To pass the time until the federal government exists on paper again, I will talk about the story of Scott Lee Cohen

Cohen was an example in miniature form of a political party (Democrats) cleaning house in response to the rise of an eerily Trump-like figure

The scene was the 2010 Illinois primary. A combination of factors turned it into a shitstorm, but the biggest driver was that we moved our primary up to super Tuesday in the first week of February in 08, theoretically to support Obama/be important in the Dem primary

The primary USED to be the third week in March. The whole political ecosystem revolved around it. And no one really absorbed that an entire 1.5 months of fundraising, field etc had been sheared off the campaign schedule

The 08 primary was a chaotic nightmare, but it wasn't obvious to non-professionals because the surge in irregular/new Obama voters mostly kept incumbents in office from raw name ID

The 10 primary did not have that and was the statewide election year

Not only that, almost all the statewides were contested, often bitterly. This was also the election to replace Roland Burris, Blagojevich's bizarre appointment to Obama's Senate seat when he got arrested for trying to sell it

The political climate was, to put it mildly, a mess

Within this climate, the lieutenant governor was a separately elected position, with its own primary. There is nothing especially wrong or unusual about this. But since the former LG Pat Quinn became governor, the LG was open, and no one really had time to pay attention to it

Inasmuch as there was a consensus Dem candidate, it was state rep Art Turner. But no one cared. It was just LG, Turner's support even among black incumbents was lukewarm, and everything was on fire because of Burris and also Pat Quinn being almost as bad a gov as Rod was

There was also state senators Terry Link and Michael Boland (white), and Rickey Hendon (black)

There was also rando named Castillo, whose name vaguely resembled downstate Dem then-congressman Jerry Costello

Finally, there was Scott Lee Cohen

Cohen was beyond a fringe candidate. He was a self-funding pawnbroker. He told a local columnist he'd once pawned a guy's gold teeth, and also that he'd been arrested for domestic violence. And that was his only press

Cohen put up some lousy ads in the Chicago market. No one cared

None of the other candidates put up any ads bc they were broke. No one noticed

Cohen spread money around low level black politicians in Chicago. No one noticed, nor would have cared if they did

At this point, I personally was contacted by Terry Link's campaign. They were alarmed by Cohen's spending and wanted a report. I looked him up in Lexis-Nexis and WOAH. Such legal problems, many debts

Still, I quoted a small sum bc I was bored

They never got back to me

This has happened too many times to count, from local dirtbags spreading around street money, to potential clients balking at tiny prices for vital/urgent work. It never matters; it's just stuff that happens

Except it suddenly mattered when Cohen won with about 26% of the vote

As it turned out, all of the elected candidates had their bases, and (possibly) downstate Dems thought Castillo was Castello, and Cohen bought just enough ads and bodies to squeak a centimeter above an otherwise perfectly split primary vote

The first problem was that no one knew who Cohen was. After balking at my price, Link attempted to complain at reporters to get them to write about Cohen, but even he didn't know anything except that I'd said Cohen was really bad news

I was, of course, alarmed, and in fact I drunkenly ranted on primary election night that we were all so, so, so fucked because of Cohen, oh god we're fucked you have no idea

This got around, as things do, and I was hired by someone after the fact to figure shit out fast

I'll fast forward through the drama of the next two hellish weeks of my life, which are in retrospect amusing/horrifying but are their own story

Long story short: every Democratic faction in Illinois started ripping Cohen apart in the press and screaming for him to go

It wasn't especially coordinated, and in fact at one point someone in another statewide campaign yelled at me to stop because THEY were handling it (but alas not paying me to do what they want)

But for all the mess, the party was also unified in trying to make him scram

Other campaigns Cohen had contributed to gave their money to charity. His consultants were alternately yelled at to Deal With This Shit, or that they'd never get Democratic work again. His consultants' OTHER CLIENTS got the same treatment

Dragging himself out of a bloody, close primary, Quinn disavowed Cohen. Then-Speaker Mike Madigan did mumbly Madigan things and apparently met with Cohen, although you should really read every Madigan story as "Mike glared sternly for a bit" or whatever

At any rate, Cohen finally had enough on Super Bowl Sunday, when he went to a bar and announced while weeping and fall down drunk that he was dropping out. A replacement was picked and the law was changed to remove the LG from separate primaries, which, sure

There's a lesson here: you don't actually need perfect unity, or even widespread coordination. If a party has a resilient structure, however infuriating/messy like IL Dems, and the party doesn't want to do something, they will collectively figure shit out, all else being equal

I say all this because there's going to be a lot of ink spilled about what the GOP does and do they reform or change and I present this story to say: if they actually wanted to change, they would have done it. They'd have found a way to deal with Trump in the primary

But they didn't. The GOP's leadership has been hollowed out in a long slide since the end of the Bush presidency. The structures to, basically, get everyone on the team MOVING RIGHT NOW dealing with X regardless of how they do it...just don't exist for them

And furthermore, they just don't want to do it. IL Dems went through a bunch of crises from 06-10: an openly purchased and criminal Cook County presidency, the Cook Dems devolved into a small family patronage operation, Blagojevich, Quinn, Cohen...

But we got our shit together

If enough people in the broad social network of money, friendships and professional alliances wants to get their shit together, they'll make it happen. The money will show up and the party will grind on till things are basically fine

The GOP just doesn't want to