First, a little background: I was a Kennedy man. I had a button as a big as a dinner plate.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/kennedy-buttons-bert-oct-1960-osu-game1-300x264.jpg\" "\\"kennedy")
Bert Stratton w\/ Kennedy buttons, Ohio Stadium, 1960<\/p><\/div>\n
I started my own country (on paper) in sixth grade and elected presidents and representatives. My country was a solace, because in the real world I couldn\u2019t run for president because a) I wasn\u2019t 35 and b) I was Jewish.<\/p>\n
Now presumably a Jew could win. But let me be clear: I won’t start out at school-board level or even vice president. Trump taught me to go big or go home. My Little<\/span> League teammate Joel Hyatt (Cleveland Heights High ’68) ran for U.S. Senate and got clobbered, maybe because he hadn’t paid his dues; he hadn’t run for lesser offices.<\/p>\n Lee Fisher wins state senate seat, 1982<\/p><\/div>\n Lee Fisher (Shaker Heights High \u201969) paid dues. I saw him at a civic club meeting in Collinwood in 1982: six neighbors, Lee and me. (I was a Sun Newspaper reporter.)\u00a0 Fisher eventually climbed to lieutenant governor. Then he got clobbered for the U.S. Senate.\u00a0 He paid\u00a0 dues, though. Give him that.\u00a0 [What’s he up to now? . . . Interim dean of Cleveland State law school.]<\/p>\n I’m willing to pay no dues. Again, the Trump influence.<\/p>\n My American<\/strong><\/span> history teacher at Brush High said Stratton<\/em> is a good political name. (My teacher’s name was Americo Betori. He should have run for mayor of Cleveland, about 1950, against Celebreeze. Battle of the vowels.)<\/p>\n Remember that name. No, not Americo Betori<\/em>. Stratton!<\/em> (Mr. Betori died three years ago. I could identify 98 capitals and states on a blank map — my strong suit. My weak suit: being personable. Mr. Betori wrote on my final report card, “Cheer up, Bert, and give the world a chance!”\u00a0 Good advice. I try to follow it. I might give the world a chance to vote for Stratton<\/em> in 2020.\u00a0 No experience necessary.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n A version of this appeared here 10\/31\/12.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When a relative of mine ran for school board and lost, my father said, \u201cDon\u2019t run again.\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to get a loser\u2019s reputation.\u201d My relative didn\u2019t run again. I, too, play by my dad’s rules. I might run for president in 2020. Not saying yet. First, a little background: I was a Kennedy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-of-age","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24768"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24781,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24768\/revisions\/24781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/kennedy-buttons-togther-183x300.jpg\" "\\"kennedy")
My mother<\/strong><\/span> said I could run and win. She duped me! Mom, my man, Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut, couldn\u2019t even run. Newsweek <\/em>said the country wasn\u2019t ready for the Ribman, even for veep.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Fisher-Lee-1982-win-state-senate-race-124x300.jpg\" "\\"Fisher")