How would you imagine YOURSELF winning the Electoral College?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

November 7, 2040
1:30 AM
The crowd roared inside the main dining room of the Victorian-era restaurant as they waited to see him arrive.  The chicken and buttered noodles were long gone, but nobody had mellowed out from gluttony yet.  There was only standing room inside, and more throngs of onlookers stood outside the building.  The other restaurant across the street, with its Bavarian architecture and adjacent hotel, was equally crowded.  At the Cobo Center in Detroit and the Michigan state Capitol, more crowds watched television screens set up on stage.   Until now, few people in the farming community and tourist trap of about 5,000 believed it could happen.  But now the map on TV, with states lit up in red and blue, had proven them wrong.  "He's done it!" one of them shouted excitedly.  "He's really done it!" 

Oldiesfreak1854, the popular Republican governor of Michigan, had just been elected the 48th President of the United States.

Upstairs, the governor finished the Vernors he had toasted with his wife and skimmed his acceptance speech one last time.  He had waited for his Democratic opponent to call him and to give his concession speech to his own supporters.  Now, with a clear Electoral College majority and 51 percent of the national popular vote, it was time for the president-elect to claim his prize.  But before he went down, he kissed his beautiful wife, her bright red lipstick smearing.  As he made his way downstairs with his wife, children, and mother, he thought about how he had made it to this moment, and how proud he was to have won such a clear and commanding victory.  Tonight, he hoped, was the end of the Clinton Coalition, the dawning of the new Republican majority he had longed so hard to create.  It hadn't been easy; he had been forced to defend his conservative credentials on his way to the nomination against a series of opponents.  His past religious affiliations had been called into question by Catholic voters.  And Democrats had called him every dirty name in the book, accusing him of racism, sexism, and homophobia and claiming he was a "reverse Robin Hood," a stalking horse for the rich who would destroy the middle class.

The music blared and confetti rolled down as he made his way up to the front stage in the dining room.  He grabbed arms with his wife, along with his running mate and his wife, for a photo-op.  Then he gave his speech, the speech he had been waiting to make ever since his landslide reelection as governor.

"Tonight," he said, "America has rejected the 'me first, country second' politics of the past and chosen the 'country first, me second' politics of the future.  And you helped make it happen."

Narrowest State Wins
PA (50-48%)
FL (51-48%)
NH (51-47%)
WI (51-47%)

Narrowest State Losses
VA (49-48%)
MN (49-48%)
NM (52-46%)
IL (52-46%)