Dear Senator Clinton,

Now that the dust has settled, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for being the first viable female candidate for President of the United States. You see, I was once tempted to follow in your footsteps. I admit that I saw an awful lot of myself in those college letters of yours that were published in the Times because I too once went through “three and a half metamorphoses” in a single semester and generally suffer from unquenchable ambition/crippling verbosity. However, now that your crash-and-burn guinea pig of a campaign (seriously: a guinea pig on fire) has put me off the idea of personally working for change within the system, I can now direct the full spectrum of my energies toward trying to be as edgy as possible at all times.

Now that I’m a hipster instead of a would-be politician, my quality of life is a whole heck of a lot higher. For example, the money I used to spend subscribing to reputable political journals now gets blown on packs of Camels. This change constitutes an improvement to my daily life in that Camels make me look hip whilst smoking outside of divey music venues, help me stay gaunt enough to rock skinny jeans (even though they are totally on the way out), and ensure that I will probably die before I get too old to look hip and gaunt whilst wearing skinny jeans (even though they are totally on the way out).

Additionally, the time I used to dedicate to checking out online polling data is now spent commenting on my Icelandic boyfriend’s music blog, which constitutes an obvious improvement to my everyday life in that he is ICELANDIC. My relationship with my parents has also gotten better by leaps and bounds. Now instead of causing strife at family meals by attempting to convince my fiscally conservative father to “vote for change,” I do not eat regularly and seldom speak to my father. I do, however, steal his threadbare v-neck undershirts to wear with my metallic-teal leggings.

In short, Senator, because you were the first, last, best hope for a female president in my young adulthood, and because your campaign was such an abject failure, I am now thoroughly disillusioned enough to abandon the message and embrace the message tee. No worries, though. I will definitely be voting for Obama because Arcade Fire is.

Phew!
Katie Lawrence
Wellesley College Class of 2009

PS to Nancy Pelosi, whom I’ve cc’ed: Please never take it into your head to run for president as I think you may be capable either or winning or of losing with your dignity still intact. Both of those outcomes might inspire me to model myself after you, which would make me deeply regret my new tat.

PPS to Jennifer Granholm, also cc’ed: Blame Canada, chica.