Cohen quits race for lieutenant governor - Mounting pressure over scandalous past forces him to drop out

Cohen quits race for lieutenant governor - Mounting pressure over scandalous past forces him to drop out
and Kristen Schorsch
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
February 7, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-madigan-cohen-criticism-20100207,0,3284935,full.story


Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Scott Lee Cohen, a Chicago pawnbroker whose surprise primary win last week was followed by scandalous revelations about his troubled past with a prostitute ex-girlfriend, said Sunday night he would quit as nominee.

"For the good of the people … I will resign," a tearful Cohen told reporters at a news conference he chose to hold at a Far North Side bar during halftime of the Super Bowl.

"The last thing I ever, ever wanted to do was to put the people of Illinois in jeopardy in any way," he also said.

Cohen's decision came five days after Democratic voters bypassed five rivals, including veteran state lawmakers, and chose the rookie candidate who poured $2 million in personal funds into an advertising blitzkrieg for the state's lightly regarded lieutenant governor spot. It marked one of the quickest and most dramatic changes to an Illinois political ticket in history.

Gov. Pat Quinn, who was concerned that his narrow primary victory over Comptroller Dan Hynes would be imperiled in the fall if Cohen was his running mate, said that by resigning Cohen "made the right decision for the Democratic Party and the people of Illinois."

"Now we can continue to focus our efforts on putting our economy back on track and working to bring good jobs to Illinois," Quinn said in a statement.

Democrats now face the prospect of filling Cohen's vacancy on the ticket, a decision to be made by the 38-member Democratic State Central Committee. The committee, the governing board of state Democrats, is headed by powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, the state Democratic chairman.

"The speaker is prepared to work with the members of the (Democratic) State Central Committee, Gov. Quinn and Senate President (John) Cullerton to work on selecting a replacement," said Madigan spokesman Steve Brown. "We'll start with members of the central committee and work on ideas."

The Democratic panel is scheduled to meet March 17, though a meeting could be held sooner. The state central committee is not bound to select any of the candidates who lost to Cohen in last week's primary. State Rep. Art Turner, of Chicago, a member of Madigan's House leadership team who was backed by the powerful Southwest Side lawmaker, finished second to Cohen.

Even before Cohen stepped off the ticket, some Democratic leaders said privately that they would like to expand a search beyond the primary election contenders and look to fill the vacancy to provide some regional balance — namely a downstate resident. Currently, all of the nominees on the Democratic statewide ticket come from Chicago.

Turner said he would make a case to the state central committee that he was the most qualified of those who sought the lieutenant governor nomination — but did not believe that his second-place finish should automatically give him the spot.

"I don't think it ought to be an automatic. The fact that you finished second, I would not want to set a precedent for that," Turner said. "What I'm saying is that of the people interested in the job — others could have expressed an interest but didn't — I am the most qualified."

Symbolizing the powerful array of Democratic forces lined up against Cohen's continued candidacy, Madigan met face-to-face with Cohen on Friday at the speaker's law office and told the primary winner in a "very direct and very frank" way to step down from the ticket, Brown said.

In a steady torrent following the Tuesday primary, leading Democrats called for Cohen to step aside as new details were revealed about his relationships with his now-ex-wife while using anabolic steroids and his ex-girlfriend, convicted as a prostitute, whom he met at a massage therapy spa. Other revelations showed that as he pumped millions into his campaign, his ex-wife filed a mid-December lawsuit seeking $54,000 in back-due child support.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, called on Cohen to get off the ticket, as did Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer who was nominated by Democrats to fill the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama. Lisa Madigan, the state's attorney general and daughter of Michael Madigan, cited allegations of domestic abuse in saying Cohen had no place on the ticket.

In an emotional gathering with family members at the Hop Haus tavern, 7545 N. Clark St. in Rogers Park, Cohen said that "it's my hope, and I pray with all my heart, that I didn't hurt the people that I love so much."

"There is uncertainty that if I continue to run that the Democrats will win in November," Cohen said. "Many people came out to support me when I announced. The Democratic Party didn't, but many people did. This is the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life."

After pausing to regain his composure, Cohen went on.

"For the good of the people of the state of Illinois and for the Democratic Party, I will resign," Cohen said. "All I ever wanted to do … was to run for office and to help the people, not to cause chaos. That was never my intention."

Republicans faced a similar problem on their statewide ticket in 2004, when the primary-elected nominee for U.S. Senate, businessman Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race amid damaging disclosures contained in his divorce file.

The Illinois GOP held an open casting call for the post but ended up settling on controversial conservative Republican activist Alan Keyes, of Maryland, to run as the nominee. Keyes was swamped by then-state Sen. Obama in the 2004 general election.

Ryan didn't quit the Republican ticket until late June and the GOP took until early August to select Keyes. Democrats this time may benefit from the early February primary in being able to put a new teammate together with Quinn before general election voters begin to focus on the November balloting.

Still, Republicans are expected to use the Cohen debacle, on top of the scandal that put Quinn in office — the ouster of disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — to campaign against the Democrats' one-party rule of state government.

"It will be among the things we'll bring up," said Pat Brady, the state's Republican chairman. "We'll point out what the Democrats have done to get this state where it is. But it's more important to have our candidates talk about what we're going to do."

Cohen, 44, at first had adamantly refused to step down, choosing to do a series of media interviews in which he said the allegations against him were overblown and that he had been transparent about his past when he first got into the race in early 2009. But as criticism grew, he stayed out of sight late in the week before re-surfacing Sunday for a hastily announced news conference.

As football fans screamed at large flat-screen TVs in the main bar and restaurant area of the Hop Haus, Cohen and his family chose a side room to announce his decision.

Cohen's sons Jacob, 11, and Zachery, 17, joined him, along with fiancee Karen Reisman, and her son Brandon, 18.

As Cohen made his announcement, he and his family sat at a square table covered in a checkerboard tablecloth and clutched each other. Some of them sobbed.

Cohen acknowledged he had made mistakes in the past but said he should be looked upon by the people as someone who had moved beyond them successfully.

"The people who made mistakes in their life should stay focused, go for their dreams and they'll accomplish them," Cohen said.

Tribune reporter Monique Garcia contributed to this report.

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