It’s the day before election day and my friend posted a headshot of banker Mark Carney and said that he just couldn’t get there. It would take a special kind of Liberal for him to depart from the NDP camp and Mark Carney wasn’t it.

Several weeks back that same friend had posted a picture of Pierre Poilievre, saying he hated him so much he was actually considering voting Liberal for the first time ever. Apparently, polls being what they are, the fear of a Conservative victory is no longer enough to get him on board with Carney.

I still suspect he’s in the minority. If the polls are even moderately on track we’re in for something that’s kind of the opposite of the 1993 federal election — where the third and regional parties will see their seat numbers decline and we’ll be looking at a larger sea of red and blue.

As my friend struggled to get on board with Carney, I sort of went on this clear trajectory from Carney — not even 10 years my senior — making me feel like I’ve done nothing meaningful with my life to thinking he’s the guy we need right now. But I worry. I worry because my head says I should be worried although my heart tells me it’s all gonna be just fine.

The heart currency kind of comes from the vibe. Two separate people told me they were voting for Carney because “he has an energy.” I knew what they meant — “energy” in that spiritual new age sense. He’s got a good vibe. Your head can be filled with all sorts of pros and cons about giving a whole bunch of power to a man who’s never been elected to anything, but he’s got an energy.

He really does. Right now, that feels like enough. But I worry that running the country is his own personal passion project, a kind of academic exercise. What you get from politicking is not just rallying support; you learn what’s going on with the voters, your stakeholders. One might think, as some advertisers do, that politicians tell voters what they should care about. But that only goes so far. We still have power and what we care about, how we live, and what our stresses are, matter. So getting five years (four?) of guaranteed governance feels a bit risky.

Risky for us. But we, I, trust Mark. Or, rather, we’re putting a lot of trust in him, right now. The hope is that when things get messy he’ll lean into that energy and use it to decide what to do — after listening, to us, to those with different ideas. Let’s hope it works.

Let’s hope.

We’re putting a whole lot of trust in you, Mark.

A few days ago I traveled two hours — each way — on public transit to a Carney rally. It was my second Carney rally of this election cycle. The first, a couple of weeks back, was in a cramped conference room and I was positioned well behind him, straining to get even a glimpse of the back of his head while shifting my gaze to avoid the bright television lights.

Even then, I had a sense of Carney as an introverted person who wasn’t particularly comfortable with this whole politics bit. When he rushed past me as he was leaving, furiously grabbing hands as he skirted through the crowd, I thought this is someone who’s plastered a smile on his face just to survive the evening. This was not a politician who was in it for the attention or the performance.

At the second rally, I somehow ended up close, with those much taller than me somehow parting to give me a clear unobstructed view. A rare moment in my life as a short person, I could just stand there and watch and listen. Carney has very good energy. At that moment, at least, during that speech, he had a very open energy. You felt he was somehow very unique and very special. I’ve been to many, many, many political speeches in my time. But Carney stands out.

But what happens when the vibe currency runs out. He’s going to ask us, as Canadians, to do some pretty radical things over the next couple of years and most Canadians will never see him up close — few will be able to say, “yeah, this sounds risky, it feels scary, but I’ve spent some time around this guy, and he’s got a good energy.” So what happens then?

Carney doesn’t have to just earn our trust on election day. He has to keep it up for the long term, because we don’t know him. He’s never been elected to anything before. We’ve got nothing to go on except the vibe. So he’s got to show us he’s in it for us. It’s not about competence. It’s about intention. It’s about, to quote his book title, values. It’s about are you really doing this for us.

And who is us. I had this awareness at the second rally, perhaps because I was looking for it, because I was actively reading the energy of the room, that I was not among people who were like me. I felt like none were poor or lower middle class or had ever really experienced poverty. I am not poor, but I am 50 years old and I have never owned a house. Money is such a constant struggle I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s just part of life, like breathing or doing laundry. Making sure you have enough to pay the rent is just part of the routine.

I worry about Mark and his detailed economic ideas because we’re inevitably going to get shifted around along with them, when his unchecked power comes into force. We’re trusting you, Mark, not to bruise us along the way.

There was supposed to be a third rally near me tonight, and this one actually would have been near me and not a two hour public transit ride away. But it was cancelled because of a mass casualty event. Carney still came to Vancouver, laid flowers and prayed with other politicians. It was the right thing to do and it was unsurprising not because Carney has good political advisors but because (I believe) he is a moral man.

Let’s hope it’s enough.