Rudy Marconi
Update: Listen to today’s interview here.
by John Dankosky - Often, when a dark-horse candidate for major office gets publicity, it’s for the one thing that he or she can get press on. The one issue, one slogan, one quirk. Ridgefield First Selectman, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rudy Marconi has done better than that for himself. He’s moved from: “The Guy With the Puppet Videos” to “The Tolls Guy.”
His early incarnation was chronicled by WNPR’s Colin McEnroe (not surprising, given Colin’s stature as our “Puppetry Correspondent”). Colin became so enamored with Marconi that he vowed to support his candidacy – only to withdraw it this past weekend over “pet issues.”
While Marconi, who got just 1% in the most recent Quinnipiac poll on the governor’s race, probably loves any attention that puppet-obsessed bloggers throw his way – he’s probably happier with the news this last week. A Transportation Committee hearing (chronicled here by WNPR’s Jeff Cohen) gave him a chance to take center stage on his primary campaign issue: Bringing tolls back to Connecticut’s highways. Here’s some of what he told the committee:
“The people who travel that New York Boston corridor are continuously getting a free ride. We do not have a problem as individuals paying tolls on the Mass turnpike or the NY State Thruway. Or even when we go to the airports in New York. But yet we’re giving people a free ride through this state. I think it’s time to end that and I think it’s time to address the revenue in this state.”
Today, Where We Live, we’ll talk tolls with Marconi, along with his plans for health care reform – which are centered on tort reform – and his ideas for getting the state out of its fiscal hole.
Join the conversation with Rudy Marconi today from 9-10 a.m. at 860-275-7266, email wherewelive@wnpr.org or tweet us @wherewelive.
