Transcript
Carter
0:00
Did we want to decide who was going to host?
Carter
0:05
I got the questions, you know, from Discord and from Twitter.
Carter
0:09
So does that make me the host for this one? Or are you going to host because you've got all the data?
Corey
0:15
You can clearly see that the red light is already on. Oh,
Corey
0:18
sake. And that this is happening. You
Carter
0:20
You know what? That should be right center where
Carter
0:22
you can see it.
Carter
0:26
Can you stop this one and we'll start again?
Corey
0:30
could i for sure could okay
Carter
0:32
i'm standing by just give me the finger thingy and i'll do the intro i'm
Corey
0:37
i'm gonna tell you something though what's
Corey
0:39
gives me a lot of joy to see you not able to do this very basic task so we're gonna leave this all in oh
Carter
0:45
you after our last feedback from the last patreon episode you are gonna do this so buttoned down everybody is gonna be like that was the most professional episode of the strategist with cory and steven i've ever heard you
Carter
0:58
know that that's where you know because you you can't we can't recover after that last patreon special that
Corey
1:05
that was a very popular polarizing
Carter
1:07
was a polarizing polarizing episode that was a very polarizing it was
Corey
1:10
was a polarizing episode
Corey
1:12
you know i think your enjoyment of it was directly tied to like how severely you were watching the um the
Corey
1:18
the proceedings because i you know i
Corey
1:21
i think it was good satire but if you weren't familiar with the source material when
Carter
1:25
when we open maybe we should to remind the audience that we've never cared and
Carter
1:28
and we do it for ourselves do
Carter
1:31
you want to do that or do you want me to do that i
Corey
1:36
we're we're now a minute and a half into the episode so i think we're starting uh you said you would this is
Corey
1:43
i i said we could start over the music i didn't say we were going to start i i
Corey
1:48
i i assume i already edited it in earlier welcome
Carter
1:51
welcome to episode episode 1028 with Corey and Steven still lacking a host. But good news, people now know that Zane had a baby.
Carter
2:00
And it's all about him. So Corey and I are still here slugging away.
Corey
2:07
I've got kids. You've got kids. We're
Carter
2:10
We're here. We never let them interfere with our job.
Carter
2:15
So we're going to do a big episode. Or did I tell you I was in Panorama?
Carter
2:21
We're going to go outside. Listen, here's
Corey
2:25
We figured we'd use Zane's absence as an opportunity to really dig in on the Alberta election that's coming up, 2023.
Corey
2:34
It's going to occur on May 28th, barring something weird happening. Weird being either the dropping of the writ early, I think super possible, right? Right. And barring the government
Corey
2:46
government deciding, no, they're going to put aside the fixed election date and not call it until maybe as much as a year away, which I think is super unlikely. Yeah,
Carter
2:55
Yeah, they just released the calendar today.
Carter
2:57
So I'm pretty sure it's going to come early.
Corey
3:01
Well, February 23rd is the budget.
Carter
3:03
Yeah. And then they're done. They're out of session in March.
Carter
3:06
So what would you do? I
Carter
3:09
don't know. I'm not a political expert or anything, but I can't see just letting dead air from the end of March to the beginning of May.
Corey
3:23
Well, hold on. Oh my God, we're already going down rabbit holes. It is possible that it's done and they just treat it like an election outside of the election period, which means that they have fewer restrictions and can even, frankly, do things like run government advertising as they effectively run a campaign, almost try to do a variant of what Stephen Harper did in 2015, which
Corey
3:42
which I'll remind you didn't work. Yeah,
Carter
3:43
Yeah, I mean, that's interesting because there are no spending limits for the parties or the individual candidates during the pre-RIT period up until they drop the RIT. And then they have a four-week period. And if you're in a riding, I think it's $53,000 and it's a few million dollars. I can't remember how many millions it is if you're the party during the four weeks. But you'd be shocked to find out. I don't know that because I'm not running a campaign for one of the parties. So there you go. Didn't need to know it. Don't know it.
Carter
4:10
But yeah, that'd be interesting because they've all got lots of money. I mean, they raised how much money in the last quarter? Like, they've got all the money in the world. They can run this election four times over and still have enough cash to do it. So why
Carter
4:21
why not burn some cash in the non-capped period?
Carter
4:25
And Daniel Smith is the type of leader that learns from the negative experiences of others. So when Stephen Harper does something stupid, I can see her doing that same thing.
Corey
4:35
Well, it wouldn't be the same thing. Because what he did there was he extended the writ period to like 60 plus days, a long time ago now. This would be essentially just treating the pre-writ period as the de facto election.
Corey
4:47
But hey, let's just back this train entirely up. Let's talk a bit about what we're going to do today. We should
Carter
4:51
should do that. Yeah.
Corey
4:53
Yeah, we canvassed our listeners, you, our loyal listeners, for questions on the Alberta election. We went through them, we bucketed them, and we said, you know, ultimately, we
Corey
5:03
we want to talk about other stuff instead.
Corey
5:06
instead. yeah uh or two because maybe maybe we'll get to the we
Carter
5:09
we read your questions and thought
Carter
5:11
seriously seriously this is the best you could come up with we
Corey
5:15
read your questions and thought well maybe we need to give you more foundational information yeah
Corey
5:19
we read your questions it's it's
Corey
5:22
we're sorry we thought we were teaching you better along
Carter
5:25
way we read your questions and thought we're going to do two questions episodes in a month are we fucking nuts didn't happen no
Corey
5:33
no i i do think we need to talk a bit about the let's you and me for
Corey
5:37
the purposes of this conversation do some baselining which is not just with our audience but with each other here let's talk about what we see the 2023 election looking like we already talked a bit about the election date maybe we'll return to that here's
Corey
5:49
here's the basics in 2019 the ucp the conservative The conservative government won 63 seats. They're currently at 60. In 2019, the NDP won 24 seats. They're currently at 23. There's 87 seats in the legislature, 44 to win. That's the ballgame. You get 44, you
Corey
6:09
And so not to be too simple about it, that means the NDP in 2023 need
Corey
6:13
need to pick up 20 seats. They need to hold everything they won last time.
Corey
6:17
And they need to pick up 20 seats along the way. And almost all of those 20 seats, I think you and I would both agree, well, maybe almost all might be an exaggeration. The majority of those seats will have to come from Calgary, a city that the NDP won three in last time. So we're not talking about like marginal gains in Calgary. We're talking about a sea change in Calgary is what's going to be required for the NDP
Carter
6:39
NDP to win. So
Corey
6:40
So you've got your formulas. I got my formulas. Let's talk about where we think those 20 might come from as a bit of a starting point. Because any strategic conversation, any
Corey
6:48
any smart strategic conversation, you're narrowing your geography. Because at the end of the day, it's
Corey
6:54
it's not about being competitive in areas you're not competitive. It's about picking the areas you're going to win and winning within them.
Carter
7:00
Well, and I'd also like to just change one other thing, just one more setup piece, Corey, before we even go to that. and that is that 2015 isn't the model that we can look at so you can't look at the 2015 results and say oh here's how the ndp get to their their successful victory because they were facing off against a wild rose party and a pc party alberta liberal party in alberta and the alberta party each one of those parties had some skin in the game um now if you were to look even at the 2015 results with a merged wild rose and pc recognizing that of course not all of those votes are going to go there but the results would have been staggering uh staggeringly different basically it looks almost exactly what the same as
Carter
7:47
as what happened in 2019 in
Carter
7:50
2019 so so even if they did the same number because keep in mind in 2019 the ndp actually got more votes so i think in order to set this thing up properly, we need to reset the table that the winning margin and people get, you know, we talk about splitting. It's not about splitting the vote. It's about what number you have to achieve in order to win the riding. So
Carter
8:11
So the number in Calgary could be 35, 40% to win in 2015. And now in 2023, the number needs to be 50%. And that foundationally changes the NDP's chances in 2023 over 2015. So I wanted to preset that before I start going into the regional breakdown of how this all needs to break in.
Corey
8:38
Yeah, no, super useful because this list does not look like the path to victory for the NDP in 2015, where they did get a bit of a healthy margin there as well. They won 54 seats, 44 to govern, so you've got a 10-seat padding there. But you're totally right. There were some crazy vote splits that resulted in some things that are very unlikely to happen this time you know there was a seat one in red deer there was a seat one in medicine hat there were a number of northern rural seats that look very difficult very
Corey
9:04
very difficult unless there is stuff going on on the ground and listen there always is there's always that one that you don't have a beat
Corey
9:11
because you're sitting in calgary and you're trying to figure out what's going on you
Corey
9:15
you know in peace river country in
Carter
9:16
in 2012 i predicted we'd win 63 seats but the 63 seats that i predicted weren't the same as the the 63 seats that we want weren't
Corey
9:24
weren't the same um
Carter
9:24
um so uh you know the number comes out looking the same and you look smart but really you just you kind of got lucky so
Carter
9:30
so when we're doing this when we're going through these numbers we're not going to be 100 right but the premise of it will still hold and and so you ask the question where
Carter
9:39
where do these seats need to come from uh and in edmonton there is one seat that can be picked up it is casey madu's seat uh edmonton uh i
Carter
9:47
think it's white mud um
Carter
9:48
um that one seat uh
Carter
9:51
of those two but one seat only one seat can be added in in in edmonton um then there's what is is lovingly referred to as the donut um which is the area around um edmonton
Carter
10:06
edmonton where the ndp really need to pick up at least five seats uh when they're when they're putting that together and then the regional centers which are lethbridge red beer grand prairie uh medicine hat and uh and
Carter
10:22
come on fort mcmurray um they're really only going to get one so
Carter
10:25
so when you add those and
Corey
10:27
and that's lethbridge yeah
Carter
10:28
yeah when you add those together it's one plus five plus one that's seven seats outside of calgary to
Carter
10:35
to and they still need to get 20 more so that means they need to get 13 seats minimally minimally in calgary in order to pull that off There is one other seat in Canmore, I'm
Carter
10:48
I'm sorry, Banff, Kananaskis and Leicester Slave Lake, which could play into this. But for the most part, they're kind of in the category
Carter
10:57
category of, you know, let's see how this all unfolds. So I'll talk specifically about a little bit more, but those are the areas that they need to pick them up in. That's why Calgary becomes the central focus.
Corey
11:09
right well and it's interesting your 29th or your 2012 example is a good one because i also get to them needing 13 in calgary right but in a slightly different way i see four in the edmonton region edmonton southwest and then banff canmore and left regis being your pickups outside of the cities but then it all kind
Corey
11:27
kind of comes down to calgary right
Corey
11:28
right and yeah you can reduce that number to 12 if you pick up spruce grove yeah you can reduce it further to 11 if all of a sudden you find yourself uh you know a miracle in some other part of the province like lesser slave lake
Corey
11:41
you got some pretty big gains you've got to discover here in calgary and some of them will come easy right
Corey
11:46
like they they they should be easy the inner city ridings of varsity curry elbow and klein if
Corey
11:52
if you're fighting for those at this point you're in a lot of trouble because those should be strong ndp holds there's also areas in the northeast where there's just a lot of strength
Corey
12:01
including calgary northeast literally falcon ridge calgary
Corey
12:05
calgary east calgary cross but
Carter
12:07
but cross and beddington and east but then
Carter
12:09
you've got are trickier they're a little bit more difficult and we'll talk to that in a second they're
Corey
12:13
they're trickier and so now we're getting to the trickier parts right you've got to get bow you've got to get beddington you've got to get edgemont and
Corey
12:19
and as a calgarian i read that and i think boy
Corey
12:22
boy that sounds tough like you're in you're into deep suburban northwest calgary for for a lot of those writings i just mentioned here and then Then you got to start getting Southwest Suburban Calgary too. You got to get Acadia. You got to get Glenmore.
Corey
12:35
And that just gets you to 44.
Corey
12:37
And by the way, I got to tell you, I
Corey
12:41
I personally, in my projections, have UCP 44, NDP 43, because I don't have them at 13 in Calgary right now. I have them at 12. So, and that's not so different from other aggregators out there. 338 has it as NDP 44, UCP 43. The RIT has it as NDP 47, UCP 40. And
Corey
12:58
And that's with them seeing the NDP leading in most of the recent polls. Yeah,
Carter
13:03
Yeah, I think that this is where it starts to get tricky because, you know, I've approached my numbers a little differently. What I've looked at is, you know, what is actually relatively attainable? And 34 seats is relatively attainable. When you look at the percentage change in the polls and how far the NDP has come up, Calgary Elbow, Calgary Northeast, Calgary East, Banff, Kananaskis, Klein, Sherwood Park, Southwest, Edmonton Southwest, Varsity, Curry, and
Carter
13:33
and Falcon Ridge all look viable. So the 34 seats are pretty much locked. Those 34, you know, if you're sitting in Calgary Elbow, that's the hardest of those 34 to win. and and likely uh you are going to win but as you know cory i mean 34 gets you nothing um 34 is just a more annoying uh opposition level um
Carter
13:56
um so in order to get to 44 things really shift and and the way that they shift is they go from less than 15 points shift to more than 15 points shift uh in the overall vote in
Carter
14:09
in 2019 to 2023, that's
Carter
14:13
that's a significant shift. That's more than the polling averages, which means that people who were predisposed not to vote for the NDP need to be brought on side to the NDP. And that's where I think that things start to really fall apart, because you're asking people who
Carter
14:28
who aren't NDP supporters, you
Carter
14:31
you know, who foundationally don't support them to change their minds completely. completely uh they're not you know there's they're they're not splitting out and going into different categories they're not going to the wild rose independence party instead they're going they have to go to the ndp and that's where i think things uh even the aggregators have missed a little bit and eric grenier's 47 you
Carter
14:51
you know eric grenier's 47 yeah i can get to 47 i can get to 48 but in order to get to 48 significant things need to happen and that's where you know looking at But looking at that, you need to see significant changes in the voter turnout model. If
Carter
15:06
If you don't see significant changes in the voter turnout model, it's not going to happen for the NDP.
Corey
15:13
All right, so let's talk strategy here. Because we've mentioned that there's 13 in Calgary, we've mentioned maybe there's a couple of random ones you can pick up outside of the cities. And we've mentioned that the area around Edmonton, you
Corey
15:23
you need to win it too, right? So you're the NDP and your strategy is you've got to do something that is appealing to what I will loosely call suburban Edmonton, but we're actually talking about the
Corey
15:34
the area right outside of Edmonton. You know, Calgary and Edmonton are a bit different in that if
Corey
15:39
if you're from Calgary, you're actually like you live in Calgary,
Corey
15:41
Calgary, right? Edmonton's more like you'd see in Vancouver, not quite the same extent, but there are small cities outside of Edmonton that are significant chunks of population of the greater Edmonton region. So you got to create a campaign that gets those areas. And the reason I mention it is, yes,
Corey
15:58
yes, there are other ways you can construct your way to win 20 seats. Yeah, maybe there's a strategy that gets lesser slave lake. maybe you get stony plain seems unlikely to me you're not going to stop fighting there but when you're sitting there in the central campaign organization for the ndp seats
Corey
16:11
seats do move together if they tend to have similar demographics and so it just makes sense from a strategy
Corey
16:17
implementation point of view to not get too complicated and say all right we got to win suburban calgary on the west side and the northeast and we got to win um suburban edmonton and that's that's your strategy so because those voters will have a lot in common those people in those areas immediately outside of Edmonton are going to be, um, you know, living in communities that are of a certain design, uh, with certain demographics and with certain job profiles and certain income levels. And those are actually going to be pretty similar to a lot of the ridings that you're going to need to pick up in Calgary. So if you're the NDP, you've
Corey
16:51
you've got to start thinking about it in those terms, right? Like, okay, this is my voter. This is my, uh, you know, edge voter that I need in order to win. And so you build a strategy around that. You don't try try to pollute it by saying, oh, but I can't forget about that guy in Lesser Slave Lake I'm trying to win too. Oh, but I really want to get my hands on, you know, Stony Plain. That leads to strategy chaos. You want to find like kind of these cohesive things that allow you to say the same thing consistently rather than being distracted. Because otherwise you end up with things like, just to share a bit of an anecdote, in
Corey
17:22
in 2008, the weekend before the vote, Kevin Taft had a rally in downtown Calgary and introduced a new policy that had to do with farming.
Corey
17:36
What the fuck is that about?
Corey
17:39
But that's the kind of confusion that comes when you're just trying to play what I'll call election bingo, like call out all the numbers and hope you get a full card. You've got to be more strategic. Yeah.
Carter
17:47
Yeah. And I think that what you're describing is this voter identification structure where you're trying to figure out where your actual voters live and who is going to vote for you. I mean, traditionally, I've targeted women women 35 to 55, because they tend to be less brand aligned, and they tend to be willing to change their minds. So yeah,
Carter
18:04
yeah, whatever that group is, it will have common values traits, it will have common geographic traits, it will have common psychographic traits, the NDP needs to know those inside and out. And they can't go for stretches. They can't go, well, how do we get young
Carter
18:19
young rural women who we think are going to be important? Well, they're just not you have to choose. absolutely have to choose who your base is going to be, where the significant numbers are of people that will shift into your positioning. Um, and you know, you can find models where those people have moved in the past and the models that I would look at 2010 Nenshi, 2015, um, uh, Notley,
Carter
18:49
2015 Notley and 2015 or 2021
Carter
18:55
2021 Gondek. Those models all have similar voters that should be voting for the NDP. That shouldn't be that difficult to get to. So finding those voters becomes a relatively
Carter
19:10
simple exercise. It will be dictating what media you you put yourself into it will dictate what messages you use it dictates what policies you choose so those are the that's the the voter identification side of this so
Corey
19:24
so we've done some good strategy work on geography here
Corey
19:27
here and it sounds like we agree on what the
Corey
19:28
geography is right you need you need to first of all say the geography we're interested in is is this donut around edmonton and calgary right and unfortunately if you're the ndp you need to win so much of calgary you're kind of just saying calgary now
Corey
19:43
now and you're not looking at calgary southeast by and large you know there's some writings that butt up against it but calgary from
Corey
19:49
from there though you've got a you narrow further there are going to be people in those writings who are going to vote ucp no matter what and
Corey
19:57
and they were going to vote ndp no matter what and actually i mean we'll get to how danielle smith plays defense and the uc plays defense in a minute here but i will say
Corey
20:07
it's let's let's keep it on the ndp focus for a second here if you're the ndp that means it's
Corey
20:14
it's the rest of the people that you've got to focus on and so the policies you're crafting have to be about that movable middle in those geographies and nobody else matters so your focus group should be only those people you're polling really only cares about those people and and you're going to have to create a theory of the campaign and we've talked about this on a previous election which is all all right, these people, they said they're willing to consider me.
Corey
20:39
You're probably not going to get everybody you need just from there. So you're going to have to say, these people say they're not, but there's certain things about them that make me think they actually might vote for me. Like they voted for me in 2015 or they voted for Gondek or they voted for Trudeau or whatever the combination is that allows you to get to your victory.
Corey
20:55
victory. And then you've got to build in a safety margin beyond that to, you know, it's concentric circles going out and
Corey
21:01
and you, But it's all about those persuadables in that geography. And
Corey
21:05
And frankly, the rest of us can burn to the ground because you and I, we live in what should be a safe seat. So the UCP shouldn't care about us. The NDP shouldn't care about us. This election should be entirely about people in
Corey
21:16
in different geographies who are more movable. And
Carter
21:19
And I think that that focus
Carter
21:21
focus gives you real clarity about what it is you're talking about in terms of your policies and those other ideas. But I want to introduce one other target audience if you're the NDP. uh
Carter
21:30
uh the dave and we've spoken about it on the podcast a couple of times and that's the reluctant ucp voter the
Carter
21:36
the voter that will not vote for the ndp and the voter that will not vote
Carter
21:40
uh the ucp i got some of the information from david they
Carter
21:43
they tend to be more women they tend to be more middle-aged uh they tend to uh they but they also tend to not want this
Corey
21:50
this is the abacus
Carter
21:51
abacus data yeah david coletto's abacus data um
Carter
21:54
um they tend to not want to vote for either party when
Carter
21:57
when you look at the data um
Carter
21:59
um They aren't saying, you know, they're going to rush off and support the NDP because they don't like Danielle Smith. Instead, what they're saying is, I
Carter
22:06
I don't want to vote. I'm not going to vote. And we've seen that before. I've talked ad nauseum about the 2008 election with Stelmack and Taft
Carter
22:17
Taft as the leaders, where people didn't want to vote for them. And this is
Carter
22:22
is seen as a failing, I think, too often. But someone not voting for your opponent nor voting for you is actually a victory. And
Carter
22:30
And I think the NDP needs to embrace that and say this is a good outcome for us is people not voting. I think it goes against the ethos of the NDP, but it is going to be an essential part of their overall strategy if
Carter
22:45
if they're actually going to be successful in winning in Calgary.
Corey
22:50
so i want to i want to pick up on that a bit i i have trouble with that for a couple of reasons but the fundamental one for me is and and you know let's talk about this i struggle to think of a low turnout change election like what you're describing is as a unicorn it doesn't really exist uh this would be a little unprecedented yeah
Carter
23:11
yeah it would be unprecedented to be sure but But you're also dealing with a popular party with an unpopular leader. And that's the UCP with Daniel Smith. And that becomes a strange thing. I mean, one could argue that the reason that Donald Trump lost in 2020 was a high turnout change election. But this
Carter
23:33
this is going to be a low turnout
Carter
23:36
election. It's the only way that the NDP, with the number of votes that they have, can actually... And the difference is, Corey, generally speaking, when people want to change, they all come out and vote. But in this particular case, I think that people want, they're not sure they actually want the change. This is what the NDP's primary problem is. There's not a lot of people in the city of Calgary walking around and saying, the next big change needs to be to go to the NDP, right?
Carter
24:05
right? The NDP supporters think that that's the case. But when you look at the data, when you dig into that data, there are not a lot of people who are saying yes we need change and the change is is uh is right there at our fingertips and it's going to be rachel notley that's just not that's just not part of the uh the plan at this stage for them so
Corey
24:26
so here we yeah i'm
Corey
24:27
i'm going to jump back to that maybe during the question i think there's a couple of questions that lead to that um
Corey
24:33
now i just want to say we were using this through the ndp lens the geography the accessible same
Corey
24:39
same same for the UCP. Now, there's going to be some variations in terms of what gets them to vote in the first place and that voter turnout consideration you introduced there. But
Corey
24:48
But it's the same group of people. It's a heads up election. It's 1v1. Maybe you'll have a couple of percent shaved to the Alberta party in some circumstances. But ultimately, I don't think anybody's expecting a third party to kind of come in and capture our imagination at this point. I don't even think a third party is going to be invited to debate no at
Corey
25:06
at this particular moment in time well
Carter
25:08
well and is this a good time to address questions that we have about third parties like what would you do if you were a third party i guess because i you know if you're the third party you're in a lot of trouble because this isn't a choice uh this is very similar to 2019 when when you looked at those results in 2019 almost all the votes went to either um the ucp or the ndp the alberta party was able to pick up some 14 or you know something like that but they were unable to win anything and it was the elimination of
Carter
25:42
of the you know the alberta liberal party uh they're gone as a result of the 2019 election and my thinking is that the alberta party will probably be the ones who disappear appear in this election because the polarization is so strong. Sure, Carrie Cundall in Calgary Elbow is going to pick up a few significant votes because she's the Alberta Party candidate in Calgary Elbow and they've had an MLA there before. But those are going to be wasted votes. The same I used to vote for the Green Party because I couldn't vote for Deepak Oberoi or whoever the liberal candidate was. You know, you vote for the Greens because they knew they weren't going to win and you felt like you were still participating. I
Carter
26:23
I think Kerry Cundall and third parties may pick up some of that vote, but
Carter
26:27
but they're not foundationally going to be a part of this game.
Corey
26:31
So I don't actually think Cundall is going to be in the game. I just don't think the Alberta party is going to be viable enough provincially for her to be in the game. And so I found it interesting when you said Elbow was going to be one of the tougher ones to win. I don't believe it will be.
Carter
26:44
Elbow's not tough. Elbow's the last of the 34 that they're going to win.
Corey
26:48
Last of the easy.
Carter
26:48
They're the last of the easy.
Corey
26:49
But I think because of that, and
Corey
26:51
and there's the understanding of that, I think the vote in general is going to collapse for the Alberta party there.
Corey
26:57
And so they got 9% last election. I think
Corey
27:01
the highest to 14, very normal
Corey
27:07
The highest I've seen them recently is about 5%. And that was an outlier. Usually there are two or 3% in the polls. They're just not there to your point.
Corey
27:16
But here we are. um they've
Corey
27:18
they've got the same general audience but they don't have the same objective and i think this is where in our election preview we got to talk about one of our favorite topics here which is ballot question
Corey
27:29
i'm going to tee this up for anybody who maybe it's been a while people
Corey
27:32
people often think an election is about trying to convince the electorate on every issue under the sun that you're right and and that's that's incorrect um what you're trying to do is set the question question that's in their minds when they go into the ballot box and you want to set it to something where you are naturally already the answer. And if we want to be super simple about this, we know polling shows the UCP does pretty well on the economy. We know the NDP does pretty well on social programs, basically everything else, right? And
Corey
28:01
And even on the economy, the UCP is beginning to show a fair bit of weakness here.
Corey
28:06
let's flip our frames here a little bit here. here let's talk about it from danielle smith's
Corey
28:10
of view first you're
Corey
28:14
you're the ucp what
Corey
28:15
what is the ballot question you are trying to put in people's mind to win that persuadable middle in the geography that we've just described um
Carter
28:23
um i think that the way to go for it that is about the economy do
Carter
28:28
do you want to risk it with the ndp um
Carter
28:33
because you know to to recreate a risk profile file for economic benefit so uh back in in 2019 it was all pipelines um uh
Carter
28:43
uh i can't remember the three word slogan um but it was all about the economy and that jobs economy
Corey
28:50
economy pipelines was what you're looking
Carter
28:52
looking for so that that becomes do you you know we we finally fixed this we're finally seeing the positives we got most people are employed in alberta everything's looking up again do you want to risk returning to the ndp i think that that is the achilles heel of the ndp and that is the way that danielle smith wins this election by making it about a simple economic question is it worth the risk
Corey
29:22
i so maybe and they've thrown a few things out that make me think that's at least always going going to be there for them.
Corey
29:29
I don't know if that's going to work for them. I almost want to save this for what I think the NDP's version of ballot question is. But I think the UCP's most successful ballot question is probably going to be more along the lines of who's going to stand up to Ottawa. And I say that for a couple of reasons. One is all of the political parties in Ottawa are deeply unpopular with Albertans except for the conservatives, right? And so the liberals and in the ndp tend to get people's ire the the general idea of a federal government tends to offend a certain subset of albertans there is the risk of course she could be pulled to the crazy fringes
Corey
30:03
but i will tell you even if we just want to use the last two weeks last week as a case study and i'm sure on sunday we'll talk more about this but the uh the idea that the just transition is becoming such a big deal is
Carter
30:17
is it though you
Corey
30:17
you know and that they keep going back to this well I think it is. So I think guys like you and me think this is an insane thing, right? Because there's not actually something to respond to. There's not the actual legislation at this point. And it's a concept that came along in 2015 about how we help people through what could be otherwise a damaging transition of economies, right? right but
Corey
30:39
but i get the sense that it's working for them i get the sense it's working for them um just based on you know some of the commentary that i've been tracking but also because
Corey
30:50
i don't think rachel notley has particularly compelling answers on it and you can tell she she doesn't love that she's in a position where like the rational brain of her wants to say what is this like what are you even talking about of course the just transition is what we want she knows she can't use those words so she's using different words and she's fumbling and whenever a politician is saying something they don't truly believe they're on shaky ground so i believe the ucp ballot question is probably going to be more along the lines of who's going to stand up to ottawa it's
Carter
31:18
going to be that's and
Corey
31:18
and if you walk into the ballot box and you think the ballot box question is who's going to stand up to ottawa i
Corey
31:25
i think that leads i
Carter
31:26
i just think that's a weaker question because it's not about you or me it's about them and
Carter
31:31
and i think that the stronger the strongest possible questions are about you and me, right? What do I get? What do I lose if I'm elected or they are elected? And in this particular case, um, the economic risk is, uh,
Carter
31:48
you know, of returning to that recession, returning to that negative place that we were in just that little while ago, you
Carter
31:55
you know, Danielle Smith, you know, uh, Jason Kenny, like them or loathe them they gave us economic opportunity i
Carter
32:02
mean i think that this this playing footsie and attacking ottawa um in terms of the polling that i've seen uh
Carter
32:11
uh it doesn't it's it's a fine setup but if you're still playing that card in in april or may i think that you have missed a greater opportunity to define um
Carter
32:23
a real winning election ballot box question
Corey
32:28
well the ottawa stuff is really about the economy like it's it's this idea
Corey
32:34
soon as you say that as
Carter
32:38
because if it's really about something other than what you're saying then it's not really a ballot box question yeah
Corey
32:45
i don't know about
Carter
32:45
about that you do you know we're just so
Corey
32:47
so well conditioned you
Carter
32:49
you just don't want to admit it
Corey
32:50
well let me tell you why i'm a little hesitant on agreeing with you on that one i i 100 agree the economy is way stronger ground i think one of the challenges that the danielle smith ucp have right now is they've
Corey
33:05
effectiveness on some of things that should be the core to them bread and butter and they are also so obsessed with projects like standing up to ottawa that maybe they're losing focus but one of the advantages they have is that
Corey
33:16
that albertans still by and large want to stand up to ottawa And if you make it Smith versus Trudeau, you're in much better shape than if it's Smith versus Notley. So that's – but let me jump to the NDP here because here's what I think the NDP ballot question is shaping up to be, right?
Corey
33:33
Do you want chaos with Danielle Smith or do you want stability with the NDP?
Corey
33:38
I think that's what they're going for. Now, I think we should unpack whether we agree with that, whether we think there are challenges with it. But what the NDP seems to have picked up on that I think they've rightly picked up on is the
Corey
33:50
things like the Sovereignty Act, Danielle Smith's really extreme positions, they're scary to a lot of economic interests, and they are causing harm to this province. And so if you're Danielle Smith, and
Corey
34:04
and you make this all about the economy, but your own erratic actions have actually made Albertans question your judgment on the economy.
Corey
34:12
Again, we're just talking about a certain geography and a certain type of person. I don't have the answers to this.
Corey
34:17
Parties will have polling and if they don't, they should be polling on those particular groups.
Corey
34:22
There's a real risk that you no longer carry the economic argument with that group. Yeah,
Carter
34:26
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's legit. I do think that, you
Carter
34:31
know, the NDP ballot box question is a little bit more challenging, to be honest. I think that, you
Carter
34:37
you know, the way I would put it is, do you want more?
Carter
34:43
think that that would be, do
Carter
34:45
do you want more money in your pocket, right? And proposing changes to the taxation or something along those lines? do you want better access to health care here's how we're going to do it do you want better access to post-secondary do you want better access to health do you want a better education system do you want more and i think that you know that's what we did in 2012 we focused primarily on you know allison being able to give parents of children and children of seniors a helping hand in the province of alberta and i think that that's available to rachel whether rachel chooses to take it or not i still think that that's that's available because i know something you're not going to get sweet fuck all from the uh from
Carter
35:27
from the ucp um unless you sign up for their portal uh to try and you know i
Carter
35:33
can't believe that that's how they're actually handing this money out that they that they've committed you got to sign up for a portal to get it all out
Carter
35:41
what's the pickup on that gonna be cory i mean jesus
Corey
35:44
oh i think poor but you know who's gonna going to stand up to ottawa see their ballot box question here's my problem with yours right it's a simple one this
Corey
35:53
this place is a wash in cash it's fucking crazy how much money is in the alberta coffers right now and there's a budget on february 23rd you
Corey
36:02
you talk about more do you think there is a single line item in this province that is not getting more from
Corey
36:08
from the daniel smith budget um
Carter
36:10
you know what i mean i don't know i
Carter
36:12
i don't know but i think that i
Corey
36:13
i think the i think they are You're going to have more, but it's going to be different. And
Corey
36:17
And so that is where the idea of stability and common sense with Notley versus chaos and insanity with Smith becomes,
Corey
36:23
becomes, again, I think the more attractive ballot question for the Indian. Yeah,
Carter
36:26
Yeah, and I think that if we'd spent a little bit more time, we could probably boil up both of our ballot box questions into similar language because I don't think we're that far apart. I just think that I have
Carter
36:36
have a problem with the it's
Carter
36:39
it's us versus Ottawa. I love it as a pregame. I'm not sure I like it in the game. I just don't think that it gives us enough lift to the individual. And keeping in mind my foundational belief, the voter is selfish. So if we believe that, then we have to give the voters what they want.
Corey
37:01
Let's also sort of accept we've been kind of blurring between what we think they're going for and what we would recommend. And they're not too, too far apart in some cases. You know, it's pretty basic stuff at some point. I don't know. No, I think they're
Carter
37:12
they're everything, everywhere, all the time. I think that they are...
Corey
37:16
You think the NDP are or
Carter
37:17
or the UCP? I think the NDP have been doing their strategy of...
Carter
37:22
Like, if you look at their comms in any given day, on any given day, they're going to be in 14 different places. I don't know what they're talking about on any given day. And if I can't tell what they're talking about on any given day, then I really struggle to believe that the general population can. They are so busy reacting to Daniel Smith myth that
Carter
37:41
that they have no actual
Carter
37:44
structure for what their own what their own plan is going to be
Corey
37:49
let's just say this we don't know what their strategy is but if their strategy is to be a more stable less erratic version of government
Corey
37:57
there's two there's two things here is the actions they take should follow that strategy and if you want to give off a sense of calm and stability stability, pinging from issue to issue to your point is maybe not the way to do that, right? You've got to show kind of a calm, stable hand if that's your intention. We are in the pregame though, and they might just be seeing what works and they might be just arming messages and there's got to be some charity there.
Corey
38:23
My big, you know, if I'm correct that they're looking for like stability as a message or contrasting that with the madness of Daniel Smith,
Corey
38:34
big observation would be, I
Corey
38:37
I think that they have more,
Corey
38:39
more, I'm curious, I need some pollster out there to run this polling question for me.
Corey
38:46
do you know what you would get from a Notley government?
Corey
38:51
I think the answer
Corey
38:52
I think that there's, yeah,
Corey
38:54
yeah, you're not in
Carter
38:56
don't know what they're going to get from a Notley government Because Notley has only done contrast and only done oppo.
Corey
39:04
You're a step ahead of me. That's exactly what I was going
Corey
39:07
say. I think if that is your mission, like there are elections where you just win by pounding the other guy down, right? And you make them feel very bad about the other guy. But you have to be careful if you're, this is such a unique set of circumstances because you were the premier from 2015 to 2019. And you carry your own negatives. And if you knock both down, you've then got to say, but here's why you don't have to worry that I'm going to be exactly like that, right? So the NDP, if they're trying to give off stability, they
Corey
39:34
they should be doing things like, for
Corey
39:37
for four years, we're not going to do this. There's going to be no royal. I mean, I'm not even saying I like these as policies. This is just off my dome.
Corey
39:44
You'd want to poll. Again, in that geography with those demographics, no
Corey
39:48
no action will be taken on royalties, right? No changes will be done on that. We are not going to bring in a PST. We are not going to change the corporate tax structure, even though we did before. We think what Alberta needs right now more than a higher corporate income tax rate is stability. So we will not do it in this election cycle. And you almost just like if that's your plan, again, your actions have to follow your strategy. And
Corey
40:09
And I'm not sure that that is their strategy. But if I'm reading it right, what
Corey
40:13
what I think they need is they need to be much clearer about a calm, no
Corey
40:18
no drama future than they have been. Well,
Carter
40:21
Well, I think that that but but then they
Carter
40:24
they have to also echo that in their own behavior.
Carter
40:26
Right. The no drama thing.
Carter
40:29
Stop making a spectacle of Daniel Smith. Daniel Smith has made a spectacle of herself. The media will now carry that for you. They will carry that for at least the next six weeks all the way through the first session. my thinking would be get your own platforms out there and don't do it in this convoluted way that you put out 15 platform items all at once. Put out a single platform item and actually dig into it for two or three weeks. Like make it big, make it meaningful and make it mean something. We talked about healthcare for two or three weeks. We talked about taxation for two or three weeks. You can can talk about post-secondary education for two or three weeks there are massive things that we can talk about that all tie in and you can tie them this is the best part you can tie them all directly to the economy our you know
Carter
41:20
know our ability to attract new businesses here is about cost of living and the biggest thing about cost of living is having a health care system that doesn't cost you extra boom right we're going to talk about health care that doesn't cost you extra you
Carter
41:33
you and And you can talk about that for a long period of time. This is these things are available to to
Carter
41:44
the NDP. And I wonder why where they are with putting forward real ideas. I mean, I see their ideas that they put up on Twitter and their pieces, but I still don't think that they apply or they matter. And I think that they get run through so fast because they're based on the media cycle, not the voter cycle. Media picks something up and throws it away 24 hours later. Voters take months to understand what the fuck you're talking about.
Corey
42:13
you know for me and i think this is somewhat crystallized by what you just said here the approach sometimes feels and again you got to appreciate that we are severely
Corey
42:21
severely online and we see a lot of this stuff in a way that the public doesn't so i'm not sure that this critique holds as soon as you talk to the group we're talking about here but their approach sometimes seems like you
Corey
42:33
you know when you talk about that policy you're reading a textbook instead of reading a
Corey
42:36
novel like the story is missing and when you want to talk about the idea of that future that rachel notley is going to bring you and that sense of stability how are you going to make that economic argument through the sense of stability that's you know social arguments through the sense of stability again i'm just going to pick it as an example whatever they do they just need to take similar thinking through it here yeah
Corey
42:56
but maybe it's like we're
Corey
42:59
we're just going to have the smoothest transition possible maybe you just lean into it and be like yeah the world is changing and we're We're going to, in like the smoothest way possible, get Alberta ready for that change. Don't use the word transition, obviously, but maybe that's what you double down on. Yeah, healthcare, we're all getting older. So we're going to make those investments. We're going to have stability. We're not, you know, we're going to have labor stability. We're going to have system stability. We're going to stop messing with everything. Yes, we're going to fix things as they come along, but we're going to have stability. With the economy, we're not going to make big changes at this point. We know this is a shaky time, you
Corey
43:30
you know, stability, but you've got to make sure that your story is there not just that textbook that somebody can thumb through and see you know a bunch of different one
Carter
43:37
one it's a risk of repeating ourselves i mean this is about characters and stories too right like the characters are important and i think that one of the characters that the ndp tends to leave out is the audience the vote the voter i think that all too often what we're actually getting is a reflection of the uh the ndp's own values rather than the voters values is and and to me that's where they can make an easy shift and make it voter focused um it's not complicated great
Corey
44:07
great you know such a great point uh you know even when i was talking about stability
Corey
44:12
there what does the system stability doesn't mean anything tell me what it's going to mean for my life right like when we talk about a government that's not erratic you're going to have to turn that into why that matters to a voter right why that calm matters uh i'm going to take you once here we're going to flip back to danielle smith um say
Corey
44:30
say that the nd i'm going to do this here i'm going to assume that you're right about danielle smith's message and it's going to be about the
Corey
44:37
economy and i'm going to assume i'm right about the ndp and it's going to be stability but
Corey
44:41
but i'm going to ask you two questions here i'm
Corey
44:43
i'm just going to butt out of it for a minute danielle smith
Corey
44:46
how does she rebut or defend against the argument that she is chaotic erratic the opposite of the the stability if the ballot question were going to be that how do you defend against well
Carter
44:57
well by immediately stopping being erratic and chaotic i mean and that just sounds no it sounds absolutely ridiculous right stop being that thing but there's easy ways to stop being that thing the the advice that i would give to both the ndp and the ucp they get the exact same advice today cory and that is slow down you're running towards an election like at full speed assuming that the general population is there with you and they are not so slow yourself down and try and communicate with the general population as you're moving through and if you're daniel smith that means you know you you drove through the uh you
Carter
45:37
you know the sovereignty act you're you you you've pushed through all these other bills. Slow down. This session doesn't need to break records on the number of pieces of legislation brought forth. Bring your budget. Make your budget the primary piece that people are looking at. You don't have to have a budget and pieces of signature legislation. The budget is the signature piece of legislation. It's so much easier when you walk away from the idea that you have to do everything all at once and you know the
Carter
46:11
the movie everything everywhere all at once becomes this theme where everybody just seems to think that they have to be in every media cycle doing everything um i think that you
Carter
46:21
you know that you can avoid being in a media cycle all the time just by slowing down and letting you know let the media report on the the other guys for a day it'll be okay you'll be fine okay
Corey
46:36
okay so rachel notley then she's okay and i should say this when we say defend against it and you answered it really well we're
Corey
46:45
we're not saying how do you rebut it we're saying how do you make that not the question in people's mind and i think that your answer was along those lines same
Carter
46:52
if you rebut your how do
Corey
46:53
do you if you rebut how
Carter
46:54
how How do you play defense
Corey
46:54
defense on the – yeah, agreed.
Corey
46:58
If you rebut, you're
Corey
46:59
you're just reinforcing it. How
Carter
47:00
How do you play defense on the economy?
Corey
47:04
Yeah. Play offense on – Or make that not the ballot question, I mean. How do you – How do you make it not the ballot question? How
Carter
47:09
How do you make it not the ballot question?
Carter
47:11
Remind people – like the
Carter
47:12
the economy is something that's vague.
Carter
47:14
The economy is something that people don't understand.
Carter
47:16
What people do understand is how much money they have in their pockets. They understand how much spending capacity they have. They understand what it costs. They understand what they have, and they have no comparisons to anywhere else. So it's not even like you can say, look how cheap property is in Edmonton and Calgary compared to every other city in North America. They
Carter
47:38
They won't understand that because it's outside of their own realm of experience. So if you're trying to avoid being dragged down the economy, flip it over and start talking instead about how much money people can save how much money can you put back in people's pockets by making better decisions by choosing to spend to put the money from Alberta back into their pockets you
Carter
48:04
you know I would probably go after the money that's been spent on you know orphan wells and things like that and put it in comparisons instead of doing this the NDP will do that that's one way of getting your contrast message out there uh but also keeping the the selfishness of the voter first and you know first and foremost and out in front when you're trying to actually build out your platform so that's i think how i would play defense on that the economy is going to be the message so how you know what do you do next i'd be putting i'd
Carter
48:39
i'd be making the economy
Carter
48:41
about a reflection of individual ability to do what they want to do
Corey
48:47
Okay, so we've talked about the geography. We've talked about the accessible voter world. We went into ballot questions pretty deep here. We said it was very different from the 2015 election.
Corey
48:59
Pretty good preview so far. We're doing this without Zane, too. Really
Carter
49:03
Really a win all around.
Carter
49:22
in the voter turnout pattern. Because if we do see significant changes in the voter turnout pattern, then I think that we are looking at a much different type of election. And those significant changes I look at, and I think it's going to be
Carter
49:52
voter turnout being diminished by voters who are reluctant UCP supporters. They don't want to support Danielle Smith. They were fine with Jason Kenney. but they have lost confidence in the UCP under Smith. I think that if you see significant voter turnout change, then we get a different outcome in the election.
Carter
50:12
Your point, if I can paraphrase or if I can sum it up for you, your point is that we've never seen that type of an election be a change election, right? Those types of elections are status quo elections. And the perfect example of that is, in fact, 2008 under Stelmac, When, you
Carter
50:33
you know, you're right, the voters that turned out didn't want Stelmac and they didn't want they didn't
Carter
50:41
didn't want Taft either. So that low voter turnout delivered ultimately the same the
Carter
50:49
same kind of outcome
Carter
50:50
outcome that we'd seen before in 2004.
Carter
50:56
So, yeah, I guess that that's exactly right. Right. But I think that the voter turnout in this particular case flows differently. And because of that, the significant change in voter turnout, if the NDP figures out how to do GOTV, which they've never done, especially
Carter
51:10
especially in Calgary. And if the UCP is unable to target that 10 percent of their voter select voter group that
Carter
51:18
that would is reluctant, then we got ourselves a ballgame. otherwise otherwise it's an nd it's a ucp majority again and we're looking at premier daniel smith because the numbers are stacked in her favor especially in calgary
Corey
51:35
yeah so i guess when i think about the 28 day campaign i think the lead up to it i expect people basically to live in calgary right um both rachel notley and daniel
Corey
51:46
neither of which actually live in Calgary, will be here perpetually and sending all sorts of goods and well wishes towards the city. I also expect it's going to be a bit of a crazy election. And that's in part because supporters
Corey
52:02
supporters feel really keyed up on both sides. And I expect there to be a lot of outrageous activity across the board. You've got an emboldened far right that has, you know, the feeling that they've got one of their own in the premier's chair and you've got an outraged left and i think the combination of that it just it creates too many points of friction i'm expecting a wild story every two days and that
Carter
52:26
that brings up one of the questions and i never write down who who who asks us the questions ultimately because i i
Carter
52:33
i just don't care um but what role do you think is our our gaff's going to play, right? Like our gaff's going to be a significant part of this 2023 election. The mistakes that were made, and arguably, Danielle Smith is responsible for two of the largest mistakes in electoral history in Alberta. The first, of course, being the Lake
Carter
52:55
Lake of Fire in 2012. Danielle and Rob Anderson, who are now the two gurus of the UCP, made that mistake and stuck to that mistake, giving the victory back to uh allison redford and the uh the pcs um the
Carter
53:13
other mistake was of course crossing the floor in 2015 um again
Carter
53:18
again made by daniel smith is that are we expecting gaffs uh given that history to to play a significant role cory
Corey
53:28
yeah okay yeah but also maybe not
Corey
53:31
i expect there'll be a ton of gaffes i you know and i expect that they will have in the moment reactions from the public but as this goes on and by this i mean the daniel smith premiership
Corey
53:43
it's pretty hard to miss the fact that our our attention spans are pretty low on these things in
Corey
53:48
in late october janet brown did a poll janet
Corey
53:52
janet brown is the pollster i believe is the best pollster in alberta and she had the ndp 47 ucp 38 and that was after a really really rocky start you know and i'd love to see what numbers janet has now but what was interesting about that was less the ndp at 47 which is pretty close to where they have been in a lot of other polling although i think higher than janet brown had them recently Right.
Corey
54:18
But more the UCP 38, you know, the people just said, OK, I'm a little annoyed and I'm out. But more recent polling from Angus Reid, from Main Street, from Abacus have shown, you
Corey
54:29
you know, the UCP higher than that.
Corey
54:31
And I do ultimately believe that
Corey
54:35
we are becoming pretty numb to these things in, you know, in terms of their consequences, in terms of the, you know, the effect that they will have on Albertans. I mean, this week, the premier said that she called prosecutors to talk to them about dropping cases. Well,
Carter
54:50
Well, she meant something
Carter
54:52
something completely different. It still was completely inappropriate. But nonetheless, she backtracked on that and basically was lying one of those two times. And it wasn't a half-truth. It wasn't a clarification. It was an out-and-out lie. She said that to her base in order to rile
Carter
55:09
rile them up and get them on her side. um
Carter
55:13
i think that that's the type of stuff yeah those are the types of gaffes that i think may have impact
Carter
55:18
impact and i think you're right about the attention span but keep in mind like the mistake that was made in in 2012 was made eight
Carter
55:26
eight days before the election we could see something that happens like that i mean the
Carter
55:32
trump has proven that very virtually every sin is forgivable. Is Alberta likely to live in that space where the
Carter
55:43
mistake is completely forgivable all the time?
Corey
55:48
My point, I guess, is I think if even this prosecutor thing happened the first week or two that
Corey
55:53
that Danielle Smith was premier, I think it would have been a bigger deal. Now, both this story and another story that I'll mention in a second are on the front page of the the calgary herald right now smith walks back claims she spoke to alberta crown prosecutors about covid19 cases um that is not the lead story that story has seven comments and it's you know it's now it's on the front page it's right there it's one of the top five stories but it's not the top story the top story is a varco column saying as alberta oil output hits record heights smith warns federal emissions cap will shut in production 15 comments top story one
Corey
56:31
one of these is danielle smith trying to scare us about the federal government the other is what would be a job ending uh you
Corey
56:40
know should be a problem but
Corey
56:43
but it you know one of them is more interesting to people than the other right and i know it's the calgary herald and i know i know like i'm not trying to create a universe out of this my point is the
Corey
56:52
the fact that she did this is not the biggest deal in the world
Carter
56:54
world in alberta it's
Corey
56:56
it's not even the biggest deal in political news in alberta today apparently it
Carter
56:59
it does help me though uh
Carter
57:01
uh that you do that now i can see that you draw your political strategies from the comment pages of the calgary herald so thank you for that that that helps me understand where you're coming from uh
Carter
57:12
no but i think that the i think that the problem is that the outrage machine is going to be exhausted you know because the the gaffe after gaffe the The expectation level from Danielle Smith is like Trump. And she will probably get away with far more than she should get away with because we're going to be either exhausted from it or not surprised by it. You know, like if Lake of Fire happened today, does it have the impact that it had in 2012? I just I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that it does. Yeah, I think
Corey
57:50
What else we got? so we
Corey
57:51
we want to call that hey why don't we do questions oh that was the
Corey
57:56
oh okay did we seamlessly go into question we're so good at yeah
Carter
57:59
yeah so here's my here's another question from the listeners because uh apparently
Carter
58:02
apparently they did not buy the money of his currency of politics uh mug the
Carter
58:08
the question is will the fundraising numbers that have been done to this point with the ndp winning some seven of the last eight quarters will it matter uh
Carter
58:16
uh in the the overall in the election and over to you cory does so i want to ask you two questions does money matter sure um number one and number two um you
Carter
58:29
you know what what trend like what are we seeing from the actual from from this money situation is it a guarantee that if if you win the fundraising battle you you always win the uh the actual outcome of the election
Corey
58:43
yeah so does money matter yeah yes it matters
Corey
58:47
because money is the currency of politics folks yeah a
Corey
58:50
a wise man once i
Corey
58:56
you you look so just
Carter
58:57
just really pleased that you are on my side on that because sometimes you make fun of me and it hurts okay Okay.
Corey
59:07
is it going to be the game? No, it's not going to be the game. We've talked about this before, but we'll talk about it again.
Corey
59:13
There are economies of scale, which mean getting money over a certain amount really helps, right? Because then all of a sudden you can do things that help you in a lot of places. And then there's diminishing returns. And your $200,000 is more helpful than your millionth dollar your millionth dollar is more helpful than your five millionth dollar because it's just only so much you can do at the end of the day and um and
Corey
59:40
let's let's think of it this way the first time you see a commercial it's more likely to have an effect on you than
Corey
59:45
than the 300th time you saw a commercial and well in any marketing strategy we want to make sure there's breadth and depth and depth means you're gonna get hit with that same ad you know frequency and reach is another way that it's
Corey
59:57
it's put there um
Corey
59:59
frequency matters but frequency at a certain point doesn't matter that much it
Carter
1:00:04
it ends at some maybe once
Corey
1:00:04
once you've seen the ad 30 times it's not as big of a deal anymore and
Corey
1:00:09
and the other thing is as much as these are big numbers right millions of dollars both parties oh my god i mean it's going to be very different from those sleepy campaigns we had you know as recently as 10 years ago because now we've got two major parties with with millions of dollars in the bank that are going to go to war on these things.
Corey
1:00:26
You've got to keep in mind the overall media landscape and the overall commentary and the overall like social experience, even if
Corey
1:00:34
if you were going to put a dollar value on those, it would absolutely dwarf the millions of dollars that the political parties have at play. You know, that's, that's their best money. It allows them to deliver their message directly. It allows them to buy, you know, staff and support on the ground and things that can't be done other ways but in terms of like that big message air war you
Corey
1:00:53
can only go so far because
Corey
1:00:55
because there are still going to be reporters there are still going to be newspapers there are still going to be social posts and those are also going to affect the outcome and that's why a public relations game um is such an important part of a campaign that's why you hear people talk about tour that's why you talk about you know leader strategy and media strategy and it's not just all about that Yeah,
Carter
1:01:14
Yeah, I think that, you know, I think that that's a simple answer that we should stick with and a relatively complete answer, because it then leads into the next question that
Carter
1:01:25
that we have. And that is, is the NDP's messaging strategy in Calgary going to backfire?
Carter
1:01:30
And I don't know who asked this question. Again, I didn't care to look to find out.
Carter
1:01:36
but you know whoever whoever asked this question obviously a a uh a devoted fan of the strategist because i think that there is a we've had this open question about what is the you know what is the strategy in calgary and how is it actually going to work and
Carter
1:01:51
and part of the reason is that we are seeing what they're doing right now and
Carter
1:01:55
and i have questions you have questions you
Carter
1:01:59
you know is this messaging structure that they're currently using is the way that they're bringing their messages is in. Does it actually have legs? Will it actually be successful in generating the public relations that you just discussed? And I personally don't think it is, and I won't go into detail, but I'm just going to throw it to you to answer that question, Corey. What do you think
Carter
1:02:23
of the NDP's messaging strategy in Calgary?
Corey
1:02:28
Look, I don't think it's going to backfire, backfire um because backfire implies all of a sudden it it brings them a lot of negativity i don't think that's what's going to happen i think the risk here is one of lost opportunity right
Corey
1:02:38
right it's separating the wheat from the chaff it's by saying too many things the things that really matter get lost by saying so many stories people aren't clear what the like the main narrative is there you know there's too many subplots if you want to continue the metaphor and i think it really a lot of it is kind of simplifying narrowing down and um not getting distracted by the 800,000 people who are going to be whispering in your ear you got to talk about this my neighbor is concerned about that you know when you go down my street this is the big problem around here but instead to follow the data on
Corey
1:03:11
on the geography we talked about with the movable people in the middle not the either extreme just those movable people in the middle and
Corey
1:03:19
and um and just stop the rest of it Right. Like, you know, it's you don't want to take the kitchen sink approach to communications here. This is victory
Corey
1:03:31
Obviously, victory, victory, victory is winning the election. But communications victory is you stop somebody on the street and you say, what's
Corey
1:03:41
what's an argument you've heard to vote for the NDP? And they're all giving you the same argument. Right.
Corey
1:03:45
Right. Right. Your supporters, your opponents, anybody who's engaged on this and they know and you're you're clearly understood as to what your value proposition is. And if you've done your work ahead of time and you've done your research and you're polling, you'll
Corey
1:03:56
you'll know that that is the message that's enough to carry you on Election Day, as long as you do the nuts and bolts and operational stuff that follows. Well,
Carter
1:04:03
Well, and so to that end, there's a double question
Carter
1:04:07
question that we're going to ask here to close us off. And that is, what does the Wild Rose need to do to
Carter
1:04:15
this upcoming election? And then, of course, conversely, what does the NDP need to do to win? So do you want to start with the Wild Rose or do you want to do the NDP?
Corey
1:04:26
I mean, the Wild Rose Independence Party, I guess we're talking about. You know
Carter
1:04:30
know what the fuck I'm talking about. Are you going to make fun of me?
Carter
1:04:33
I didn't actually. Can you take that part out? Can you edit that? I thought this was going to be.
Carter
1:04:36
What does the UCP need to do to win?
Corey
1:04:40
The UCP needs to. Your comment was exactly right. The funny thing is both need to do sort of the same thing. They need to dial it down and they need to be more disciplined. And I think this is a funny election where the most disciplined party is going to win. Because if Danielle Smith can
Corey
1:04:55
can come off as even halfway as reasonable.
Corey
1:04:59
and meanwhile the ndp is throwing everything at her and trying to make her seem deeply unreasonable i think she'll win i also think that the ucp like let's just say this is basically a tie right now as far as we can tell if an election were held today kind of stuff right we don't know the exact outcome uh but i think if daniel smith can get people feeling less nervous about what she brings she'll win you know people will come back and that'll be that meanwhile if If Rachel Notley can, you know, maintain
Corey
1:05:27
maintain discipline in the face of so many targets being presented to her by a Danielle Smith candidacy, I think she can win. And really, I think for the NDP, though, the element that's missing for me is story.
Corey
1:05:40
You know, I vote for you. This is what I can expect in a year, in five years, for our province in 10 years and beyond. Right. And for the UCP, what's missing is, you know, I'm not trying to sound as shitty as this sounds, competency, right? This idea like, okay, if I'm going to elect you, you're not going to blow up this whole place
Corey
1:06:00
place tomorrow. You're not going to light a match in a gas-filled room because you had your stove on to try to own the limbs earlier in the day. yeah
Corey
1:06:10
mean that's gross simplification but ultimately i
Corey
1:06:14
do think for the ndp
Corey
1:06:17
i'm gonna i keep adding it's discipline story uh but discipline in this case also means
Corey
1:06:24
you've got to focus on the voters who are actually available not your base not everybody else who's like maybe a project for the next election you've
Corey
1:06:31
you've got to be laser focused absolutely
Carter
1:06:33
absolutely so and i think that you know i'm actually going to answer that the the uh the
Carter
1:06:38
the test for both of them is ultimately the same in
Carter
1:06:41
in that number one they have to make sure that they've got a significant path to victory uh
Carter
1:06:46
uh with the voters that are available um
Carter
1:06:49
um so for the ndp that means making sure that they are maximizing every single vote that they can get in calgary that that is the end all and be all for with them. Um, keeping home some voters is going to be important as well. Um, so that, that's my first piece. The second is to slow down and really build out your story. Um, both Danielle and, uh, Rachel need to figure that out. What is their story? What is the thing that they are telling people? Um, that is the core or the crux of their, of their issues to this point. Um, and then And number three is what is their characters? How are they fitting the population into their stories? Right now, Danielle has a priority set for her populations. She goes through the extreme right first. And I would argue that Rachel has the same problem, but instead of it being the far right, it's Edmonton. She speaks very well to Edmonton. She does not speak as well to Calgary. If she can't change that, she doesn't win.
Carter
1:07:54
I think we're looking at an election, frankly, Corey, that is not about who won, but about who loses. Because ultimately, this is going to be an election about, you know, if
Carter
1:08:03
if no one can figure this out, this thing's going to be a 44-43 toss-up. We don't know how this ends. It's a 44-43.
Carter
1:08:16
Wouldn't that be fun, Hank?
Corey
1:08:18
well no it would be awful and we have you know what one
Corey
1:08:22
of these things we'll have to talk about at some point is there's a day after the election too if the ndp wins given
Corey
1:08:28
given everything we've seen across north america you know home here in ottawa with convoy protests and obviously in dc with january 6th and more more afield but more recently in brazil with bolsonaro god
Corey
1:08:44
damn you know i just Just like some people will not accept this. And I'm not saying we're going to have the same thing, but I don't know. I just, uh, this
Corey
1:08:51
thing, this whole thing is going to
Carter
1:08:52
be George Clark. Uh, that's a deep dive right there that we can do in a, in a different episode.
Carter
1:08:58
Hey, listen, um, once
Carter
1:09:00
once again, I think we reached the end. Do you want to do your patented, uh, ending of the, the podcast where we try and do some sort of really creative out?