When First Selectman Rudy Marconi—who is exploring a candidacy for governor—attended a Democracy for America meeting in Norwalk on Wednesday night, the 13 policy wonks gathered around the table asked his opinion on the likes of recent gubernatorial vetoes and how to improve communication between the state's capitol and its towns.

Then the liberal grassroots group's organizer asked Marconi how he planned to compete in a race in which all fellow Democratic hopefuls have wider name recognition than he does.

Marconi replied that he understands that name recognition will be an up-hill trek, but he is on a mission to establish himself as a statewide contender.

"You're no longer in the farms—you're in the majors—and you have to play that game," he said.

Fellow democratic explorers, including Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, State Sen. Gary LeBeau, former state house speaker James Amann and former U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont have well-established name recognition. Outgoing Stamford mayor Dannel Malloy was a Democratic candidate in the last gubernatorial primary.

But Marconi has spent the past decade working, as he says in his stump speech, "where the rubber meets the road." As he told the Norwalk group, he is a Democrat repeatedly re-elected in a Republican town, a compromiser, an experienced budget builder and a regional leader. But that doesn't mean anybody outside of Fairfield County has heard of him, and the state's Southwest corner doesn't get to elect Connecticut's next governor.

To expand his name recognition among state democrats, who will need to give him 15 percent of the votes at the caucus next May for him to run in the primary, Marconi devotes two to three nights a week to visiting Democratic town committees around the state.

There, he lays out his views and casts his lower-key profile as an asset rather than a handicap.

"I am not a political insider," he said in an interview. And he told the DFA group, "No matter how many times I may go to Hartford and testify, they don't seem to listen."

At his exploratory committee's campaign headquarters in downtown Ridgefield, communications coordinator Dave Goldenberg and campaign manager Mark Robinson keep a state map tacked to the wall riddled with push pins that identify where Marconi has spoken and where the campaign has connections.

And they keep close track of internal fund-raising goals, though they won't divulge their progress publicly until they next have to file with the state Election Enforcement Commission on Jan. 10. Marconi needs to raise $250,000 from individual donors in increments of $100 or less to qualify for the public financing funds that will allow him to run a primary campaign.

Most of Marconi's financial support so far has come from Ridgefield, Goldenberg said, and he has another fundraiser in town on Saturday. But they also hope his state-wide travels will expand the donor pool.

Marconi, for one, seems to feel confident that his efforts will net him, at the very least, a viable shot at the governor's office in 2010.

"None of the Hartford DTC had ever heard of Rudy Marconi," he said by way of example. "I was there a month and a half ago. I presented with all the other candidates, and I established myself, maybe not as a front runner, but as a person who had an absolute right to be at the table," he said.

"I've had people call me and follow up, and I've been invited back."