What Happens On November 7th?

Let's play a game. It's innocuous, and we don't have to play out loud. You can do this completely in your head if you wish. But for the sake of this brief blog post, do me a favor and play along at home (or work) in whatever manner makes you comfortable.

Here's the setup: it's November 7th, 8 AM. The alarm has gone off, you've showered and gotten coffee in you, and are in the process of beginning your day. And a glorious day it is, too, because the first thing you did when you woke up was flip on the TV or fire up the Internet and discover that your guy, your candidate, won the presidential election walking away. Four years of your particular brand of policy now awaits you.

So, after the fist pumps and excited Facebook posts, after the Tweets and emails and happy dances, after it's all said and done, you are now about to go out and live your life.

Here's the game: how will that life be different?

That's it. Just that one little thought experiment. How will your life be different come November 7th, if your candidate gets elected?

I've heard the rhetoric - this is a game-changer of an election, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for America. Based on what I've seen and heard and read, that rhetoric has been embraced by the general populace - or was fueled by the general populace. Either way, there is a sense of destiny, of futures either arriving or departing pending the outcome of our tabulated votes.

If that is true, if we are in fact about to usher in a new era of the American story, then the victors should wake up with new purpose. They should wake up with a decidedly different direction for their lives. If the stakes are that high, the outcomes should be too.

So play along with me. How will you be different when your guy wins? How will you lead us into our new future?

The nation waits. The nation watches.

What will you do differently?