HEAD START ON 2008 FOR SOARES

Albany County District Attorney David Soares has announced in an
unusual and disquieting way that he's running for a second term.

His by-now-famous address last week to the 17th International
Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related Harm in Vancouver,
British Columbia, was sharply critical of the U.S. war on drugs,
which is heavy on traditional law enforcement and light on
alternatives and treatments.

Plus, he took it a step further and claimed that judges, lawyers and
prosecutors know this policy isn't working but continue to support it
"because it provides law enforcement officials with lucrative jobs."

Ouch.

Predictably, Albany County Sheriff Jim Campbell and Albany Police
Chief Jim Tuffey took issue with Soares' characterization. Albany
Mayor Jerry Jennings got into the fray as well, taking a verbal punch
at the DA that prompted a rebuttal from Soares telling the mayor to
keep politics out of the police department.

By Monday, the first-term DA had cooled his jets and sought to
explain himself. He essentially apologized to local law enforcement
if he offended them -- he had. He said he is fervently against the
conventional law enforcement wisdom in this country's war on drugs
but has only appreciation for the soldiers fighting it.

Lucrative was a poor choice of words, he acknowledged.

"I'll admit I was pretty surprised at the ire I raised with the
Vancouver speech," Soares said late Monday. Particularly because
there was nothing in it Albany audiences hadn't heard many times when
he was on the stump for then-Albany County DA Paul Clyne's job, he added.

At the same time, David Soares admitted that the tempest he's raised
was to some degree expected -- and sought. A strategy. The tone was
what got officials here upset.

"There's been a lot of contention behind the scenes in Albany County
with the law enforcement community since I took office. This was one
way I could get it all out for the public to see and hear. The only
chance for survival I have, considering the political enemies around
me, is transparency," he said.

And the survival he has in mind, apparently, is another term in
office. Because his first-blush reaction to the attacks by Jennings,
Tuffey and Campbell was to call their public criticisms a blessing in disguise.

"This has brought it into the open two years before 2008 (when he
would run again). This has just moved up the time frame. They want
me? They'll have to go after me."

Ouch again. "Thou shalt not be cocky" is a golden rule of political
survival, and David Soares is taking a mighty risk with the
aggressive posture he's taken. The public doesn't go for this.

While Soares has made himself a lightning rod by choice, before long
a fundamental question is bound to rise that has more substance than
this little flap.

Namely, just how effective a DA's office is David Soares running, no
matter what his personal philosophy might be about the state and
nation's drug laws?

There's already a whispering campaign that the Soares administration
has been far less effective with felony cases than Paul Clyne was
before him, and that among working cops, the perception is the DA's
office is less vigorous in prosecuting drug cases than pre-Soares.

David Soares vigorously denies the whispers. So show us the numbers,
but you can see where this is going. And he's only been in office 15 months.