Lamont makes his case as a businessman: Democrat can barely contain his energy in swing through region
New London - Ned Lamont keeps interrupting. He cannot help himself.
Standing in the doorway of the pilot house of one of the high-speed passenger ferries owned by Cross Sound Ferry, the Democratic candidate for governor is peppering the company's owner and staff with questions, sometimes so quickly he seems barely able to wait for the answers.
How has the economic downturn hurt business?
What's your arrangement with the nearby casinos?
What would help trigger more work at struggling State Pier, just in front of the ferry's bow?
How much commercial traffic are you pulling off the highways and onto ferries bound to Long Island?
And finally, repeatedly, most importantly, this one: What do you need from me?
Lamont, the 2006 candidate for the U.S. Senate, is now locked in a competitive race for the Democratic nomination for governor. Like most of his rivals, he is eager to demonstrate his affinity for businesses, and an aptitude for creating and preserving jobs in a time of high unemployment and even higher unease among voters.
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Lamont seemed eager on the campaign trail Thursday, even as, it seemed, he had not yet mastered some of its cadences.
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Where conversations at campaign stops with local business often sound rote, Lamont seemed the enthusiastic interrogator of Wronowski and Richard MacMurray, Cross Sound's general manager.
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Wronowski said he hoped Lamont could use his background in business ... to improve the climate for employers. Cross Sound Ferry and the Wronowski family's booming shipyard business, which just received a $1.4 million federal grant to assist its expansion, employ around 400 people.
"One of the worst states in terms of business-friendly is Connecticut, and one of the worst cities at being business friendly in Connecticut, from my point of view, is New London," Wronowski said, in a reference to a fitful history of conflict with the municipal government here.
"So," he added, "we hope you win."
This is precisely the message Lamont has used in courting Democratic primary voters, who are hoping to choose a nominee who can appeal to business-minded voters in November, and bring the party its first gubernatorial win since 1986.
A couple things that I have always liked about Lamont and that you rarely hear, if at all, from professional politicians is Lamont willing to listen and learn from people and his willingness to ask how he can improve his campaign. He's not a dictator; he's a leader who employs a partnership style of leadership. That style is what Connecticut needs right now to get out of our economic woes.
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