39.97 % Remember that!

It was the autumn of ’86 and the Illinois governor’s race had become a true debacle.

STEVENSON III: His independent campaign failed



Adlai E. Stevenson III tried for a second time to run for governor against incumbent James R. Thompson, and we will always wonder if the man who came within 5,000 votes in 1982 could have won four years later – had there not been the craziness that caused the Democratic nominee to abandon his political party and run an independent campaign for the office.

IN THE END, Stevenson’s final bid for electoral office took nearly 1.26 million votes, or 39.97 percent – which fell short of the 52.67 percent that Thompson got to ensure him his final four-year term in office.

I can’t help but think of all this political activity that occurred during my years in college (specifically, I was in Washington, D.C. for a semester when this election occurred, and I was too lazy to get an absentee ballot – which is why I didn’t vote) when I hear the talk that Democrats in one legislative district on the West Side are contemplating challenging their party’s nominee with an independent campaign.

We don’t know who it would be. We only know that officials are getting embarrassed by the spectacle that has become state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago.

He’s the legislator who faces criminal charges in U.S. District Court in Chicago for activity that federal prosecutors say constitutes acceptance of a bribe.

HE’S ALSO THE guy who managed to win the March Democratic primary election, mainly because the person who was challenging him was a scuz-ball in his own right.

So now, Democrats literally have among their nominees for the Illinois Legislature a person who faces criminal indictment. Since there is not going to be a credible Republican challenger in that particular inner-city district (the black people who would have voted for the GOP as the “Party of Lincoln” are long-gone from that area), it would seem Smith has a clear path to re-election.

SMITH: Is he safe from independent?

Except that party officials want him to go away. They’d like him to resign his seat now, renounce the nomination similar to how Scott Lee Cohen gave up his Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 2010, then keep quiet until the day he is found guilty or pleads guilty – when he would then go to prison.

Not that Smith himself has any intention of playing alone. He perceives himself as the victim in all of this, although I suspect his need for a paycheck provided for his services as a legislator is his real motivation for refusing to leave. This is a man who has tried to describe his legal predicament as a lawsuit filed against him – as though he can later claim it was one of those “frivolous” legal actions that some people like to claim there are too many of.

I HAVE SAID before that I think Democrats should not be able to force Smith out prior to his being found “guilty” of something. If there is shame due to his association with them, perhaps they deserve to have to live with it for ever thinking that Smith was qualified to be in the General Assembly in the first place.

Smith got where he was because he had the backing of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. So perhaps Smith ought to be a part of the White legacy – the good along with the bad. White backers shouldn’t be allowed to “erase” Smith as though he never existed.

But I have to be wary of any attempt to have an independent challenge Smith.

Because somehow, I keep remembering Stevenson.

HE CREATED A “Solidarity Party” label for himself and tried to push the message that Democratic voters should remember to switch political parties for that one post come Election Day.

Yet in the end, the technicalities of election law ensured that requiring people to put that much thought into casting their ballot would ensure that many voters wouldn’t.

If they had, Stevenson would have gotten more than the 39.97 percent vote he received. Thompson got himself another term in office because of the partisan political confusion.

Why do I suspect that at a time when Democrats will be trying to turn out every single vote possible to ensure that Barack Obama gets a large-enough urban vote to overcome rural opposition to his presidency, the idea of telling people in this one very-Democratic legislative district that they have to do some funny political maneuvering might backfire.

MANY MIGHT NOT do it. Some might wind up being confused enough that they don’t bother to vote. It definitely isn’t a guarantee that Dems could dump Smith come Nov. 6.

Yes, Election Day is going to be a headache this year. Yes, Smith has the potential to be embarrassing because of his arrogance. The 2012 election cycle is not going to be a high-minded campaign on any level.

But Democrats might very well have to accept the fact that they’re going to have to live with the shame of his association with them until that day comes when a federal judge pounds his gavel down and pronounces Smith’s criminal case closed.

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Cohen thinks he’s back; I’ll believe it when I see nominating petition signatures

“Illinois needs honesty more than perfection.”

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Moreso than the stories of holding a knife to a prostitute’s throat or being a deadbeat who fell behind on child support, that line ought to be the political legacy left behind by Scott Lee Cohen, the man who for two weeks was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor.

By now, anybody who cares has heard that Cohen staged himself a press conference Monday outside the Thompson state government building to announce he is running for governor as a political independent.

SO WE NOW have people getting all worked up that Cohen is in this campaign to wreck his revenge against the Democratic Party for not standing behind him by scuttling the gubernatorial hopes of incumbent Pat Quinn.

Is Cohen, the CEO of State Pawners (the pawn shop founded by his father) the type of guy who would give the people of Illinois “Gov. William Brady” to make himself feel better about the fact that his political career ended before it ever began?

It could be. People who run for electoral office are capable of being that petty.

And it’s not like Cohen was ever the typical political person. He came out of nowhere to run for an office with such a low profile that he figured he could slip into a position where he could then catapult to the top. This isn’t someone who is interested in working his way through the ranks of government and learning about public policy.

WHICH IS WHY I find it laughable that he now portrays himself as the pillar of political honesty.

That particular quote came in response to questions about whether his personal past that caused the Democratic Party to dump on him for lieutenant governor could be overcome in the minds of the voters when they decide Nov. 2 who to pick for governor.

The line that Cohen backers (they do exist, they like the idea that he ran a small-scale business and is unpolitical so much that they will ignore any sordid details about his life) tout is that it wasn’t Cohen himself who ever tried to cover anything up. Some people go so far as to try to blame newsgathering organizations for not thoroughly exposing every sordid detail of Cohen’s life, although I have to wonder how much any outfit would have been laughed at hysterically had they spent any time worrying about the lieutenant governor’s race.

After all, there was a Senate campaign on the Republican side and a gubernatorial fight for the Democrats. Plus, Chicago-area reporter-types were absolutely determined to dig up every detail possible so as to ensure that Todd Stroger didn’t pull off some sort of upset and manage to win the Feb. 2 primary for Cook County Board president.

BUT LET’S BE honest.

People didn’t pick Cohen to be the lieutenant governor nominee because they thought he had any special qualifications. He won because he ran in a field of nobodies (political observers tend to forget that real people had never heard of the so-called front-runner, long-time state Rep. Art Turner, D-Chicago) and used his personal wealth to run enough campaign advertising that his name was probably the only one many people sort of recognized.

Cohen is correct in one regard. We should get more honesty from our political people. In some ways, Cohen isn’t any more sordid than anyone else who runs for political office. I’m not even sure he’s the official with the worst reputation.

Seriously, how low do many people regard Rod Blagojevich? Or has Cohen the alleged wife-beater managed to sink even below Milorod on the Illinois political scum scale? (Which, by the way, contains people of all the major political parties).

BECAUSE OF THE fact that Cohen’s reputation is just so low, I can’t say I take seriously the idea of any independent campaign he might run.

A part of me will be amazed if he can get the 25,000 valid signatures of support required of any political independent (compared to 5,000 for someone running for an established political party’s nomination) to even get on the ballot.

Which means that Cohen’s campaign may have reached its peak on Monday, a month-and-a-half before it officially began.

How many people are going to be willing to sign one of his nominating petitions, except as something resembling a gag (just like all the people who vote for “Mickey Mouse” for president – come to think of it, didn’t he win in ’00 and ’04?).

SOMEONE WHO ISN’T convinced how hard it is to get valid petition signatures for a populist movement ought to ask the League of Women Voters what ever became of their petition drive on behalf of reforming the means by which we redistrict legislative and congressional district boundaries every 10 years.

Their deadline came and went without them even getting close. I could see the same thing happening to Scott Lee. If, by chance, it appears that he will hit the 25,000 figure, I could envision all kinds of people aligned with the Democratic Party crawling out of the woodwork to challenge his legitimacy.

He could wind up having to engage in a massive legal fight for the right to get 1 percent of the vote come Election Day.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Scott Lee Cohen will attract a certain type of person who resents government and will want to vote for anyone who thinks just like they do. People with any sense will, and in fact already are trying to, distance themselves from him.