Episode 1284: Tattoos and email services

Zain 0:01

This is Strategist episode 1284. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen

Zain 0:05

Stephen Carter. Carter, you are so excited.

Carter 0:09

doing my Super Bowl dance.

Carter 0:11

Corey, we could not hear that.

Carter 0:13

We could not hear that at

Zain 0:14

You'll hear it. We're recording this as Mahomes gets the ball back. It's OT. It's 22-19. Okay. No spoilers for those that are listening to this ahead of the Super Bowl.

Corey 0:25

I mean, that feels like a spoiler.

Zain 0:27

spoiler. There might be some that have PBR at the Super Bowl for some time in the summer. It's over time.

Corey 0:33

time. Hey, I want to introduce myself to the person who decided that, you know, they had both the strategists and the Super Bowl that they could listen to tonight. And they said, you know, I'm going to go with the strategist first. No,

Zain 0:45

No, I think. I'm going to go with the strategist first. Just once again, to remind you, and this has been a constant issue with the podcast, this is not live.

Zain 0:53

And this does get recorded. And every time you try to have people call in, it never works, Carter. You've had people try to call into the show for how many years now?

Carter 1:02

Oh, years. Years. And how many people

Zain 1:05

people have we had successfully call into the podcast while we recorded?

Carter 1:09

Now, in fairness, too

Carter 1:10

too many, because we asked Dan to do it, and he just showed up one day, and that was a disaster.

Carter 1:15

Well, you took that somewhere.

Zain 1:17

No, I don't. I wasn't

Zain 1:18

there for it. I think the reason he was there is because I wasn't.

Carter 1:21

We were live recording something, Corey, and Dan just showed up. and what a gong show.

Zain 1:27

It was great. I'm

Carter 1:27

I'm glad we've decided never to have him on again. Yeah,

Zain 1:30

Yeah, no, that's true. I think he was the beginning of the end of guests. Yeah. Corey, you want to talk to us about your drink there?

Carter 1:38

Yeah, it's quite something.

Corey 1:40

Well, it's orange. Yeah. Yeah, it's a mix of things. Okay.

Corey 1:43

It's going to be good. Are

Carter 1:44

Are you getting hammered on the show today? Because that'd be a good episode. Well, I don't know. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. It's

Zain 1:48

It's like a Rogan Musk episode. Let's move it on, folks. We got so much to talk about. We're going to stick it. We'll stick with our home province, and let's start with a story that may not be exactly what people are expecting, but I'm going to start with our first segment, Stephen Carter, Recall, Recall.

Zain 2:06

Carter, is it time that we recall recall legislation here in Alberta? Because, of course, I ask because Calgary's mayor, Jyoti Gondek, has been issued a recall petition. The low bar that was required to get the petition off the ground now has the impossibly high bar to succeed based on the fact that a Calgary man has now started a petition. He needs more than half a million physical signatures on said petition to successfully recall Jyoti Gondek. It is all but a foregone conclusion that that will not happen. But Stephen Carter, the campaign has already begun online. This is a in-person, physical, signatory petition. But of course, there's recallmeregondek.com or .ca. I forget which domain extension, but whichever one it isn't, I'm sure we will capture and be able to do what we want with it, Corey. but carter is it time we recall recall legislation and then let me give you a bit of a track i want to talk about that and then i want to start talking about what a fight back strategy for the mayor and her allies could look like against something like this that will at least at the very least create a bit of a cloud over the next 55 some odd days so that and then we'll talk about strategy but carter your thoughts on recalling recall well

Carter 3:32

well i think that recall is a is a bad I mean, we have an election every four years. Four years is a reasonable period of time for a person to determine, you know, for a person to deliver on the promises that they make. Two years may not be an appropriate amount of time. And realistically, with the bar that we've set so high, there is no recall. There is no recall legislation. What there is, is an excuse for data collection. um you mentioned the online petition i mean i just you know it's by the way it's dot com so dot ca is available cory um but the the the ridiculous

Carter 4:12

ridiculous side of this is that it's it's not actually serving any purpose there is no particular reason to have this legislation uh to have this uh available because ultimately the politicians that write the rules are the politicians that don't want to be recalled.

Corey 4:30

Corey, do we need to recall recall?

Corey 4:34

I don't know. I am not actually that down on recall legislation as a concept. I generally do believe that you should give politicians their four-year term, and that that makes sense, and that we should judge people on a bundle of actions, and recall does seem to be triggered by individual actions, and I don't necessarily think that's super helpful but all of that said do

Corey 4:56

do we not want some sort of fail-safe when a politician is so offside of the opinions of the of the jurisdiction that they represent that they can no longer reasonably be said to represent the people there and there are situations that come to mind interestingly one of the people who's not facing a recall at this moment is sean chu a

Corey 5:16

councillor who um faced some very late breaking allegations and was re-elected but if you look at how the votes split between the advance ballots and the add day ballots would not have been elected if people were aware of it i think that it makes sense to allow recall in moments like that the bar is very high and the other part of it is you can only recall after a certain amount of time has passed both in Alberta for both our MLAs and I

Corey 5:45

I believe for our counselors, you'll correct me if I'm wrong on

Carter 5:47

on that particular one.

Corey 5:50

So, you know, the bar is really high, but it should exist for a while. I don't think we need to recall recall, I guess is what I'm saying. I think we need to recall the media thinking that somebody putting a petition forward for recall is in any way newsworthy because that doesn't matter at all. And they are never going to get 500,000 signatures on this they had like a hundred people show up at any given time at their um you know petition draw on the weekend here people

Corey 6:18

people do not appreciate the logistics of even getting 500 000 signatures it's fucking unreal what

Corey 6:25

you're requiring people to do if you just had one person sit there and take the signature of everybody one a second which couldn't happen you would be you couldn't do it you could You could not do it with the waking hours that are available, assuming that there was any kind of reasonable approach that you take. So this

Corey 6:43

this is my point. The bar is high, but I do think that having a fail-safe is

Corey 6:49

is good. We just can't have people thinking anytime any Yahoo decides they want to start a recall that it's fucking news, because it is fucking not. And

Corey 6:58

And I think that's the point that I want to underline. Carter,

Zain 7:01

Carter, I have to say I agree with Corey's point, but there is a newsworthiness to elements of the story, and I think that's what's fascinating, right? Because I agree with Corey that this, just a random person setting

Zain 7:15

setting up a recall petition, not newsworthy.

Zain 7:18

Or if we were doing classic overrated, underrated, overrated. Overrated. Right. The person doing that, right? right? However, underrated, what this could be weaponized for, hence the website, hence the data collection, hence the gathering. Talk to me about that in your mind. Like, are you, from your strategist brain, what are you gathering with some of the products that you have seen put online? Do you feel like this is for a mayoral campaign? Do you feel like it matters or doesn't? How are you reading or how are you seeing what you are seeing with the steps that thus far have been laid out with the recall campaign specific to let's say data collection branding and perhaps even like further depressing supporters of of the of the mayor well

Carter 8:02

well i think that uh it's no coincidence that craig chandler's progressive group of independent business has created a take back city hall uh group and they sent out urgent emails this week they're going to focus on three wards in the next couple of weeks to to start targeting and finding candidates for I mean, this is a data collection program that's going to identify what it seems to be identifying right now is door-knocking captains, people who are going to go out and collect the data. You know, those door-knocking captains, for them to be successful in the next 60 days, it's less than 60 days now, but if they were going to be successful, they'd have to have something like 12,500 hours from door-knockers to do that. And it's just not going to happen. But if you targeted three or four ridings and you found out, you know, where a group of anti-Gondek supporters are, you could then mobilize that group for a councillor candidate in the next election. or if you did all 14 ridings it'd be super easy to mobilize significant groups for your 14 counselors and um a mayoralty candidate so the data collection like you don't even care about the the the gen pop what you're aiming for are the people who are going to be the door knocking captains those captains are worth their money and you know they're waiting gold and you're going to to have probably,

Carter 9:29

probably, you know, if, if Corey's correct, a hundred right off the bat who went to the rally, probably going to be another two or 300 that didn't go to the rally who will sign up. Well, Jyoti Gandek's campaign only had, you

Carter 9:42

you know, 650 volunteers. So if you're identifying 400 volunteers, uh, in the, the year before an election, goodbye

Carter 9:51

goodbye Jyoti Gandek. I

Zain 9:52

I didn't think of it that way, Carter. I was, I was strictly thinking of it as a gen pop, but do you think this is an organizing uh data collection exercise that's smart cory that's all it yeah cory lay it on me give me give me your thoughts yeah

Corey 10:05

yeah like let's be clear like 12 500 hours yeah

Corey 10:09

that would still be getting 40 signatures an hour fuck off that's not happening on the doors anybody who's ever done voter id can tell you how unrealistic that particular figure is right and listen i don't think you need to be particularly good at math to come to those conclusions i don't think this is about 500 000 signatures i agree with steven entirely it's list building and

Corey 10:29

i think that the point that he makes that it's actually about organizer lists is a stellar one right like who are the first people who put their hand up and say i don't want the mayor there anymore well now you've got your army for the next election and that matters a lot because

Corey 10:42

it only takes a few hundred people to fundamentally change calculations in elections like this it's just the way it always has been always will be right it's a small group of people relative to what people expect that can really change the course of politics in any kind of polity whether it be a city or a province or a country and they've just built an army right doesn't need to be huge for it to be impactful carter

Zain 11:06

carter mahomes touchdown the chiefs of just one i'm sure you wanted to know carter oh that's

Zain 11:11

that's the best storyline possible yeah that's so good i'll give you all the i'll give you all the the T-Swift news as it comes through. Yeah, thank you. I'm very,

Carter 11:19

very, very worried about all of it.

Zain 11:21

it. This will not be dated at all. This will not be dated at all. Let me know. Yeah, for sure. Let me

Corey 11:25

me know if she endorses Joe Biden from the field. I

Zain 11:28

I will let you know. I'll also let you know if it's Shohei Ohtani or Robert Herjavec that show up. Okay. Just so you know. For a deep cut. I like that. I like a callback. See? Hey, Carter. Hey, Carter. Listen, I know you would not be the person to do this, but my whole job is to ensure sure on this show i put you guys in positions where i can leverage your expertise create for me the construct for a fight back strategy for the mayor what

Carter 11:54

what would that fight back strategy for the mayor yeah

Zain 11:57

yeah like okay now now that this is hanging over her head now that we kind of understand what the goal is and i agree with both of you that you know you you've you've done a good job kind of laying out that this is list building but this is also something that to cory's point the media will keep coming back to. She'll keep getting columns written about. It'll hang over her. What does a, give me the constructs of like what an effective fight back strategy looks like for her. And then maybe we can even go as far as talking about some of the tactics that she could think through specific to fighting back and potentially even like jujitsu-ing some of this energy against us, against her, I should say.

Carter 12:36

Number one, she's not fighting back against the actual petition. She shouldn't care about the petition. What she should be doing is putting together her team, right? Calling all the fundraisers who worked with her before, making sure they're online, make sure that all the volunteers are online, that she's got a solid team and a solid group of people who are ready to go to battle. Because what this is saying, and this is, there's unintended consequences for every election, right? And the unintended consequence of the last election was the introduction kind of of tpas and uh uh that led that's leading to a much earlier start to this campaign you know that early start is going to be have to be met by this sitting mayor she's she may not have to declare her candidacy until april of 2024 or 25 i mean uh april 2025 maybe even may but she has to have she has to secure um all of the different people that are required to run a campaign and it's those people that are going to be riled up that the mayor is under threat that you got to reach out to you got to call every single person all 650 volunteers last time And then the hundreds and hundreds of people that showed up in the weeks following her election that, you know,

Carter 14:00

know, wanted to volunteer, but they just never quite got around to it. You know those people, Corey.

Carter 14:04

We all know those people.

Carter 14:08

wanted to be there, but they just couldn't quite get there. But they found the victory party. They found the

Zain 14:15

to the victory party. Oh,

Carter 14:16

Oh, my God. So they're there and, uh, they just need, they need to be called right now and they need to be secured right now. And that needs to be a solid ask that says the following, um, I am going to run in the next election. I need you by my side. Will you help me? Yes or no. And no maybes, no, I got to worry about, you know, having a kid or something like that. None of those things matter. The only thing that matters is, will you help me? Yes or no. No. And I'd be very interested to see if the mayor is actually making those calls.

Zain 14:51

Corey, your thoughts on a framework for fighting back if you are the mayor?

Corey 14:58

Yeah, there's two ways to think about this. One is exactly what Stephen said, and maybe I'll loop back to that when I finish. But I agree. You go, you lock up your volunteers, you set sort of this cataclysmic worldview. It's us against anarchy, it's us against tyranny, it's us against Take Back Alberta. you know it's

Corey 15:14

us against and so we need you now and it's the time for all good progressives to stand up and fight you know that kind of nonsense the second way to think about it is if them building lists hurts you hurt

Corey 15:26

hurt them building lists so this is where you need to undermine their process a bit and probably even say things like you know this is really about getting on a list and you know people should think about whether they actually want to be on a craig chandler list let me tell you a little about craig chandler right and uh say hey listen honestly i know that um you know i maybe this is also maybe a great opportunity to show some humility and reset and say listen i know i i've made some missteps as mayor i know that there are things that we need to do better there is a learning curve to any role like this i'm so grateful calgarians have stuck through me with me through some of these things and yeah we're gonna do better and look Look, any politician should have a certain humility when people decide that this is the energy they want to bring to things here. But let's be really clear. This is not about me. This is about them building lists for their next crazy right-wing adventure. And if you have a problem with me as mayor, you know, this is my office phone number. This is my office email address. I want to hear from you. I want to talk to you. But I'll tell you something.

Corey 16:30

You give your information to them. them you're giving it to you know people who are going to use it for whatever their purpose is not your purpose they know very well how unlikely this is to succeed that's not their intention here so you know I'm just kind of spitballing and riffing here but the idea of undermining their process and making it less likely that they can actually get those people to sign up on the list would be the other way to think about it here now you have to be mindful that

Corey 16:57

that if you come at it with With a different energy than the humility energy I said, like, fuck them, they're going to lose. That's just going to galvanize those people and say, oh, I'm going to get my name double on that list. I'm going to get 10 people, which is why I think the humility is a very important component of any undermining of the process that you're intending to do if you're Mayor Gondek. Carter,

Zain 17:17

Carter, I have two questions based on what both of you guys have said here. Number one, should the mayor herself center herself, by which I mean, should she be a spokesperson for something like this in a fight back strategy? Does she have to kind of like come out and say some of the things, you know, that Corey has said or that you have suggested to say? And secondly, should those that want to defend the mayor invoke the mayor's name or make this about the broader cause of democracy or progressivism or those things? give me your thoughts on both of those those questions what

Zain 17:49

should do and what should the cause do yeah

Carter 17:52

both the cause and her should behave in exactly the same way i don't think they should be public at all i think that they should you know the humility that that cory's describing should be done in private in my mind there is only one objective it's

Carter 18:06

it's like so if the objective for the other side is to gather the the the the organizers your

Carter 18:13

your objective shouldn't be to win the public war your objective should also be she's not

Zain 18:18

not she's not taking out a public campaign that's like fuck this noise.ca no and she's not if i could jump

Corey 18:23

jump in not even jump rob them of oxygen

Corey 18:26

yeah you don't want you do not necessarily want a

Corey 18:30

big conversation about this because that just makes another news story just gives them another opportunity to canvas and get out there yeah

Carter 18:35

yeah this and any opportunity to go into the public or speak to the public is just an opportunity for them if

Carter 18:41

if it's if it involves a telephone call in one person that is what you know how long would it take to make 600 telephone calls in 60 days right like that's how i would view this i got 600 telephone calls i got to make them in 60 days i'm going to start 10 a day boom boom boom tell me what's more more likely 600 telephone calls in 60 days or 500 plus thousand signatures in 60 days so

Zain 19:04

so so to be clear both of you're suggesting not public you know um use this as a as a star of of them of of of the runway or the oxygen that they have cory did you want to build on that at all before i kind of follow up with

Corey 19:16

with my final question like

Corey 19:17

like i wouldn't necessarily be a hundred percent against public if there's a story anyhow like if if you would come up with this idea at this at the launch of this particular thing where there's the one story i would say that that tone that i thought uh would be pretty good in that story but as we talk this out i wouldn't go to a microphone tomorrow or call a news conference tomorrow and say this that is only going to feed your opponents right but um but if there was any kind of moment where you just needed to speak on anyhow for you know some reason then yeah i would consider the tone i discussed but what

Corey 19:51

generally speaking what reason

Corey 19:53

reason well what else are you gonna okay so what else what's your alternative what are you gonna say right like i'm saying this is a situation

Carter 19:58

situation where i mean it's done now the rally's done the they're done like they're not gonna get publicity who's

Corey 20:04

who's disputed i'm literally saying if this had been at launch or if some crazy thing happened

Carter 20:08

happened now you're just revising because you agree with me but i get it i see but

Corey 20:13

i'll tell you this um i'm so me uh you know the building of it no but you're totally right like the building of it over 60 days is is smart like just chunk these things out and go like this is

Carter 20:26

to i would be willing to bet a nickel that she doesn't i'm

Carter 20:28

i'm just throwing it out there although

Carter 20:30

although maybe she's listening to the mod hello

Zain 20:35

ask you a question is it been a while you know carter

Zain 20:37

ever ever since we talked about this concept of like what was it judoing jujitsuing one of the one of the jujitsu

Zain 20:44

right like where you kind of whatever you take the energy yeah you kind of put it back you expand less energy i i think that's become quite a quite

Zain 20:52

quite a like sexy political strategy that's

Corey 20:54

that's what steven carter calls

Zain 20:55

yeah that's what i

Carter 20:56

call it because by the way i came up with it the sexy see yeah yeah

Zain 20:59

yeah they're oh no that's i thought i thought kelsey was hugging taylor swift but it's not it's just a random random okay

Zain 21:06

still one woman above six feet no he's now shaking hands with the guy that's definitely not taylor swift okay they're just cameras on let me just hold on let's just see what happens it seems like he's approaching all

Corey 21:15

all right you just take your time don't

Zain 21:16

don't worry about the podcast we're just gonna i'm not editing this homes is hugging romo um which by the way tony romo romo dude hugging yeah

Corey 21:26

i can't trust his neutral

Zain 21:27

i can't trust of neutrality

Zain 21:29

is this you know

Zain 21:30

how great robo was

Corey 21:31

was in his first season as

Zain 21:33

as a commentator it was unbelievable he

Corey 21:35

he was a he was a great rookie commentator he

Zain 21:38

he was predicting plays and then he realized he doesn't play with any of these people anymore he doesn't know any of the play calls but now he just goes off on his own just says random shit uh i think he's gonna lose his job soon um hey so listen this concept of like political jujitsu has become quite sexy right Right. Like I've heard it more often ever since. I'm not saying you invented it, Carter, but let's just say you did.

Zain 22:00

OK. Congratulations, Carter. It comes up so often being like, you know, all we need to do, all we need to do is take this bad news story and then just turn it on them. And I've heard that so many times, just even casually in conversation. That opportunity, Carter, doesn't always exist, to be clear.

Zain 22:19

it exist here? From your analysis and your strategic brain, does that opportunity exist here for the mayor? that that's kind of the final point i wanted to examine here that that both of you are kind of saying starve it of oxygen plan for 60 days you know you know plan your own path is there is there any sort of stephen carter patented jujitsu strategy available here i

Carter 22:42

i mean the only strategy i think that could be available and i i would not recommend this because i think that it's too aggressive and for me to say that something's too aggressive must be too aggressive wow it

Zain 22:54

it won't work. Yeah,

Carter 22:55

Yeah, it's very aggressive.

Carter 22:57

Invalidated. But I think that if

Carter 23:00

if you really wanted to fuck with people, you'd take the six people who are really your mortal enemies and start with Sean Chu and do a recall petition against Sean Chu. The counselor petitions are far more likely to succeed. They're still not going to succeed, just to be clear, but they're far more likely to succeed. so you could do a recall against sean true against sonja sharp against uh jennifer winus and prepare for the next election and you don't have to do them all at once you could just do them almost sequentially uh and in fact if you started the other way now that i'm thinking about this and you did uh sonja sharp first and dan mclean second and then jennifer winus and then andre chabot and then sean chu by the time you got the sean chu you'd probably be successful in your recall um because you'd have organized so many organizers and you'd be going after the greatest villain um but that would really destroy council so you know not that council's not pretty broken

Carter 24:03

broken already but if you want to be that better mirror that that cory is kind of uh talked about whispering under your breath when you're talking to uh talking to all those organizers then i think that that strategy is just too too aggressive and that really is in my mind the only jujitsu move that you've got everything else is just getting uh just giving more oxygen to something that you don't want to have oxygen cory

Zain 24:29

cory anything to add i feel like you've given a few of your comments on this in terms of starving oxygen but i'll let you i'll let you give a cory hogan patented jujitsu strategy should it be available here look

Corey 24:39

look the enemy of my enemy is my friend right so there There are a lot of people who are not super enthused about Jodi Gondek, but they're way less enthused about, you know, the

Corey 24:50

the other groups that are involved in all of this here. And there's been kind of suggestions even of, you know, lobby

Corey 24:55

lobby groups being involved in this, looking at metadata on documents. You never know if that's fully the case or somebody just used a template or whatever. But I guess the point would be they

Corey 25:06

they might be less popular with your supporters than you are popular. And so this does afford you an opportunity, really, to have those conversations Stephen was talking about, where you go to people and you put it in those terms, those kind of like clash of civilization, you know, end of, you know, twilight of the gods kind of stuff, where it's like, okay, well, which side are you on? We're going to fight these guys or what? What's going on? on and um and so that might be a better frame and a more popular frame for you than your current existence but you've got to be realistic about um the

Corey 25:39

the reality that that backlash is possible too and by that i don't mean someone's gonna say i was okay and then you called me and fuck you but it's like oh my god it is high stakes why are we going with this horse right

Corey 25:53

you know it like using a horse race metaphor here. And so, you know, then maybe it becomes a different choice. Maybe you find a different candidate. And so, that's the possibility if you go down that road. So,

Corey 26:07

if you want to try going down that road, be really attuned to what you're hearing and be prepared to just say, okay, this is actually a bad idea after the first 10 conversations, if you realize that it's having, you know, an

Corey 26:20

effect you don't wish for, shall we say. Carter,

Zain 26:22

Carter, we'll move on to our next segment in a second here, but I've got to ask you, and this is totally unrelated to anything we've been talking about. If you were to start a sporting league, would you want Roger Goodell or Gary Bettman as your commissioner if you had to pick from those two massive picks? Who would you pick, Carter?

Carter 26:42

would pick Roger Goodell.

Carter 26:46

No, wrong answer. Because I like my players to be violent. Oh, God. So that's who I'd go for. I think he's

Zain 26:50

he's got a head injury, Corey. who would you be picking uh i just i just saw goodell on the screen here and i just um excuse me while i throw up yeah yeah

Corey 27:01

yeah here's the thing about goodell i think goodell has actually overseen a bit of a modest decline of football right whereas betman love him or hate him and yeah you can talk about a lot of missteps and failed franchises and that when he took over the nhl it was like yeah very very minor league relative to the other leagues as much as we We pretended there was a big four sports leagues, right? And he has made those owners boatloads of money. So if I was starting a sports team, sports

Carter 27:30

Did they make enough money to build their own stadiums?

Corey 27:33

Oh, that's piercing. Oh. That's piercing. See? See what you did there. That's pretty good.

Zain 27:37

Let's move it on to our

Zain 27:39

our next segment. Our next segment, of course, is one brought to us by our sponsor, Flair Airlines. Lift off or let down. Guys, we are here. It's a Claire Airlines liftoff or a letdown. We always do this when there are campaigns that have launched. And Stephen Carter, there are campaigns that have launched. We have three Alberta NDP leadership candidates that are now officially a go. We had Kathleen Ganley, the first entrant into the field, launch on day one of possible launches. We had Racky Pancholi go on this past Thursday, if I'm not mistaken. And we had Sarah Hoffman today, as we record. court. Sunday, February 11th, go earlier today with their launches. All three had similarities. All three had differences. We can tease them out, but I want to spend most of this episode talking about what they now need to do going forward. Carter, I'll give you my summary, and then you could interrupt and you could tell me how each of them played out for you, liftoff or letdown. Kathleen Ganley had a launch event. I'm going to talk tactically here more so than anything. She had a launch event that included several MLAs, it included an introduction video, And it included a campaign website driving people to the standard things, donations, membership sales, etc. Really a focus on Team Ganley. Racky Pancholi, an ambitious campaign video that I think she certainly landed with. A website, no real launch event, but kind of came out with a signature policy, one might suggest, introducing that policy to potentially wedge her opponents on the consumer carbon tax. She announced that on Real Talk with Ryan Tresperson. And then you had Sarah Hoffman, who had a live stream event, a pretty nice looking website today, I would say, a solid and potentially even humorous launch to her launch, kind of taking out some of the wind on people's sails about who she is, why she's running, trying to reposition in certain ways what people would assume about her, Carter, both in terms of her policy positioning. But I'd say out of the three, probably the clearest in terms of what are key areas of focus might ultimately be. Carter, run through the three campaigns, liftoff or letdown. Let's start with that. And then I want to start with the go forward. So liftoff, letdown, anything interesting you notice strategically. And then let's talk about the future state. Corey, I'll come to you in a second on the same series of questions.

Carter 29:58

Yeah, I mean, I think that all all of three to this point have been very almost

Carter 30:05

paint by numbers. Right. I think that each one of them maybe have had a little bit better element than the others. Right. I think that Sarah Hoffman's live event was was really quite good. Great visuals from it. I think that Racky Pancholi's video was the best in class and I give extra points to Kathleen Ganley for going first no one stumbled no one failed just no one's really you know there was nothing particularly interesting about the launch but I think we've said it's super hard to have a launch that really explodes you know what would an explosion look like 600 people in a room maybe but

Carter 30:44

but that's super hard to do that you know like there

Carter 30:47

there was nothing nothing there that kind of says oh yeah that was that was the launch that we were looking for for the ndp launch and it's all over now i saw three campaigns that launched that each i think have a chance to be successful over the course of the campaign period but i didn't see any campaign that launched and went um it's over now i'm the front runner and you're going to have to catch me um each one of them got their requisite media each one of them got their you know attention for the moment but none of them have uh it'll

Carter 31:24

it'll be interesting to see if sarah hoffman has a follow-up strategy how will she get more attention um well

Zain 31:30

to kind of discuss follow-up strategies yeah

Carter 31:32

i'll leave it there then i'll leave it there and let my friend well cory uh okay

Zain 31:37

okay good yeah i'm glad i feel like you're walking back my friend which which which seemed appropriate, given your history on this podcast. Corey, liftoff or letdown for each of these three? And then just tell me if there's something strategic you noticed. And then based on this, there's a few things I want to bring up before we kind of go to the future state.

Corey 31:54

Yeah, so I do firmly believe launch days are overhyped. But I do also think that the three were interesting and told us interesting things about the campaigns. And certainly things that I'll be watching, some will be like, are they going to correct that? Or are they going to find their footing? and some are are they going to be able to follow up on that because that seemed pretty cool but what's that too right and so um let's start with sarah's because it was most recent i will say it was stronger than i expected on the campaign fundamentals right but it you know to carter's point maybe it was a little paint by numbers because it was like the things you expect from a campaign you know like the human wall and the speech and the rally and the website

Corey 32:32

the rallies but it was all really well done right like from a campaign's fundamentals point of view she She did it. Like, I think it was in some ways the most generic of the launches. I think she sounded good

Corey 32:43

But yes, absolutely. You know, she was stronger than I expected. And part of that is I'd actually in the past couple of weeks started to think, oh, is this campaign actually going to launch, right? Like, it had had a bit of trouble at provincial council for the NDP as the rules were set. I mean, just losing vote after vote after vote, right? And there'd been a lot of chatter about how that had antagonized some people and what the fuck are they doing and so on and so forth. but the campaign launched just just fine and it's clearly a campaign and it's clearly a serious campaign right i will say that rackies was for sure the standout for me i know carter thinks that there's kind of genericism here but if you look at how the people reacted to it like let's just talk about videos kathleen's video launched online had 27 000 views we were talking about this on the strategist discord the other day i can't remember who on the discord show like showed this this to us but you certainly caught my eye 27 000 views for kathleen's video racky's just on twitter had 475 000 you know in counting i mean like that's that's a big difference

Carter 33:44

difference and you starting and stopping the video every two seconds like

Corey 33:48

just so i can so i can be right about things yeah

Carter 33:51

that's all that so yeah

Corey 33:52

so there was that but there was also the way that the kind of narrative was seized on the the carbon tax which now sarah hoffman has gone out and i think rather sensibly said i'm not going to be the pro-carbon tax person and just said yeah maybe it's dead but i mean that was that was pretty impressive like just changed the frame got a lot of media out of it move forward kathleen's was weaker than i expected um simply because it is it's just been like it's

Corey 34:18

it's it's fine like i i don't want to say like what a train wreck or anything like that i'm not saying that but given that it's pretty clear that she has such a strong control over the old notley apparatus there were a few things that caught my eye that i thought were just a little weird if i'm going to be frank the first email came out from jeremy noles her campaign manager also

Carter 34:38

that former chief of staff to rachel notley for a million years yeah so fucking

Zain 34:43

fucking weird but so i

Zain 34:45

mean very weird why sorry just just so i'm clear why why was that weird to you guys it

Zain 34:50

to me so it's i

Corey 34:52

believe you're lying now no i'm

Zain 34:54

i'm actually i'm first email from a campaign asking just out of curiosity like yeah the first email in

Corey 34:59

in the campaign are

Zain 34:59

are dumber than a

Zain 35:02

are idiots okay they don't

Corey 35:04

anything so you are going to launch a campaign yeah and you are going to say i am the candidate yeah

Corey 35:11

but you're not going to say i am the candidate you're going to let somebody else fucking put words in your mouth if

Carter 35:17

that's malpractice i mean there's

Carter 35:19

there's been times when my name has more More value than the candidate's name.

Carter 35:25

It's true. Come on.

Corey 35:25

on. I think it's true for all three of us.

Corey 35:28

No, fuck off. He's not David Axelrod. I am David Axelrod. Outside of a small group of people, people- David Axelrod calls me for advice.

Corey 35:35

I'm talking about you. I'm talking about Jeremy Knowles. Can I shave my

Carter 35:40

Shave it, buddy. Do it. And then I turned out to be wrong, and that was a mistake.

Carter 35:45

That's a rarity. I felt bad.

Corey 35:47

All right. I felt bad. Well, let's keep walking through the week. So you start by saying, okay, I'm going to have Rachel Notley's former chief of staff introduce me. Weird choice. Weird choice. Why not your co-chair, Shannon Phillips, right? Why not? I don't understand. Even if you're going to go down this road, which I can't believe for the life of me anyone would go down, why you wouldn't start with yourself? then you follow it up with endorsements of raj panu and

Corey 36:15

and brian mason so former leaders so like what's going on here like is this the continuity campaign sure why not it's not there's no way you believe it's hard i feel like

Carter 36:25

working great i said okay fairness to you you know in fairness to myself my fine did you listen at all to what i said they were all very workmanlike for me they were all very passable yeah

Carter 36:37

racky's had a very good video you pointed out the video good for you i'm very pleased that you like the video as well but the video is just a video it doesn't do anything beyond the day unreal

Zain 36:48

unreal here's here's here's here's the thing i just need to now let's move people so people can understand the energy cory's giving us here you guys probably need some visuals um carter and i are andy reed yeah

Zain 37:01

yeah and cory is a travis kelsey okay yeah

Zain 37:04

Once again, I chose the most limited yet current meme to explain. That's very topical. Okay.

Zain 37:12

I'm sincerely baffled. And I'm sincerely earnestly asking why it's bothering you so much.

Corey 37:17

Yeah, why are you so angry? Why, like, you would launch without yourself? Like, that's what it should be. Well, she launched

Carter 37:22

herself. She launched with her own video. She then sent the first email out from someone who is a noted member of the party. No, not noted. Not notable. Not noted. Not notable. Not notable. What

Corey 37:33

What do you mean not notable?

Carter 37:34

notable? Oh, come on. Guys.

Carter 37:36

making up stories. Now

Carter 37:38

Now you're making up stories. If

Corey 37:39

If I asked 10,000 NDP members who Jeremy Nolik

Carter 37:43

Nolik is. Like there are 10,000 NDP members. Okay. Come on. Okay. Let's start. What

Corey 37:47

What percent? Sincerely, what percent do you think would come back? 75%. Yeah, I know who that guy.

Zain 37:54

on. I was going to say. There's

Corey 37:55

There's no way you believe that. 50%.

Zain 37:56

50%. You don't think 50% would

Corey 37:58

would know Jeremy? There's no way you believe 50%.

Zain 37:59

50%. I think so.

Zain 38:00

You don't think so? Maybe

Zain 38:01

Maybe we overestimate the staff.

Zain 38:03

Maybe, maybe. Yes, you grossly overestimate.

Corey 38:07

okay, so just so I'm clear. Why wasn't it Shannon Phillips if you wanted to do this approach?

Carter 38:12

You raise a good point there because I really do like Shannon. I think she would have been the first. Can

Zain 38:17

Can I, can I? Okay, so I've got both your assessments on a liftoff or letdown. I feel like all three of you are giving a degree of liftoff to these candidates. There's only two of us, Zane.

Zain 38:27

Well, all three of you, including myself. Okay. By the way, just so you're clear. clear uh zane velji for leader is a different person than zane velji it's just and this will become clear in the coming episodes um the hey carter there's a few things that i found interesting like i know both of you i've come i've come to the conclusion that launch day is is overrated um there

Zain 38:49

there was two types of like rallies that we saw if i can call it that one was more for the media ganley one was more for like the live stream and the people in the room if you had to choose between the two would you choose one over the other or do you think they're dependent based on your goals i'm kind of curious like i think there's apples there's not perfect apples to apples but there's interesting apples to apples things that i just thought now that we're beyond the launch that we can for for a few of these candidates we can start comparing which one did you like more which one is like kind of more interesting to you which one is more strategically beneficial to you can we talk about that and there's a few others before and then i promise i'll get to the future state i

Carter 39:22

i think that i think that what sarah did was harder to do. And for that reason, like she actually isn't going to get any bonus points from me for, for the harder to do one, because why, why expend all that effort, putting all those people in the room for one media shot, right? Like you're going to get what four stories today, five stories. Um, and then you're right back trying to generate more awareness and it takes a tremendous amount of effort to do what Sarah did. Uh, I think she pulled it off. I think she you did a great job but that's not how i want to spend my time i actually liked what racky did i think that racky's fuck

Carter 40:01

fuck it i'm not going to do an event is the best event for our launch because

Carter 40:06

your real job is to get people engaged in the campaign and selling memberships and the video looked like it was probably a videographer racky and an assistant who went i believe everywhere in the province um but then after that it was just kind of you

Carter 40:25

didn't worry too much about something that didn't matter too much and i think that sarah hoffman fell into the trap of making something that didn't matter too much take a lot of time and effort and whereas kathleen ganley moved quick did something for like the speed with with which Kathleen acted,

Carter 40:42

it was as impressive as the organization that Sarah put in place today. So that's why I'm kind of, everybody did something good. Everybody did something good, except Corey. Corey did nothing good this last week.

Carter 41:00

Talk to me about the

Zain 41:01

the observation, at least try to stick it on this sort of like rally-like format, and then I've got a few others.

Corey 41:08

I will say, for for all three campaigns my caution

Corey 41:12

caution would be this is not a general election and so when i talk about it in the context of the ganley campaign like this just like dropping endorsement after endorsement of people that generally speaking the membership either anybody who has an opinion about that already has an opinion about the race if you are like i need to know what raj panu thinks you already have a horse in this race like you are invested in this party right and so like you are creating these names for what like right you're not trying to create it's a weird thing like you're trying to create a different type of buzz in a leadership election the

Corey 41:46

the the second thing that i would say well and not the second thing the second campaign i'd look at is sarah's and say you know that launch and those visuals and getting people in the room this is not a general election right so you've got to be able to harness that and then finally i think racky did by far the best job of creating like general population buzz and certainly framed out things that's got to be turned into memberships too right and so like everybody has need needs to look past their launch and say how does this turn into memberships actual votes at the end of the day let

Carter 42:17

let me tell you something i'm mr positive today you're mr negative right

Carter 42:21

right i'm putting everything in the positive and and you're putting everything in the negative together we're

Corey 42:30

look i would say this like i i thought that there were at least two and a half good launches last week and I think that everybody's going to be a credible campaign and

Corey 42:39

and what I will be curious to watch over the next bit is how some of these campaigns shift and morph and my

Corey 42:46

my personal view is that the

Corey 42:49

the launch matters a lot like we talked about this actually last week the launch matters less than the adaptability of that you show

Zain 42:54

show based on issue based on competition based on everything absolutely one more sort of comparator question and then we'll move on to the future state because i do want to talk about the future state really about like kind of maximizing what appears to be um the assets or at least the the the unique selling assets that each of these campaigns seem to have with ganley it seems to be the the number of endorsements with and i'm gonna be simple these are not these are not singularly the only assets with racky it seems to be kind of the collection of community people who who can who to talk about her in a positive way that the growth that she's trying to embody within her campaign that seems to to be quite positive and for sarah it certainly seems to be the fact that that she um as you mentioned past has one-to-one relationships but she's also got the party connection so to speak so how do they kind of double down maximize think about these things let's talk about that in a second one other comparator though cory i want to kind of give you um which is video what

Zain 43:49

what would um and maybe you could start with this both if i might be mistaken i don't think hoffman went with a video today i think she would i think it was just it was just a stream right so she didn't go go with like a standalone 90 second 30 second whatever might be coming in the next day or something but yeah and we can talk about it when it does um but we have two samples of videos to compare we have the kathleen um ganley raki pancholi um different

Zain 44:15

different but similar like biographical trying to explain who they are a bit of of of uh a story in certain cases about alberta um what do What do you think the state of campaign launch videos are these days? These videos, I'd say, really, to me, kind of harken back on a bit of like, in some ways, you guys might say these have been standard for years, or as Park Carter might say, these are like paint-by-numbers for years. I think the recent sort of American election and cycle, the AOC-style video with a little bit of bio, a little bit of personality, a little bit of like upbringing story has started to kind of make its way a lot more. These two-minute style videos are now extremely common in many races when folks launch. Give me your take on kind of some lessons learned, now that it's in the past for at least a couple of these camps, on launch videos and what you think. And Carter, same thing for you from your strategist lens, and then we'll move on to the future state, as I mentioned.

Corey 45:13

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I do believe that we have seen a certain format of launch video take over over the the last bit that's pretty common

Corey 45:24

right you start to see it in one jurisdiction and it works and people pull it into other jurisdictions and they pull it forward there but in reality a launch video was trying to do a pretty common thing which is introduce the candidate and their campaign to to the public so you know i'm not i'd actually struggle to think of a launch video that really split the atom like again i think back on the

Corey 45:47

the uh cpc campaign where we we saw pierre polyev's launch video right

Zain 45:53

nothing right home about actually actually

Corey 45:54

actually i gotta tell you probably less ambitious than either of the other the two hundred

Corey 45:58

we've talked about with boardroom boardroom

Corey 46:00

direct to camera yeah absolutely

Corey 46:02

absolutely so again there goes to show you when you think about videos from the polyev campaign you don't think boardroom direct to camera right

Corey 46:09

like they they found things that would work for them better or

Zain 46:12

what in fact they arguably create their own sort of narrative style throughout that campaign sure you

Corey 46:16

you know it i guess I guess that, but like, I want to underline what

Corey 46:20

they're trying to do is pretty basic. It's

Corey 46:22

introduction, right? And so I don't fault them on it and the kind of basic concept. It really comes down to, at a certain point, execution. And you start reading the tea leaves on what the execution means, right? In terms of the quality, the words they're using, the phrases that they bring into it or don't bring into it, the things they avoid talking about, the things that they do talk about. And yeah, people like you, me, and Stephen can overanalyze and overinterpret these things. But at the end of the day, it's about a feeling. Like, what's the feeling you have after watching this campaign video? And well, you and me and Stephen, and

Corey 46:57

and many of our listeners might watch launch video after launch video after launch video. The reality is most people do not.

Corey 47:03

And so when they see a launch video, they're not judging it against 30 other launch videos and saying how different it is.

Corey 47:09

the feeling that they have at the end of that particular launch video. I'm

Zain 47:11

I'm glad you ended up there, Corey, because Carter, I guess the heart of my question, I wish I'd phrased it to you this way, Corey, so I could kind of be more precise, but here we are, was

Zain 47:23

Does ambition get the credit it deserves? So you got one launch video that clearly had a higher level of ambition and execution. Another one that did not, although it was actually, I thought it was quite good at its own right. Does the extra mile on ambition pay off? And I want to maybe tie in Corey's last comment around feeling, or is it not actually even about like production and ambition polish? Like, give it to me like what you'd kind of like classify as a secret sauce on launch video, maybe with that frame in mind around like, hey, should we spend the extra money going all across the province? Or should we just film this all across Calgary with some simple B-roll of the candidate, comparing the two? You know, like there was clearly a higher level of ambition in one between the other. And I'm kind of curious if this teaches you or clarifies anything for you as a strategist, Stephen Carter, watching these two videos over the last week.

Carter 48:14

Yeah, I mean, I wish the numbers say that the ambition mattered. Racky got more views. It's

Carter 48:24

It's pretty straightforward. Racky won the video war.

Carter 48:29

Great. great. Did you sell any memberships? That's, that's the trick. So I don't actually have the metric that actually determines whether or not something was successful in front of me. So if you use the wrong metric, you can chase the wrong things. So you can chase, that's very

Carter 48:45

You can chase views all day long, right? You can chase viral virality all day long. And if it is generating for you the outcome, right? And now sometimes you can, you can tell yourself, and this This might even be true. The virality at the beginning is super important because we're going to need it at the end. When people start buying those memberships, when they finally turn around to buying the memberships in the last two weeks, we need that name recognition, and we are getting it from our viral videos. But there's been some great videos in the US, especially, that ... I'm thinking of the woman who was the fighter pilot. pilot um like there's been some really good the guy smoking weed the

Zain 49:29

the whole time and like maybe

Carter 49:30

maybe less so that that one

Zain 49:32

one was crazy um yeah

Carter 49:35

they're not necessarily correlated to victory they're

Carter 49:38

right they're not there there's a lot of great videos in a lot of great places where they go viral they may raise some money but they don't win um they're targeted the wrong audience right like the the wrong people like them and of the people who watched racky's video i'm not sure if all those people who watched that video weren't people who were like yeah

Carter 50:00

yeah i really like her but i'm never going to join the ndp right

Carter 50:04

right i don't know who they were i don't know what the outcome was i don't know what kind of data they collected so but i would suggest that there's probably some sort of positive correlation cory

Zain 50:16

cory yeah do you want to comment here and then we can carve the the path out for each of these candidates?

Corey 50:20

No, look, all things being equal, you want to have more video views, right? You want to have that virality. And of course, we don't know in the cases, well, maybe you do in the States, I don't know, I should say, whether they outperformed, perhaps, where they were expected. Maybe they were always expected to lose, and maybe they lost a little bit less, right? These videos can matter. All things being equal, you want to have have more views than not, right? But the fundamental point remains, how

Corey 50:48

how do you convert on that? So let's say, I wouldn't even call it a necessary but insufficient condition. It is a great way to start a sales funnel, but you've got to have the rest of the funnel. I guess that would be the point that I would make,

Corey 51:01

right? Like, okay, 475,000 views on Twitter across all platforms, who knows how many, probably a ton. How are you converting those people? What are the follow-up conversations? What is the infrastructure? It's really important that that campaign team is not just sitting there saying, mission accomplished, but instead saying, all

Corey 51:19

all right, I cracked the door open a tiny bit. Now I got to get my fingers in there, right? And it's really, really important to have follow through for things like that.

Zain 51:28

Carter, let's talk about these candidates going forward. I've laid out what I think their unique advantages are. You might think they're different, or you may think there's additional ones. I was going to say Hoffman, it's the inside track. For For Ganley, it's the endorsements. For Racky, it's the fact that, you know, she seems to have a bit of a growth opportunity as it relates to the campaign that she's running. Talk to me about what they need to do specifically, Carter, going forward. Let's talk Hoffman first. Let's both of us, or both of you, all three of us, talk Hoffman first.

Carter 51:58

Hoffman needs to lock down the existing membership of the party. You know, she needs to find a way to tell, to resell and to gather commitments from the people who are already there. Then she needs to get on her ass and come down to Calgary, sell a whole bunch of memberships down here. Calgarians don't really know Sarah Hoffman very well. Can I interrupt

Zain 52:20

interrupt you there? Can I interrupt you there for one second?

Zain 52:25

Yeah. Does she actually need to? I have the same question. Does she need to come out of the category? If she is a fucking rock star of Edmonton, right, whether you believe that statement or not, but if she's like, why would she even think about this? One member, one vote. Isn't it just to get to the finish line in whatever way possible? Sell the shit out of Glenora, sell the shit out of, you know, Smackona,

Zain 52:48

call it a day. You

Carter 52:49

You cannot cede all of the ground to two other candidates in Calgary. This is looking like it's going to turn out to be a four-candidate race, not counting the Nench, because the Nench, even if he's coming in, doesn't appear to be coming in anytime soon. So we're going to have four candidates. You cannot give, and of the four candidates, three are big-name candidates. The three big names have launched, right? So those three big names are now in the game, and you cannot give 50% of the province or of the circle of voting to two of them. And

Carter 53:24

And especially when you're competing with Rakhi also in Edmonton, you have to get at least 20% of the vote in Calgary. Otherwise you're going to lose. You're going to be at, she can get 45% of the vote on the first ballot and still lose just because of the way that the roll-up goes.

Carter 53:41

Just because if the roll-up goes Ganley

Zain 53:50

Corey, do you agree with Carter's, I'll get your own take on Hoffman, your own independent stream of take, but I need you to respond to his, she's got to come to Calgary. She's got to come down here, not cede the territory. If you were like giving her advice, you might say that, but does it have to be true? You know what I mean? Like you might say that from like an option, but like, could they not just sell the shit out of Edmonton and call it a day?

Corey 54:15

Well, it's all about effort to votes. But what Stephen's identified is an important point. If you think you're going to be one of the last two candidates in a roll-up ballot, that means either Racky or Kathleen will be off the ballot, and their supporters will have to go somewhere. And if you have just said, I haven't talked to them because I haven't gone down to Calgary, if there's large numbers of Calgary supporters in either case, you've probably got a problem. But that

Corey 54:41

that is getting into tactics. Like ultimately, this is about effort to vote. So if you can exert less effort and get votes, and you do have to think about a first, second and third ballot, but if you can exert less effort and get more votes in Edmonton, stay in Edmonton. Now, there are some things that you'll be trying to juggle at the same time. You'll be thinking about if you want to actually be leader, if you think you have a chance of being leader, you can't afford to be known as the leader who let Edmonton or Calgary burn, right? Like don't care about Calgary. So there's a certain amount of that as well. Like talk about winning the battle, but losing the war, if you're seen as just totally undigestible to

Carter 55:15

to one of the major

Corey 55:16

major centers here. But that goes both ways, by the way, like you can't burn Edmonton either. either um but that said it

Corey 55:23

it really is about effort to vote and that's going to be a different calculation for all sorts of people in all sorts of ways because look at the end of the day

Corey 55:31

do we think 50

Corey 55:33

50 000 people are going to vote in this thing you

Corey 55:36

you know okay well let's just say let's say for easy math it's 50 000 people you

Corey 55:41

you could find 50 000 people in edmonton with enough time and effort you know inclination

Corey 55:45

inclination you could find 50 000 people in calgary you could find 50 50,000 people outside of those centers, right? The question becomes how you best find those people.

Carter 55:56

But it's more than just how you best find those people. If it's 50,000 total votes that are cast in this leadership, are you going to have 25,001?

Carter 56:07

Right? If you do have 25,001, then it's not a problem. But realistically, when you have three big candidates, right? Right. And this is a roll up vote. So we don't ever have to talk about vote split. Instead, we can talk about vote. You know, the votes roll up. And the question is, will they roll up to you? And if you haven't been in Calgary, if you haven't gone to all the centers, if you haven't made the effort,

Carter 56:34

then you're in if all you've done is sold your own memberships and not talk to the people who are around that. Now, you could make a case, Corey, that's going to come after the membership deadline. And I'd have to say, you know what, you're

Carter 56:51

But I still would start building those relationships early, because the more that it looks like you've ignored Calgary, the harder it's going to be. Your effort to vote ratio gets harder, not easier, as

Carter 57:02

as you move down the road.

Corey 57:04

well this is this gets into the strategy campaigns have to figure out right these are the the calculations that campaigns are going to need to make that are going to be unique to their circumstances but i agree with you a hundred percent you this is not something where you can just kind of turn up and again i do think it cuts both ways like if you're kathleen ganley you don't show up in the city of edmonton she's

Carter 57:23

she's got to be in edmonton fort mcmurray grandpa there might be 16 votes in fort mcmurray still still got to go because she's got to appear here like she's got the whole province of Cape

Carter 57:35

her grasp because she's not as well known right

Zain 57:38

let's let's just let's just let's just speaking of roll up let's just roll into Ganley right so you're already getting started there keep going and then I'll throw to Corey well I

Carter 57:45

I think that of the three names Ganley's

Carter 57:48

Ganley's the least known because she's also the least kind of I think even even let

Zain 57:53

let being a former less than less

Corey 57:55

less than Racky I think she's a former minister I think Racky's on the list everybody

Carter 57:59

everybody I talked to knows Racky well

Zain 58:02

think it might be a bias for who

Corey 58:04

who we know you're

Corey 58:04

you're talking about are we talking

Carter 58:06

don't know them they're probably not buying a fucking membership i'm telling you i'm a big fucking deal in this here carter's

Zain 58:12

steven carter he's writing emails on behalf of candidates carter is offering his name for a small fee of how much carter you

Carter 58:20

you know what i'm writing an email right now on behalf of zane velgey and you just watch what's going to happen my very

Zain 58:26

very good Can we

Zain 58:27

we use some of the Patreon money to get me vetted, just so I can get into the race? I mean, sorry, not that I can get into the race, so that Zane Velji for

Zain 58:35

Leader is a different person than

Zain 58:37

Have you guys seen Curb? There's Larry David, the actor, and then there's Larry David.

Zain 58:41

That's what I want people to think about, okay? Zane Velji for Leader is a version of Zane Velji, definitely not me. Let's get those $1,500. You're

Carter 58:49

You're starting to sound like one of those sovereign citizens. You know, like, it's not good. It's not a good look. That's not

Zain 58:55

not a mistake. It's one of those luxury opinions I can have now that I'm established, Carter. Hey, okay.

Zain 59:02

You're talking about Ganley. You're talking about who's well-known or who's not well-known. You're offering your name for a low, low price of 500 bucks an email. I understand that, to any campaign, to endorse them.

Zain 59:13

I think Racky's less known. But regardless, go on your train of thought. Go on your train of thought of like, okay, Kathleen's got to be everywhere. Go ahead.

Carter 59:20

You've got to look, and I would say the same of Racky. I mean, in Racky's video, I think there was a strategic decision to put her everywhere because she needs to be able to look like she can compete everywhere. Both her and Kathleen probably have that same problem. Sarah may not have as big a problem, but for Kathleen and Racky, they've got to go to all of the major centers. And they've got to at least put in a few days with the core volunteers that are there because there are core volunteers across the province. and you need to gather as many of those as possible just so you can say you did. When I was in Fort McMurray last week, Kathleen Ganley said to her Calgary audience, I said, you know, we have to remember that this is a province made up of people who work in energy, energy, energy, energy. I don't know. But you've got to be able to have all the tricks. And

Zain 1:00:15

And then Raj Panu comes from the rooftops, okay? He just soars right in, okay? And then as soon as that happens, an email hits everyone's inbox from Stephen Carter.

Corey 1:00:27

Yeah, saying, I just watched Raj jump from the ceiling. Yeah, it

Carter 1:00:31

it was fantastic. In

Corey 1:00:32

In support of Kathleen. In support of Jeremy Nola's supporting Kathleen, I believe is actually what the email

Carter 1:00:38

email was saying. That's actually how I'm going to write my email. I also support Jeremy Nola's.

Carter 1:00:43

You guys are nasty.

Zain 1:00:44

It's Corey. Corey's gotten us on this. I actually thought it was fine, that email, but it's Corey. Corey, what does Ganley need to do? I said her unique asset was the volume of endorsements that she's collected. I thought it was pretty impressive on day one. You might think there's another asset, but talk to me about her strategy. Does she need to double down on her assets right now? Does she need to maybe secure any of the liabilities that she might have as a campaign? How would she be thinking about this race if you are her in a unique way? Of course, there's things

Zain 1:01:17

things that every candidate is thinking about right now. But in a unique way, what is Team Ganley thinking about right now?

Corey 1:01:23

Yeah. Can I say about Kathleen Ganley, because I was being quite critical of the first couple of days here, part of why I'm so critical of it is I just expected a lot more, right? A lot more what I would kind of deem leadership thinking and kind of structure, or maybe I just assumed it would be in a different place. But the kind of, I

Corey 1:01:44

don't know, I'm just going to say sort of the old news feel, right? right

Corey 1:01:48

i i i know kathleen i don't think of it as old listen up carter i want

Carter 1:01:53

want okay okay is this a compliment hidden inside this is a compliment okay there is

Corey 1:01:57

is a compliment okay

Carter 1:01:57

okay i wanted to just check i

Corey 1:01:59

i fully anticipate there's going to be a pivot at a certain point i have to assume that the strategy was we are going to lock up the continuity feel because we assume sarah's going to try to go for that so we're going to go first we're going to show that we have uh well you know you can't really have rachel but we've got her chief of staff and then we've got brian nason who was the leader before that we have rash pound who's the leader before that and god help you if you can even remember the leader before that but you start talking about this kind of continuity which is by the way kind of very consistent with how as we've talked about the ndp used to choose leaders it was like part of the job of the leader was to help curate the next leader but this is a different party now so i assume that this is kind of week one let's lock up backwards before we go forwards and i this is i keep talking about the pivot i'm waiting for here but that's what i have have to assume, because it actually does not make sense to me that Kathleen Ganley would frame herself in this particular way, because there is no way, I believe, that this is actually what the membership's looking for. And I believe she knows that too, right? Like, it's just not conceivable to me that you're going to say, look

Corey 1:03:05

look at everything that we've got, I've got it too, right? She's going to have to tell the story about how she will build upon what Rachel built. And so far, all I've seen is the

Corey 1:03:16

the past. And there has to be a turn. You have to expect that turn. So when we talk about what I'm looking for for Kathleen and where she needs to be and what she needs to do, I think that's the part that needs to come next. And if she's just going to be Calgary Rachel, which I know we talked about and even pitched about, you know, the caution you have there is that might not be enough. So you've got to sort of build a frame that is more forward thinking and aspirational. know like it

Corey 1:03:41

really went out of her way not to talk about policy on day one talked

Corey 1:03:44

talked about endorsements instead that was a choice that's a fine choice i don't begrudge that choice of anybody

Corey 1:03:52

you know you've got us you've got to see the next part i got you got i got to see the next part here carter

Zain 1:03:56

carter any any final advice for for team ganley before we move on to racky bencherly

Carter 1:04:02

no i'm out uh

Zain 1:04:02

uh talk talk to me about racky what um how

Zain 1:04:05

how do you think she harnesses uh her launch video how do you think she harnesses her launch what does she need to do going forward

Carter 1:04:15

think that she should be uh

Carter 1:04:18

well and i think her next step is to figure out how to turn on organizers right like this is about organizational structures uh kathleen ganley has has gone the endorsement route i've never been a fan of the endorsement route but it makes sense in a leadership where people are like you know there are groups of people that need to buy memberships so having uh you know 50 100 people who are saying i'm selling memberships essentially this is paraphrasing but i'm selling memberships for this woman well ganley now has to match that now i wouldn't do it in endorsements don't don't do what the other person's doing but just really make sure that you've got that tracking mechanism i view it as a target where are the 100 people in the middle where are the next 600 people where are the next thousand people and you know the furthest reaches of the the target are selling two

Carter 1:05:12

two or three memberships the ones in the middle it's like a giant pyramid scheme the

Carter 1:05:17

the ones in the middle the more you get into the middle the more memberships you sell cory

Zain 1:05:21

cory talk to me about uh recupentially or a campaign what needs to go what needs to happen going forward after uh after this past week

Corey 1:05:29

Yeah, you know, strong launch requires strong follow up. But I ultimately think Stephen's nailed it, right? Like it is about making sure that you convert into membership. So has shown can build enthusiasm, he's got to turn that enthusiasm into memberships. What

Zain 1:05:46

What is – can we speak about that a bit more in like a more generic way? It doesn't have to be about Racky because in some ways, everyone's generated a level of enthusiasm for their campaign this week. And they all have that universal goal of turning it into memberships. How do you – Carter, in your mind, how have you bridged – and I'll kind of use different words here – air war into ground game? How have you bridged successful comms, successful branding, successful visuals with memberships? And have you picked up any tips or tricks in recent years that you may not have when you were running Redford, for example? I'm kind of curious if you've kind of got Stephen Carter's rulebook for turning enthusiasm and air war into a successful ground operation. or are they two completely different tracks that are left hand right hand they just need to know they're part of the same overall body i'm kind of curious just to get both of your takes on this if

Carter 1:06:40

if i'm stretching i would say that the air war will give enthusiasm to the ground game but they are different different beasts like the ground game requires like you have to purse every single day you get a ground a ground team of door knockers or a ground team of people bringing in their membership books or however you're choosing to run your game your ground game

Carter 1:07:02

have to talk to them individually it's all about the individual one-to-one relationships they they don't read the newspaper and get all excited about what you're doing as a campaign through the newspaper they get excited because they talk to the candidate that day they talk to the campaign manager that they talk to the volunteer coordinator that day they talk to someone efficient they talk to each other that day you've create you have to create all this interpersonal one-to-one responsibility and it's not oh i have to be i have to sell 10 more memberships because steven wants me to it's i have to sell 10 more memberships because that that guy that i met last week is going to sell 10 more memberships and i want to beat him right like ground game is so unrelated to to air war i would i would have to say go air war all you want but ground ground

Carter 1:07:50

ground don't ever lose focus on your on your ground game cory

Zain 1:07:54

cory carter thinks of it and i i'm just gonna simplify carter's thinking here two separate tracks some relationship maybe not a ton do you think of it the same way using enthusiasm and air into ground as you know you can't you could only feed so much of that air into into what the ground ultimately needs and requires to be successful yeah

Corey 1:08:15

yeah well every campaign is going to be different for sure and i think the value of air war is

Corey 1:08:24

really tied to how much the membership is looking for somebody who can win

Corey 1:08:28

win an air war like i don't i don't want to be too meta but like i think one of the one of the reasons

Zain 1:08:32

reasons why i yeah that's a good i believe

Corey 1:08:34

believe that air war has been a focus for some of the campaigns is that they want to look like they can take it to the next level they can take the fight to Danielle Smith, right? And so a lot of the polish and the chrome that these campaigns put on there is to say, look at me, I'm going to be the one who's able to win the next election, right? Now, that's true, if that's what the membership is looking for. If the membership's not, then I think air war is of depreciated value. But ultimately, it is still about votes. And it's about, you know, locking up the people who can get those votes for you too. When you think about about those circles Stephen was talking about, the people who can sell a thousand memberships, a hundred memberships, those people, like getting them excited about it. And in the early days of a campaign, when people are looking around and saying, okay, well, who do I think, who

Corey 1:09:23

who do I think can give us a shot of winning more generally? You know, that's, that's probably what the thinking of the campaigns is. And so if they start to look credible and serious and like they could take the fight forward and to Daniel Smith, then maybe some of those people who say, hey, we're all new new Democrats here. I just think this is the new Democrat who's going to get us over the finish line. I think that's a lot of the logic. And I actually think this is an interesting race because my sense is not all new Democrats, but

Corey 1:09:52

but I would say a lot of the newer new Democrats, they want to win, right? They're like, okay, what's it going to take to win? And a lot of the actions that the campaigns have all taken has been to show that

Corey 1:10:04

that they can win, right? And so you You ask about the value of the air war. I think that's it right now. It's that the people who have not yet chosen a side can look at it and say, that's

Corey 1:10:14

that's a winner. That's the team.

Zain 1:10:15

team. Carter, I think that's a really interesting point. Corey, finish off and I'll ask Carter to reflect on that.

Corey 1:10:20

Yeah, look, I'll just say it

Corey 1:10:22

is fascinating to me as well when you look at the Pancholi campaign. No endorsements I've seen official online yet, right? There are MLAs in that launch video. There are MLAs reposting this content. And so, you know, I think that it's

Corey 1:10:39

it's going to be curious to see what we see from all of the campaigns forward in terms of like drip strategy or just crashing people out the door. God,

Zain 1:10:46

God, this could take an entire hour now that Corey's brought it up, but let's spend a few minutes on it and then let's revisit it. Is there any way you can softly

Zain 1:10:56

force the ballot box question of what members should be looking for at this moment in time? Or have they, in the sense of Corey's question, right, the value of an air war is to see who can actually do a good air war. And by extension, perhaps that's the type of air war we get when we kick Daniel Smith's ass, for example, right? right, like shortening that sort of, that logic, can

Zain 1:11:17

can you force that question upon people if that is your ultimate strength? Like, let's say your campaign, you know, that is going to be like, listen, we've got the most charismatic candidate, probably the most interesting candidate, I'm talking about the Pancholi campaign here of those that I've launched, right, and can we force members to think of that as a question, perhaps making up for some, and I don't know this to be a fact, but maybe making up for some softness that we may have on the ground, versus Sarah, who's, you know, the party insider. How do you get the members to think about your frame at this point? Or is that not a today question?

Carter 1:11:51

That's not how you sell memberships.

Carter 1:11:54

Memberships don't sell that way. Memberships sell when you, when

Carter 1:11:58

when someone talks to someone and says, I'm working for this campaign and I would like you to buy a membership. You know, I'm working for the Zane Velji campaign. I'd like you to buy a membership for the NDP. Why?

Carter 1:12:11

Well, he's got the greatest ground. he's got the greatest air war his air war is fucking amazing um

Carter 1:12:15

um it just i don't think that's how you sell memberships so

Corey 1:12:20

i i think that most memberships are sold is because i'm asking you yes no one to one steven yes yeah i'm

Carter 1:12:27

i'm asking and you're gonna do it but there's also at the end of the day you're gonna vote for iraqi or you're gonna vote for whomever i

Zain 1:12:33

i i accept that completely especially when we talk about growth and new membership sales i guess what i was leaning towards is the base of members, the new, new Democrats, as Corey has talked about, that may already have a understanding of the party, may not be the one-to-one connection, may already be part of their lapsed or existing base of members. I'm talking about them in particular, Carter. What do you think about them? How do you persuade them to think of the question in a certain way?

Carter 1:12:59

I mean, everything is brand politics, right? Right. So if you want to create a brand that says that you are the the brand that can, you know, defeat the the the UCP. I mean, yeah, I guess a good air war would be a part of it. But I also think that a good, you know, the whole brand is the structure. And

Carter 1:13:23

I guess, you know, if you want to put a strong air war is as part of that brand. Great. Go for it. I'm not who am I to stand in the way of that. But I just think that in the overall scheme of things, your

Carter 1:13:36

your brand is probably better defined on better ground.

Zain 1:13:39

Corey, any final thoughts before we move on?

Corey 1:13:44

I just think that there's a group of people that, at the start, are going to be looking for these signals. I think the value of Air War diminishes super rapidly, and in a month, Air War will be absolutely irrelevant.

Corey 1:13:54

It'll be all about ground. As

Zain 1:13:56

As folks move to the ground, we'll leave that segment there, move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Steven Carter, of course, this is done for you, as always. You

Carter 1:14:04

You know, it's Super Bowl Sunday. And you seem to be losing a bit of steam. I haven't watched the game yet. Well, you seem to be

Zain 1:14:08

be losing a bit of steam. You're going to listen to the podcast first. Taylor Swift did make it out for the awards ceremony and did not give a performance. So for those betting on FanDuel as to whether that would happen, no proposal, no performance. Carter, Carter.

Carter 1:14:26

Carter. Lost money. Good

Zain 1:14:27

Good idea, bad idea. a

Zain 1:14:29

candidate that is opposed to the mayor, I'm talking about Mayor Gondek here, to attach themselves to the recall. Good

Zain 1:14:36

Good idea, bad idea?

Carter 1:14:40

Terrible idea. The very first thing you're going to attach yourself, your coming out party is a failure?

Zain 1:14:46

me, Corey, let me add a bit more color to it. If you want the data, if you want these people, yes, they're not going to succeed on the half a million, the impossible goal that is to recall the mayor. but good

Zain 1:14:57

good idea bad idea if you want to be their candidate in in a sense well

Corey 1:15:03

well uh you sure don't want to be the leader of it to steven's point but if you were somebody who's like yeah i came out because i really don't like the mayor and i'm i'm also going to be catching some signatures for you all over the the next bit hey hey bill i see you're getting signatures too i'd love to have coffee with you bill i guess that's fine was that who was that was

Zain 1:15:24

was that it was like that was like Cantare mixed with Strathmore. No, no, that was George Brookman.

Zain 1:15:29

That was Strathmore Cantare.

Zain 1:15:31

I'm calling that Strathmore Cantare. Right there, that works.

Corey 1:15:35

That was not my intention. I was going for a bit of a, like a slow Jimmy Stewart. That's what I was going for. Well,

Carter 1:15:40

Well, you got Strathmore Cantare. You missed that. Holy shit.

Carter 1:15:44

shit. You missed that massively. Wow.

Zain 1:15:45

Wow. Hey, Stephen Carter, out of the three candidates, who had the best week?

Zain 1:15:51

Three NDP launch candidates.

Carter 1:15:56

out of the three candidates like

Carter 1:15:58

like who has who's

Zain 1:15:59

who's who's who's that like i mean it's hard to say for sarah it's like the best 12 hours right so like but you know use week as a uh

Zain 1:16:07

uh well a week definition for for i

Carter 1:16:09

i think kathleen because she got out early kathleen

Zain 1:16:12

kathleen ganley that's what that's what carter says cory who who had the best best week best few days best trajectory whatever you want to say fuck it it's a throwaway question ganley

Corey 1:16:20

ganley because if she can get a professional like steven carter to lose all sense like that i guess no it was obviously racky what a fucking ridiculous answer by our friend steven okay well

Carter 1:16:34

that's racky tattooed on your ass or something like what happened is my

Zain 1:16:37

my arm actually you can find out more about steven carter's email service at fuck this noise.ca uh which is the new uh steven now i have to register yeah it's a bill but fuck this noise.ca cory hey

Zain 1:16:49

hey cory when's our uh audit episode coming Can

Zain 1:16:52

we actually bring in the auditor this time? I'm concerned about it. Yeah, can we bring in the auditor? For those who don't know, we actually do an episode every year where our auditor looks over our books. And we do it live because it's part of our accountability. And it actually justifies the rates that we charge on the Patreon. Frankly, it justifies why we started the Patreon to begin with. But we're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 1284 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript