A Democrat who was once one of the state’s biggest vote-getters is hoping to run as an outsider in the race for governor. Former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz has been out of the public eye for a while, working as an attorney and a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She’s back, exploring a run for governor.

Bysiewicz is our guest this Sunday on Face the State and I asked her a question many Democrats face. How will she respond to criticism that electing Susan Bysiewicz would be a third term of Governor Malloy? “I am different in that I haven’t served a day with Dan Malloy.”

The field of gubernatorial candidates and those exploring a run is overwhelmingly male, so I asked Bysiewicz about gender as a factor in the race this year, that some pundits are calling the year of the woman. Last week on Face the State Republican Themis Klarides downplayed the importance of gender, but Bysiewicz talked it up, calling 2018 the “year of the Democratic woman.”

Bysiewicz also talked about her last two runs in 2010 and 2012 that ended in disappointment after leading all the 2010 candidates including then Governor Jodi Rell in the polls. What did she learn from those losses? Tune in Sunday at 11.

We’re also joined by State Senators Max Flexer and Kevin Kelly to talk about the state of the state address, and college politicos Ty Seymour and Stevie Della-Giustina for the millenials’ take on 2018.

Our flashback? Governor Ella Grasso and the Blizzard of 1978. We have some 40 year old videotape from the WFSB archives. That picture at the bottom is from my photo album: my parents’ Ford Torino wagon in our driveway in Norwood, Massachusetts.