MIDDLETOWN — Dannel Malloy, who is exploring a run for governor, spoke of his long-term dedication to government service and his desire to grow the state’s economy Friday at a fund-raiser for his candidacy held at Luce Restaurant.

He acknowledged the job of the state’s next chief executive would not be an easy one — “You would have to be crazy to want to be governor,” he said — but compared the state’s problems, and his desire to fix them, to a fire that a well-trained firefighter would want to contain.

“This is a fire I am prepared to run to — to rebalance our state, to straighten out our books,” he said.

Malloy, 54, told a crowd of about 40 that included Portland First Selectman Susan Bransfield and state House Majority Leader Denise Merrill about his accomplishments in his 14 years as mayor of Stamford.

In that job, he said, he tripled investment in infrastructure, started a citywide prekindergarten program, and maintained the city’s triple-A bond rating while not raising taxes by more than the rate of inflation.

He listed some of his priorities as closing the achievement gap, building a first-class transportation system, lowering electricity rates, and multiplying jobs, adding that between 1989 and 2008 the only two states that did not experience job growth were Michigan and Connecticut.

“We have failed to grow our economy,” he said, noting that the nation’s insurance capital is no longer Hartford but now Des Moines, Iowa.....