Saturday, September 15, 2012

Reality check for political reporters

Reality check for Soares

Albany County district attorney wins big victory after a nasty primary race

By Robert Gavin

Nasty as defined by ... ... ... the wind, apparently.

That collective exhale you heard Thursday night came from Albany County prosecutors.

I wondered what that was! Strange, though, because I wasn't near the victory party. But apparently the reporter, who seems to have been there, wants to hand off the hearing on to you, as opposed to the telling on to himself, which, again, is strange.

District Attorney David Soares, the two-term incumbent, easily defeated challenger Lee Kindlon in a Democratic primary, but scars of the grueling nine-month race may not heal anytime soon.

I've heard that vitamin E is good for scars, but perhaps political, metaphorical scars are different. Also, we are not told about how or when the reporter viewed those scars, but I like to think it was in the late, late hours of the victory party, when things got a little crazy.

The political battle was marked by mudslinging, personal attacks and a hunch in some quarters that Soares was ripe to be defeated.

Which quarters? Some quarters. That's all we readers need to know.

It didn't take long after polls closed to call the race. By the time Soares, 42, arrived at the Taste restaurant on Beaver Street late Thursday, the nail-biting was over and there was jubilation in the crowd. Soares tallied 14,498 votes to Kindlon's 10,132, a decisive 57 percent to 40 percent victory.

How much nail-biting does one do, on one's way to a decisive victory?

[James] Long [Soares' election attorney], a veteran lawyer, said the nastiness of the race concerned some of Soares' team.

"I thought it was going to be closer," he said. "It happens in the national scene. That negative campaigning works."

Show us your scars, Mr. Long! Show us, show us, show us.

Some political observers say the challenge could serve as a reality check for Soares as he heads into his third term because Republicans have not fielded a candidate.

For now, Soares said, he does not plan any changes.

That is some reality check. I for one am glad to have spent this much time parsing the reporter's muddled description of stuff he talked about at a victory party, when we would have all been better off if he had just written it up as "stuff talked about at a victory party."