Cohen withdraws candidacy

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CHICAGO — The Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor chose half-time during Sunday’s Super Bowl to announce he was withdrawing his candidacy.

“This is the hardest thing that I ever had to do in my life,” Scott Cohen told reporters at a Chicago restaurant. “For the good of the people of the state of Illinois and the Democratic Party, I will resign.”

The resignation brought an end to the latest round of turmoil in Illinois politics.

On Tuesday, Cohen surprised many across the state when he defeated five other candidates to win the nomination. Voters gave Cohen 212,902 votes, or 26 percent, four percentage points above Arthur Turner, and well ahead of Rickey Hendon, East Moline’s Mike Boland, Thomas Castillo and Terry Link.

But while the voters across the state were still waiting to learn who the nominees for governor would be, word began pouring out about Cohen and allegations of steroid use, sexually abusing his former wife, and holding a knife to the throat of a prostitute ex-girlfriend.

At first Cohen refused to step down, but the pressure from Democrats across the state, including Gov. Pat Quinn, Senate nominee, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, and Sen. Dick Durbin, apparently cause Cohen to change his mind.

On Monday, Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, was one of many Democrats who was glad to see Cohen choose to withdraw from the November election. Mautino said Cohen’s presence on the ballot would have been a very high distraction that would have caused a ripple effect both up and down the ballot and turned the focus from the real issues facing the state.

Mautino said the information about Cohen was not hidden, but it was never picked up by the media or other candidates. Less than a year ago, Cohen told a Chicago reporter about his 2005 arrest in a domestic battery case as a “pre-emptive strike” about some potentially embarrassing matters, but there was no more conversation about those matters until Wednesday.

Mautino said all of the lieutenant governor candidates have said they knew about Cohen’s past but didn’t use it in their campaigns.

“Most of the candidates ran a straightforward race,” Mautino said. “There were no personal attacks.”

Mautino said the Democratic Central Committee was also aware of Cohen’s past, but under the new ethics laws, neither the Democratic nor the Republican central committees could take part in the primary election.

Mautino said the information should have been out before the election.

“It would have saved a lot of this firestorm,” he said. “But once again we’re in the national spotlight as part of the continuing Illinois circus.”

Cohen’s spot on November’s ticket will be filled by the 38-member Democratic State Central Committee, which is headed by House Speaker Michael Madigan. Mautino said the committee will probably meet in March after the ballots are certified. The committee is scheduled to meet March 17, although a meeting could be held sooner.

Mautino said Turner, who came in second, would be a viable candidate, but the committee has no obligation to choose him. Instead, the members can choose anyone, and there has been some talk about looking downstate for Cohen’s replacement.

That decision would be all right with Mautino.

“Looking for some ticket balance wouldn’t be a bad thing,” he said.

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