Still reeling from the embarrassment of seeing a pawnbroker who held a knife to his prostitute/ex-girlfriend's throat win his way onto the Democrats' statewide ticket as Lt. Governor, the Democratic House Speaker in Springfield has come up with a solution: eliminate the Lt. Governor position altogether.

Nevermind that both New York and Illinois found these "do nothing" positions coming in pretty handy in recent years when their respective governors imploded amid scandal.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' decision to handpick a replacement for Cohen instead of giving the nod to the man finished second in the primary last week is causing a controversy all its own. John Kass explains:

Say you compete for an Olympic gold medal. You've spent your entire life training, and when the starter's pistol sounds, you go as fast as you can.

Sadly, the gods decide to play a cruel joke. You come in second to some hapless Illinois pawnbroker.

Then it turns out that the pawnbroker gets himself disqualified, either for steroid abuse, or perhaps for some wild knife-to-a-hooker's-throat allegation, or a combination of the above.

But since you came in second, the Olympic bosses do the right thing. They give you the gold.

It's only fair. And every athlete in the world knows it to be fair.

They would never, ever withhold the medal from you because you have black skin.

They'd never say, "Oh, wait a minute, we have too many black athletes winning gold medals, let's find some Greek or a Korean or Indian or Irishman because they haven't won enough, so their ethnic groups will give us money."

That would not only be wrong. It would be racism at its ugliest, racism for a price.

Yet isn't that exactly what the Illinois Democratic Party is doing to Art Turner in the backroom politicking for Illinois lieutenant governor?

--------------------------------------------
Follow the RCP Blog on Twitter.
Become a fan of RCP on Facebook.
--------------------------------------------