New Mexico News
| MEET DARREN WHITE, REPUBLICAN |
| Posted by () on May 21 2008 at 4:08 PM |
Darren White has an uncommon advantage in a political campaign.
As the sheriff of Bernalillo County, in the state's biggest media market, he's in the newspaper and on TV news regularly, often talking about his fight against the bad guys.
Name recognition aside, why is a cop qualified to serve in Congress?
"I think I understand the needs and the struggles of this community because I deal with them every day," White said. "That's invaluable experience."
As further preparation for Congress, White points to the five years he spent as Gov. Gary Johnson's Department of Public Safety secretary ("800 people, a $70 million budget") and to the months he spent driving a cab and listening to the gamut of people's problems while he ran for sheriff.
"Every politician should drive a cab," he said.
White grew up in New York, just north of the city, where his father, a staunch Democrat, sat him down every Sunday morning to watch the political week-in-review shows. White jokes that he was an adult before he learned that members of the other party weren't actually known as "damn Republicans."
White dreamed of playing professional baseball, and he got an athletic scholarship to Ranger College, a junior college in Texas.
He was a talented center fielder but a terrible student, and he lost his scholarship after the first year. Looking for money to continue college, White enlisted in the Army and spent two years as a Stinger missile operator in the 82nd Airborne Division.
He left the Army after he injured his knee in a parachute jump and decided to become a police officer. White credits the military with "growing me up" as well as developing his political identity as a Republican. Ronald Reagan was president during his service, and he was impressed by the party's funding of the military.
Now, as he's launched his congressional campaign, White says he's dissatisfied with how members of both parties conduct themselves and says as a congressman he would bring a more civil tone to political debates.
"You watch as it becomes more and more venomous— who can score the most political points instead of working on the issues," White said. "It's just the constant stone-throwing. It's maddening and it's disheartening."
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