More News Columnists

• Bill Slakey: As Trib closes, many questions remain unasked
• Phill Casaus: Don't cry for us, Albuquerque; it was worth it
• Joline Gutierrez Krueger: My Wall of Fame holds memories of people, stories that have mattered

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Joe Carraro couldn't read from a prepared text if you put a gun to his temple.

"When I speak," he says, "it's from the heart."

Joe Carraro doesn't know how to ask people for campaign contributions.

"I think it was the way I was brought up," he readily agrees. "The big thing about my father was this: We work hard. We get an education. We never ask anybody for anything. Here, in politics, you've gotta ask for money."

Joe Carraro can do a lot of things, has done a lot of things, except this: Play it safe.

"I question everything," he concedes, with a happy lilt in his voice. "And I get in trouble."

Thankfully, there's still room in politics for guys like Carraro, although usually only on the local level: city councils and legislative seats, county commissions and mayors' offices.

But the U.S. House? Senate? Governor? Uh-uh. Grab at those brass rings, and you basically make a prefabbed deal with, well, the devil: You get a key to the executive washroom, providing you agree to slick down that wild hair and let someone in the backroom vet your actions for political gain and loss before they're ever delivered.

That's the trend Carraro is bucking as he gears up for what could be his last chance to make a concussive blast in New Mexico politics.

The Albuquerque legislator is running for the Republican nomination in the 1st Congressional District, a spot that had seemed all but washed and waxed for Bernalillo County Sheriff and GOP insider Darren White.

The thought of the voluble White and the voluble-plus Carraro engaging in a two-fisted primary has reporters stocking up on batteries for their tape recorders.

Neither man has a well-defined campaign strategy or stance, but one difference is clear: White apparently has the blessing of GOP pooh-bahs, a very big deal, and Carraro does not.

Then again, nothing new there. "Maverick Republican" seems stitched to Carraro's clip file in the Legislature, where he has been a state senator since the 1980s.

Carraro's a GOP loyalist, but he's enough of a loose cannon — and has lost enough when he has ventured outside his West Side district — to reveal more than a few dents.

Dings that make him vulnerable. Dings that make him very beatable.

But quotable all the way.

Carraro, 62, understands all this, of course, but it's clear he doesn't know the meaning of no, let alone no chance. In many ways, he's a vintage-issue pol — a throwback to the days when office-seekers threw their arms around voters' necks and chatted about the weather or the price of bread rather than dialing up Point 3C from their white paper on health care reform.

He comes by it honestly. Carraro, the son of a New York City police officer, arrived in Albuquerque to attend school, returned to the Big Apple for a time and then U-turned to start up a pizza joint with some college buds near the University of New Mexico campus.

It was harrowing: They basically made their pizzas in a garage off Central Avenue, with Carraro zipping through the alley to deliver them in an Alfa Romeo.

"I wonder how many we burned," he says. "We really did make the best pizza, but they were the worst in the beginning."

He made enough good ones, and had enough personality, to convince people he was worth their votes: the big paisan can tell you a story. And for more than two decades, he has been at the Legislature — tilting at windmills, battling on issues, attracting attention with that breathless, lemme-tell-ya style that can get a man as far as Santa Fe.

But breathless and lemme-tell-ya aren't easy sells to political action committee or, evidently, to the consumers of million-dollar media buys. If Carraro's formula worked in the big races, there would be a lot more Joe Carraros.

"The power that I've had," Carraro acknowledges, "is my voice. A single voice in the wilderness."

We'll soon know if anyone can hear him.