Scott Lee Cohen: 'I Don't Believe That I'm An Embarrassment To The Ticket' (VIDEO)

You know what? The dude is an asshole. And we have to put up with enough ass hats already, tyvm.

Illinois needs a run off system--when candidates get a nomination with 20% of the vote things like this are more likely to happen. This pawn is broken as a candidate and the party should unite to get him out of the race--it's a long time to November and the damage could be rapaired if something is done now.

Spent $3 million on his campaign but did not pay child support. He's a peach.

If you have to explain why you're not an embarrassment to the ticket, BY DEFINITION YOU'RE AN EMBARASSMENT TO THE TICKET.

Is there any weird trick the Democrats can use to exclude this guy? Can Quinn withdraw from the ballot and run on a third party? Can the general assembly pass special laws to give Quinn a way to wiggle out from under this or is that too ex post facto or something?

Exactly "WHERE AND HOW" did he put all this information out there... I seen no quotes from the camapign season saying "I am a wife beating, hooker loving jackass" hell he could of sewn up the rethug nomination with that campaign.

Shorter Cohen:

It's OK that I did all those despicable things, because I was out of my mind on illegal drugs!

As bad as this new is for Illinois, it's symptomatic of a larger problem with the Democratic Party. If the information was available prior to the primary, which it apparently was, the party should have discouraged him from running. If he insisted on running anyway, they should have given the information to his opponents so that the primary could winnow him out. You know that the Republicans are experts at sliming Democrats while coating themselves with Teflon (see John Ensign for a textbook example). If Democrats want to win consistently, they are going to have to get their organizational act together.

This reveals a SERIOUS issue with respect to down-ticket races and Citizens United. Let's say you are a Repukeliscum strategist, and your candidate, the leading Repukeliscum, is in a blue state (like Illinois). How do you set yourself up to do well in the general?

Simple. Pick the weakest opponent. You begin at filing day, and determine who your opponents are. Using the excellent oppo research of the Repukeliscum Party, you find the candidate who has the child-beating allegation, or the odd sex-attack, or too many DUIs, or whatever; we'll call this person "Scumbad Dem". You get the word out to Daddy Moneybags, your buddy at GINORMUS Construction. GINORMUS runs ads pumping the name recognition for Scumbag Dem, the weakest candidate, and you pump this guy using fuzzy dog pictures and get his name recognition up. Maybe just maybe you actually GET THE PERSON IN using your signature gatherers, also paid for by GINORMUS.

It's Primary Day, and Scumbag wins!! Hooray for Democracy.

On the day after Primary Day, you begin with the negative ads revealing Scumbag's history of sex abuse or whatever.

That's the Citizens United effect. It won't be on the big races, but on the little races that are also important. After all, if you can get the Democratic ticket filled with child molestors, perverts, and red-light-camera violators, everyone will ignore the log in your party.

This is an open letter to everyone who collects a substantial paycheck from Grainger Terry.

You crossed the line when you started listing 18 year old unemployed kids as “Expenditures” on your D-2’s for SLC. Posting “Craig’s list” ads asking people to show up for “Astro-Turf Jobs Fairs” and BS “Campaign Rally’s” and then paying them $200 to show up and listing their names on D2′S under expenditures, crosses the line- especially when they put dozens and dozens of 18 year old kids name’s under expenditures for “consulting ” on their D2 expense reports.

At this point. You should show just a tiny bit of class, decent respect, human dignity and personally call each and everyone of those kids and apologize to them this weekend. Then submit an amended D-2 report remove their names from the expenditure reports, and repay them for their time from your personal accounts. If you and the names of people who worked on behalf of SLC don’t make a mild attempt to do this, your names will show up on Politico, TPM, Washington Wire, Political Wire and who knows where else. “Poilitics ain’t bean bad.” That is not a threat. This is the least you can do in the name of basic human decency and the future careers of 18 year old kids who may wish to continue working in government or politics. If you fail to do this, well, you deserve what you get and you should be prepared to look for new work out of Illinois and out of Washington DC. This isn’t personal, it is just a fair warning.

In the spirit of due diligence as a voter, I would like to ask the political media to compile and publish a list of all current elected officials and candidates who: 1) have ever been divorced, 2) who have ever been arrested for anything, regardless of the outcomes. Also include everything about any time they have had a problem of any sort with the IRS, again, regardless of the outcomes. Please list the nature and timing of each arrest and interview - and the outcomes to all. Please locate and publish every court document in everyone of their divorces or other court appearances. As a follow-up, please interview all of the their spouses, ex-spouses and ex-girlfriends.

This is the standard and precedent your political reporting profession has just set for us - and I plan to hold you to it. As an dedicated and deeply concerned Illinois voter, I want to know all of this about every candidate, before I will vote for any of them from now on - because that is what you have convinced me matters in Illinois politics in 2010. I look forward to you doing your jobs, for a change.