Catherine Bertini stands with Vice President George Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush in Syracuse in 1986.
Eddie Mahe tribute by the American Association of Political Consultants (2016)
Politics
When Catherine Bertini was 13, her father, Fulvio, ran for Cortland City Council. He designed and printed his own campaign literature and asked her to recruit friends and organize distribution. She did. After he won, she attended almost every city council meeting with him, learning the basics of how city government is run. Less than two years later, he sent her to the statewide Teen Age Republican School of Politics, held that year at Colgate University and created and run by Mary Ann T. Fish. There, Catherine learned enough about state government that she was convinced that she wanted to go into government as a career.
She was also inspired by literature her father presented to her, including the writings of Edmund Burke. Under her senior picture in the Cortland High School yearbook, she said her ambition was to be a “government worker” and her senior quote was from Burke: “All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”
