candidate has some embarrassing skeletons in his closet.
The obscure Scott Lee Cohen swept to victory over five rivals in the little noticed race by deluging voters with slick TV ads, robo calls and daily mailers that he paid for out of his own fortune. He far outspent all of his rivals, who included four members of the legislature, combined.
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Cohen, made his fortune as a pawn broker—no, I’m not kidding—and in real estate. His only previous claim to fame was organizing a "Dump Blagojevich" web site.
In 2005 Cohen was arrested and charged with domestic violence for attacking his girl friend with a knife. Her injuries were minimal and charges were dropped after she failed to show up in court after herself being convicted of prostitution—once again, not making this up.
This was months after Cohen’s wife filed for divorce and sought an order of protection.
Cohen also had Federal tax troubles, which he claims to have cleared up.
Worse yet, one of Cohen’s opponents, Senator Terry Link said that he and other candidates attempted to alert both the Pat Quinn and Dan Hynes campaigns about the trouble, but neither choose to publicly denounce Cohen. Since none of the other campaigns could afford to go on the air with attack ads, that might have been the only way Cohen’s big spending spree could have been countered.
This is what happens when a rich guy like Cohen can buy the nomination in an "obscure" race. As if Pat Quinn doesn’t have enough of a fight ahead of him, he will now be saddled with this bozo. The attack ads write themselves.
This may be the biggest headache for a Democratic ticket since Adlai Stevenson III had to abandon the Democratic Party in 1986 after LaRoucheites with vanilla names swept the down ticket races in the primary. The son and great-grandson of Illinois governors and a U.S. Senator, Stevenson had been expected to coast to victory against Republican James Thompson. Instead he had to create and run on a Solidarity Party ticket. In the resultant voter confusion Thompson was elected ushering in a long Republican dynasty in the governor’s chair.