The Perfect Storm for Illinois Dems
Being a Democrat is usually an advantage for a candidate running for office in the light blue state of Illinois. But don't tell that to Alexi Giannoulias, who probably thinks that his fellow Illinois Democrats are hell-bent on making sure the little "D" that appears next to his name when he is on TV and ballots is a fatal liability. First, there was Blago. Then there was Ronald Burris. Being associated with these two characters (whose names have become synonyms for the worst kind of corruption in the minds of most Illinois voters) is already a huge problem, since Giannoulias has his own sketchy connections. But now Scott Lee Cohen, too? Somewhere, Mark Kirk is still doing back flips from the time the Cohen news first broke.
Scott Lee Cohen was a completely unforced error for Illinois Democrats at a time when they could least afford one. Cohen won the Democratic primary to become Illinois Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. Virtually no time passed before details emerged that I couldn't have made up if I'd tried: Cohen, who is, get this, a pawnbroker, was arrested four and a half years ago after he was accused of holding a knife to his former girlfriend's neck. The charge was later dropped when that girlfriend, who had just been found guilty of prostitution, didn't show up to testify at the trial.
No matter how you spin it, this is another huge blow to the Democratic party's image in Illinois. It raises inescapable questions which the Illinois media, which swung and missed hard on the story, will spend the upcoming days and weeks finding answers to. Having looked like fools one time, the mainstream Illinois reporters will not stop until every single question has been answered. That means that article after article will be written about how much Democratic leaders knew about him. Reporters will speculate endlessly about why, when asked on WTTW Chicago's Chicago Tonight if either had a preference for a candidate in the race for Lieutenant Governor, both Governor Pat Quinn and his challenger Dan Hynes said they would “let the voters decide.” And by the time this latest fiasco stops being written about, the last scandal will come right back to life, since Rod Blagojevich's trial is set to start dead in the middle of campaign season. And when that trial begins, its star witness is set to be none other than Tony Rezko, to whom Mr. Giannoulias' family bank loaned $15 million dollars before Rezko was tossed in jail.
This is looking more and more like a perfect storm for Republicans. Now the question is, can Kirk capitalize?