Free Republic

The Democratic nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor has dropped out of the race less than a week after winning the nomination amid a political uproar about his past. Scott Lee Cohen announced his decision Sunday night at a Chicago bar. The pawn broker and owner of a cleaning supplies company won the nomination Tuesday. Since then, it has become widely know that he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and holding a knife to the throat of an ex-girlfriend. The girlfriend herself had been charged with prostitution. He also admits using steroids in the past. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who...

The newly minted Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor said Wednesday he doesn’t think a 2005 domestic battery arrest should hurt him in the fall general election, although records in the case raise questions about his version of events. Scott Lee Cohen, a pawnbroker who was the surprise winner in the little-publicized contest among half a dozen candidates, had previously disclosed the arrest. He described it Wednesday as an argument with his drunken girlfriend and said he didn’t lay a hand on her, though she called the police and had him taken into custody. But the official police and court records...