File under "There Is Hope For Me": Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz's National Security Advisor is an Art Historian!

Breath a sigh of sweet relief, world. There is hope for a 30-something with a Bachelors Degree in Art History (with a concentration in Modern Art) like me! It looks like Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz (I like to think of him as America's favorite Canadian) had found his advisor on national security and she is a doctor in Art History! Now if only I liked politics...

Senator Cruz (of Texas, if you don't know... Which I apparently didn't and had to look it up- I told you I don't like politics) has acquired the talent of Dr. Victoria Coates, a PhD (ahem, she is a doctor which is a real thing) in Art History (she is a "cultural historian" which sounds pretty fancy to me) and author of books like "David's Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art" and co-authored "The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection". She comes to us via The University of Pennsylvania (by way of Trinity College in Hartford with a BA in Art History in 1990 and Williams College with an MA in Art History in 1992) with her concentration in Italian Renaissance in 1998.

She got her start in the glamorous world of politics from good old Donald Rumsfeld (Remember him? He was Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford from 1975-77 and President George W. Bush from 2001-06). Ms. Coates was the editor for Rumsfeld's book "Known and Unknown: A Memoir" in 2007, and from that moment forward, it was easy street for her. She became Governor Rick Perry's "national security expert" for a hot minute (5 months, I believe) though having no history in politics or even the military (She could have obtained a double major in Political Science while in college but she missed it "by one class credit"). She also had a brief stint as the curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 2010 to 2013 before she became Mr. Cruz's go-to-person on the security of our country.

I am at a complete loss for words to describe how I feel about this. On one hand: I am happy because there is something else out there to do in the world with a degree in Art History that doesn't involve 1) working in a super competitive field, 2) working with snot-nosed kids and 3) working with colleagues in a field that think they are better than the next historian... Three things that is keeping me from furthering my career in the arts. But, then I start to think how this woman could make not only us women look bad but also put those in the art community as the new laughing-stock of the academic world. I will forever hear from people questioning my decision on putting myself through college to get a "useless degree."

Now that I think of it, there is no hope for me. I hate politics. Pass. But, good luck Victoria... You are going to need it.