Representatives from professional law enforcement associations in cities throughout the county will line up on the steps of the Hall of State next Thursday to endorse Republican candidate Lowell Cannaday for sheriff.  His experience in law enforcement and this kind of backing is one of the cornerstones of his campaign. The other is the new-found mission of the county Republican party to show that the GOP can win a countywide race, after its decimation in the last election at the hands of the Democrats.

Cannaday is speaking around the county in small neighborhood groups and anybody who will listen and telling his story -- as a former assistant chief of the Dallas Police Department, where he worked his way up the ranks over 28 years, as Irving police chief and later an Irving city councilman.  He says he has built relationships with many of the 31 cities in the counties that have police departments.  

Speaking at one of those events Wednesday night in the North Dallas home of Ann Margolin, Cannaday said the sheriff's department, which has a $130 million budget and oversees more than 2,000 employees, needs a CEO type who has experience creating strategic plans and managing a budget.  A strategic plan, he says, will enable the sheriff to go to the county commissioners to get the funding needed for the department.

He criticized the current jail administration for medical issues that include sending people back into the community with communicable diseases -- issues that have resulted in judicial oversight of the jail -- and for a lengthy booking system that takes police officers off the streets.  Average book time should be cut down from four hours to about 20 minutes, he said.

Cannaday says that he will able to establish relationships across party lines, with a Democratic district attorney and with Democrats on the commissioners court because of his experience and because "law enforcement is not a partisan issue."

However, county elections are partisan.  Asked what might trip up Cannaday in the election, his campaign consultant Peggy Lundy said, "If Obama has a landslide" in Dallas County.

Lundy said a dozen or so professional police groups will be represented at next week's endorsement show.

Ann Margolin, who hosted the neighborhood event Wednesday night, is a member of the Dallas Park Board and is widely speculated to be a candidate for Dallas City Council to replace the term-limited Mitchell Rasansky, when he steps down.

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