Quick Hit
Tuesday February 9th, 2010, 10:36am
The Advisers
The State Journal-Register's Chris Wetterich makes an interesting point in a new blog post: "[Scott Lee] Cohen ought to be livid at whomever was advising him for letting him think, apparently from the start, that he could weather such a storm." Those advisers would be the consulting firm Grainger Terry. Political researcher Will Caskey noted yesterday that they earned $628,000 from Cohen's campaign in 2009 (and probably a bit more in January 2010). He added, "It is not a wise gamble that someone's conscience will outweigh his paycheck."
Indeed, the folks at Grainger Terry are probably the only ones to benefit from this whole debacle. Excluding the Republicans, of course.
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Comments
Thanks for the mention!
Our pleasure, Will. Interesting post.
Do you really think the Sun-Times had the divorce papers ahead of the election?
I think it could go both ways. The story broke around 12:30 AM Thursday. It is possible the first stories were only on Cohen's arrest (Cook DV Courthouse), his girlfriend's arrest for smashing his laptop (Cook Clerk of Court) and her arrest for prostitution (Lake Clerk of Court). Add to that the fact that at some point the Cook records were sequestered by the Clerk of Court's Public Affairs division, adding additional time to retrieve them. From a research perspective it is possible, though difficult, to assemble all of these in one day, assuming gathering starts first thing in the morning.
On the other hand, there is also indication that the press did not know. For example, to my knowledge only three cases regarding Cohen's financial record have been requested by the press: Larry Cohen's lawsuit against him, a Yellowbook lawsuit for unpaid bills and his father's will. Additionally, the divorce coverage has notably excluded his financial data (tax filing, asset declaration etc), focusing instead on Debra Cohen's accusation of attempted rape and the child support payments. The reporting seems hasty. So, it is also possible that the Sun-Times did not know, and were unusually fast at retrieving the arrest records.
Grainger/Terry should be sued for malpractice. They knew full well that Cohen could not be a canddiate in the general election with the problems he had and I do not accept the argument that they were unaware of how bad it was. As a former political consultant myself I know how difficult it is finding clients in the off-year election. They saw a big payday and figured one of their opponents would eventually out Cohen. Grainger/Terry should be blackballed from Illinois as a lesson to bottom feeder political consultants everywhere. And my old friend Baxter Swilley should be ashamed of himself.
I don't know any of the players in this but from the looks of it, Mr. Swilley came in only to mop up/manage the crisis. GT resigned the account late last week then one of Cohen's campaign coordinators took the reins for a day or so. By the time Mr. Swilley came in, the decision to resign was probably made and I'm sure most or all the money was gone. I could be wrong, of course.
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