A Defense Of Scott Lee Cohen, The Wife-Abusing Hooker-Dating Roid-Raging Pawnbroker Who Spent Two Million Dollars Of His Own Money To Be The Next Lieutenant Governor Of Illinois

By Evan Miller   –   February 9, 2010

When I first learned about the Scott Lee Cohen scandal, wherein a pawnbroker with an arrest record sought statewide public office, I felt the same mixture of delight, disgust, and resignation that characterizes most of my reactions to Illinois politics. It had all the makings of a farcical political downfall: Violence. Prostitution. Loopholes in Illinois election law. I was sure these were the beginnings of another opera buffa in which Illinois would reprise its role as the shame of the nation.

But this one is different. In retrospect, nothing in Scott Lee Cohen’s past is cause for a political scandal. The real scandal is that, after the intervention of this state’s most powerful men, Scott Lee Cohen was forced out of his rightful, democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor. After reading the initial newspaper reports I, too, mocked Cohen, but upon reflection I believe his resignation is a cause for lament rather than relief. Scott Lee Cohen brought not shame but honor to the Democratic ticket, and I am writing here to defend him from the charges made against his character. His story is not farce, but tragedy.

The salient facts are these: In 2005 Scott Lee Cohen’s wife divorced him, citing his explosive temper, and he has since fallen behind in child support payments. Shortly after the divorce, Scott Lee Cohen was arrested for violently threatening his girlfriend, a massage therapist who was once arrested for prostitution. In 2010, spending his own money in a six-way race, Scott Lee Cohen won the Democratic party’s nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor, which would make him the involuntary running mate of the current governor, Pat Quinn. Five days later, under pressure from all sides — the media, Governor Quinn, and the Democratic party — Scott Lee Cohen resigned the nomination.

I do not know of Cohen personally, only what I read in the newspapers. It is indeed difficult to defend a man who made violent threats against his wife and girlfriend. However, I would like to suggest that Scott Lee Cohen is not as bad a guy as he seems, and poses a far smaller risk to the welfare of Illinois than the current political leadership.

First consider all of the facts that are used to slander Cohen merely by association, starting with his “hooker girlfriend” about which much has been made. Everybody likes a good hooker story, and dating a hooker? That just seems so… trashy. Low-class. Like something a pawnbroker would do.

But I have to say, it takes some measure of character to date someone who’s been branded with society’s scarlet H. So once upon a time the woman did some unpleasant overtime to earn extra cash. Why is that so fascinating to us? She’s still a person, with thoughts, hopes, dreams. And heck, who doesn’t feel like a hooker in this economy? Scott Lee Cohen could see beyond the checkers of his girlfriend’s past, and yet we look at Cohen and see only the smirches.

Then there were the steroids, and the “violent rages” against his wife. Steroids, once again, seem so trashy, but are they really wrong? Perhaps instead Mother Nature is wrong for bestowing her gifts unequally. Should we condemn a man for consuming the succulent fruits of Father Science to make himself large and strong? Do we blame a man in the autumn of life for filling his cup at the Fountain of Youth, for wanting to feel again the full measure of manhood before his autumn passes, as it must, into mortal winter?

The Fountain, as always, was false. The steroids brought strength, but in measures too many, and the body became stronger than the will. He raged against his wife, who left him, and his girlfriend, who called in the police but did not have the heart to press charges. The steroids are not some idle or poetic excuse for crime; scientific studies conducted in 2006[1] and 2008[2] confirm that anabolic steroids make monsters out of men. Cohen has no record of violence before or since these episodes in 2005. Cohen’s lovers, like Cohen himself, are victims of his fatal experiment with these perilous elixirs. Perhaps we should instead feel sorry for Cohen, who, in seeking the comforts of strength, found only weakness and solitude.

Cohen has now been clean for a half-decade. He has sought forgiveness from those he hurt. He runs a profitable business; he is engaged to a woman who believes in him. He loves and mentors his two sons. Since 2005, Cohen’s story has been a story of hope, redemption, and success.

Consider the next charge against Cohen, that he spent two million dollars of his own money on his quixotic campaign. This fact has received much attention, and seems to connote that Cohen has no friends or supporters. I’d like to offer a different interpretation. Scott Cohen was an extremely successful businessman in a poor area. Would you give money to a rich man running for office, who said that he was spending money of his own? No way, José. And far from having “no friends,” the Facebook group in support of his candidacy has a respectable 500 members. In the primary election, over 200,000 voters chose his name over the five others on the ballot.

The fact that Cohen expended two million dollars of his savings in pursuit of the nomination says a great deal about his character — a great deal of good. Two million dollars that he earned the old-fashioned way, building up a business brick by brick, and in this case, extending credit to the creditless as the owner of a pawnshop. Most Illinois politicians never earned an honest dime in their life, much less by selling their sweat and loaning their money to the poor. Other things being equal, a self-financed candidate is always preferable to the alternative. Elect a man who is running for office on his own tab, and he is your servant, free and clear; but elect a man with hundreds of “friends” who each kicked in $20,000, and he is never yours. Once in office, he will be too busy paying back his friends, with usurious interest, all on the tab of the state.

The final charge against Cohen’s character concerns the child support which he owes to his two sons, some $54,000. I am sure he is good for the money. Cohen was once tardy with taxes, too, but those accounts are cleared up. Well, at least the man didn’t announce for Comptroller. In my mind $54,000 is a small sum compared to the amount that Illinois leadership owe to Cohen’s children — and to your children too — some $12,800,000,000 which the state is indebted to its creditors, an amount future generations must pay in exchange for the wantonly corrupt and incompetent state services that we enjoy today.

Scott Lee Cohen made his mistakes and had his problems. He confesses them. They are not atypical of mistakes made and problems faced by residents of the rougher parts of this rough town of Chicago. But here was one who pulled himself up, built a business, won over friends, made himself rich, and decided, what the hell, I’ll run for office. And against all the odds, he won his party’s nomination. He won it fair and square.

And what did we do?

We sneered. We said, No, Scott Lee Cohen, we don’t care how many voters chose your name, or how many years of savings you exhausted in pursuit of this honor of serving us. Scott Lee Cohen, we are ashamed of you. We are ashamed of your past, and by the chains of your past, we shall confine your future, and the future of our state. This is America, and here there are no second acts.

No. The shame is on us, and our hearts that would sneer at so honest, penitent, and self-giving a man. Who among us, in this age of ignoble wars, has given up as much as Scott Cohen in order to serve the people of Illinois? None. You say he is a bad man, for he threatened his lovers. But that was under the influence of steroids, which he briefly tried and foreswore. And, besides, who among us is pure enough to judge him? Who can say that they’ve never hurt a loved one by some thoughtless word or deed? Only those among us who have never loved, or else never loved for long. It is said that the voters of Illinois deserve better than Scott Cohen. I say Scott Cohen deserves better than the voters of Illinois.

We are to blame for Cohen’s ouster, because those in power knew we would read the headlines and mock this wife-abusing, hooker-dating, roid-raging pawnbroker, no matter how far he may pull himself up from his previous misery. Others may now vote for the “electable” candidates, Pat Quinn and whatever cowed and simpering running mate our Democratic masters choose as Scott Cohen’s ignominious replacement.

The question at hand isn’t even whether Cohen will make a good or bad Lieutenant Governor (or Governor should events necessitate it). The question is whether Cohen’s service would be such a disgrace to government that democratic processes ought to be subverted in order to prevent his election by the people. In light of the facts, I cannot fathom how this proposition can be true.

As for me, my choice will be a write-in. During Act One of the continuing Blagojevich farce, Pat Quinn played a wonderfully useless Lieutenant Governor. He ought to feel honored, then, to serve another term in that capacity under the next Governor of our state, the only truly tragic figure in Illinois politics: Mr. Scott Lee Cohen.

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Notes

1. Pagonis TA, Angelopoulos NV, Koukoulis GN, Hadjichristodoulou CS, Toli PN (2006). “Psychiatric and hostility factors related to use of anabolic steroids in monozygotic twins”. Eur. Psychiatry 21 (8): 563-9. link

2. Beaver KM, Vaughn MG, Delisi M, Wright JP (December 2008). “Anabolic-androgenic steroid use and involvement in violent behavior in a nationally representative sample of young adult males in the United States”. Am J Public Health 98 (12): 2185-7. link

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