Vote 4 Christian...

Dear Christian,

I don't think we are acquainted, but I snapped a picture of your campaign poster while I was roaming the halls of your high school this past weekend. The poster itself arrested my attention for obvious reasons. It is the equivalent of a slobbery dog wagging its tail so hard it might break.

The typography and alignment beg some improvement, and about that hierarchy? The human eye is quite lazy and needs to be told what is important in media. Otherwise it will dart around and make up its own decisions about the essential message. Your poster's message aims to be simple, but the accents and embellishments around "Vote" and "4" lead the reader to think that you are concerned he/she might forget to cast a vote FOR someone. Or just go to school and amble about the halls and admire clumsily designed posters and not vote at all. Eeps.

Isn't "Christian" the most memorable part about your message? The parting gift, the coaster atop where they'll set their ice-cold drinks and remember the time they voted for Christian? Evidently not because the secondary clause of your message leaves us all with a lot to ponder. Your victory hinges on my vote, Christian, and your loss does, as well.

Except it doesn't. Because--and I know this may be flirting dangerously close with the pedantic, Christian, but whether or not people vote for you has very little to do with your eventual win or loss. People will vote for you all day long. Vote approval as you strut by with new shoes, vote no as you attempt to take a seat at their lunch table. They will vote you into their online friend circle and just as quickly vote you off the island of people they tell the real stuff to, the stuff that will never show up in a filtered photo with the caption #blessed that you upvote or choose not to like.

I've been voted up the flag pole and voted down at half-mast plenty in my career. My job is evaluated twice annually by student voters. I feel as though I am campaigning for student council 9 months out of the year. I realized how unhealthy that was so I decided not to run for student council anymore, Christian. I decided to walk with assurance of the calling on my life; I decided to do life for a Godience of one. I have a purpose and it's not all that jazzy, but it doesn't rely on anyone's vote to ensure I am winning or losing. It just requires that I try really hard to walk within that calling, caring a bit more about what Heaven thinks of me than anyone else.

I like to think that your poster might still come in handy, though. If you're called to fulfill that office, Christian, which I expect that you are, maybe change the final clause to say, "or You'll Lose."

Yours in support, Kendra