Alex Rikleen, a Wayland High School class of 2005 graduate, announced his run for the U.S. Senate on May 27.
Rikleen said the idea developed gradually; the confirmation of several key administration officials was the moment it transitioned from theoretical to practical. Before the election, “Democrats said we were facing an existential threat to our country but now they’re not acting like it,” he said.
The political cost to the Democratic party for taking a more obstructionist stance does not trouble Rikleen. “ If there’s a cost then it’s worth it, but I don’t think there will be,” he said. “Anyone who thinks there will be political pushback to using these tools, I think they’re reading the room wrong.”
One problem with the current system, Rikleen said, is that that Senate committees have the ability to slow the administration’s agenda during confirmation hearings, such as denying unanimous consent, placing holds on all nominations or forcing quorum calls. This only takes place in the Senate. “To fight some of what the administration is doing requires the right people to be in these positions,” he said.
Growing up in Wayland helped shape Rikleen. He recalled spending a lot of time in the Wayland high School history department, getting familiar with a subject which would become his major during college. “The decision to go into teaching after that was pretty logical for me,” he said. “Having worked at summer camp and having been a TA, working with kids was the natural next step.”
When not hanging out in the WHS history department, Rikleen was on the water. He was one of the first to do a full eight seasons as a rower for the Wayland-Weston Crew. He remembers the relationships with the teachers and coaches more than the classes themselves. “Mr. Krasnoo helped me learn some very important things about how I learn which helped me in school and beyond,” he said.
The iconic poem “First, They Came” was one of his strongest childhood school memories. “When I think about where I saw it the most, I remember it on the wall in Claypit Hill Elementary School,” he said, despite also having seen it on the walls of his temple. “It wasn’t just Hebrew schools that taught it; Wayland schools taught that lesson.”
School start times
Rikleen demonstrated in his sophomore year at Wayland High that he was never was one to sit on the sidelines regarding public policy. With a classmate, he kickstarted the initiative calling for the school district to begin high school classes later and elementary schools earlier. The two of them attended PTO meetings, gave presentations which contributed to the School Committee launching an exploratory investigation.
“We were 14 and tired,” he said. “I knew more about melatonin and the sleep cycle at that age than any person should.” While they would not see the results before they graduated, the School Committee voted in November 2018 to change the start and end times.
Teaching history during the 2015-2016 school year was trickier than expected. The area Rikleen focused on was the first half of the 1900s, and part of a history teacher’s job, he noted, is to connect the past to the present, which at that time included the rising popularity of the MAGA movement.
“I know what the times deserved to be compared to — I know what I saw,” he said. He knew that making that comparison would make him a locus of controversy in any school district. As a history teacher, “I was going to be in a situation where I would either feel like I wasn’t doing my job properly or adding a lot of extra hassle and stress,” he said.
Pivoting to sports
Remembering the poem and his teaching experience, it seemed like a very good time to take the risk and pursue another passion. “I had been doing sportswriting as a hobby for a few years and I loved the strategy of it and the math puzzle,” he said. After working as a secondary school teacher for ten years, he pivoted to become a sportswriter and analyst for multiple publications and companies including DraftKings. He’s currently teaching a class on the topic at Framingham State University.
Given what’s happening now, politics strikes Rikleen as a niche underserved market, and he feels that he has the needed skill set because he likes solving problems and figuring out the correct answer. “Whether it’s trying to get an extra hour of sleep in the morning or predicting which basketball player is going to have a better season this year… when you’re into it, it’s easy.”
Rikleen uses pink as his campaign’s primary color to differentiate himself from incumbent Democrats. “Blue is my secondary color but right off the bat, I want to show I’m different,” he said. And why pink? “It’s my oldest child’s favorite color, and a lot of why I’m doing this is for my children and the world they’re going to grow up in,” he said. He also suspects part of it was because his elementary school principal always wore something purple, which “impacted my willingness to wear any color.”
