PODCAST: Octogenarian challenges Sen. Whitehouse

photo of Patricia Fontes via UpriseRI.com

by Tara Granahan, WPRO

She’s an anti-war activist.  She’s an East Providence native.  She’s a former school teacher. And she’s 81 years old.

Patricia Fontes is also the Democratic challenger to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and wrote extensively about her decision to run in an op-ed for UpriseRI.com.

Why, at this point in her life, is she running for a seat in Washington?  Fontes tells WPRO’s Tara Granahan she made her decision after a brief conversation with the senator himself.

When she told Whitehouse she wasn’t satisfied with his increasingly “warlike” positions and said it was impossible for her to vote for him, the Senator asked, ’Well, who will you vote for then?” Fontes later concluded that she’d run and vote for herself.

LISTEN TO HER CONVERSATION WITH TARA BELOW:

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