Transcript
Carter
0:00
I'm seriously not waiting for
Corey
0:01
for him any longer. This is The Strategists. No, I'm not working.
Carter
0:03
Like, we have to record now, because if we keep waiting for him, it's going
Carter
0:07
going to be my bedtime before I even get a chance to wait for him.
Corey
0:11
I know you know I recorded. I know you can see that the red box showed up and it says recording now.
Carter
0:18
You know, I always forget to look.
Corey
0:22
Welcome to The Strategists, episode 1292.
Corey
0:27
I am your Annalise Klingbeil, Corey Hogan, and with me, as always, is our Zane Velgey, Stephen Carter.
Carter
0:34
Yeah, you know, I
Carter
0:36
really thought that we were going to solve this whole hosting problem when we got a second host. I
Corey
0:41
I know, but, you
Corey
0:43
you know, events intervene. They cause challenges here. Yeah,
Corey
0:46
I guess so. But the show had to go on.
Corey
0:49
The show had to go on. There was a little bit of feedback. There was a little bit of feedback on our last episode, Stephen. Was
Corey
0:54
little feedback yeah were people
Carter
0:56
people uh understandably upset
Corey
1:00
well look the big news of the week i was angry big
Corey
1:03
big news of the week was obviously kate middleton i don't know what these people are talking about yeah these people but some
Corey
1:08
some thought we should talk about the news closer to home really
Corey
1:12
and yeah by that i mean of course the council voting down the idea of uh of a plebiscite on uh on
Corey
1:19
on uh housing zoning right this is what what tonight's going to be all about i
Carter
1:24
i love i love people thinking that they're going to remember this come uh come
Carter
1:28
come october of 2025 that's my favorite part i will remember no you won't you're
Corey
1:34
yeah people don't well that was a little harsh to the the people that the straw men that you created and immediately insulted this
Carter
1:40
this isn't a group of people that listen to our podcast cory
Corey
1:46
that's actually not what we're going to talk about i was expecting like a chuckle from you. Like, ha, what a funny thing to talk about. Yeah, there you go. That's what I was looking for here.
Corey
1:56
We're going to talk about our
Corey
1:58
our mutual friend, Nahed Nenshi, who has entered the Alberta NDP leadership race. Did you know this?
Carter
2:06
His purpleness has decided to jump back into the game.
Corey
2:10
That's right. That's right. And so full disclosure for our listeners, neither
Corey
2:16
neither of us support him right
Carter
2:18
right i'm very much not supportive okay
Corey
2:20
okay well zane supports him both of us would prefer different people to be ndp leader listeners should kind of take that in and just feel free to interpret everything through that lens but that said what
Corey
2:31
what i am going to try to do tonight i mean this is like an all nancy special he's he would love that he would love that it's an all nancy special yeah of
Corey
2:38
course i'm not sure i
Corey
2:39
i think he would prefer wasn't
Carter
2:40
wasn't us hosting it you
Corey
2:44
know you for sure but yeah
Carter
2:46
mean maybe he's thinking to himself why can't this be cheryl and erica right yeah
Carter
2:50
where's ryan what's going
Carter
2:52
yeah that's probably what's going on okay
Corey
2:54
okay but that said what
Corey
2:56
what i'm gonna try to do tonight and i'm i'm driving tonight oh you're driving i got the keys to the strategist mobile you can you can kind of point and say you should turn down that road but it's gonna be up to me whether we turn down these roads here i am gonna try to keep us us on the strategy of it all what it means for him how he can succeed how others might succeed maybe
Corey
3:14
even what it means for the province what it means for the ucp perfect if danielle smith is up and crying tonight over this whole thing i want to get into all of this here she's probably listening
Carter
3:23
listening because it's a patreon special well
Corey
3:25
well exactly and of course most importantly i want to ask you if zane's reputation can ever recover if he blows this right like if he fucks this up he's just done right fucks
Carter
3:34
fucks this up it's going to be spectacular i mean the why'd you lose whose conversation is going to be the best yeah
Carter
3:41
i'd like it noted that i'm the only one who's ever done a why'd you lose i
Corey
3:45
i know well because you you lost yeah
Carter
3:50
know if if if we'd had this podcast in 2012 you'd had some spleen in it i
Corey
3:54
i don't you know what that's true man
Corey
3:56
man i know for us that
Carter
3:58
that was victory yeah
Corey
4:00
contextual victory man hey all
Corey
4:01
all of our incumbents got re-elected it was fine good
Carter
4:04
good for you all
Corey
4:05
all right so we're gonna go we're gonna be professionals we're gonna talk about all these things we're going to say nice things about na head and all of his skills which are accurate he's
Corey
4:12
he's talented about this
Corey
4:14
this well you weren't consulted about that part but okay i think you'll appreciate this next part i think you will okay okay i don't want you or me trying
Corey
4:23
trying to jam in a bunch of faint praise or backhanded compliments i don't want this to be one of those things though
Corey
4:29
are why would we take those off oh
Corey
4:33
but i think that that would actually just be kind of a thing where people would start to say can we actually trust any of this this counsel this wise counsel from these two wise men okay
Corey
4:42
right what are you gonna have us do i'm
Corey
4:43
i'm gonna give you two minutes to get it all out of your system i'm gonna get i've got my my stopwatch here i i am going to hit start and
Corey
4:52
and i'm going to give you two
Corey
4:54
two minutes to get it all out why you are
Carter
4:58
why am i not i mean two minutes two minutes yeah
Corey
5:02
this is a guy i'll point point out you helped get into the mayor's chair in the first place right yeah 2010 big election people talk about it to this day you
Corey
5:09
you were there i
Carter
5:12
ask out no head we started the
Corey
5:14
the two minutes what no we have not started the two minutes i'm taking that out of your two minutes okay that's you now have one minute and 55 seconds okay
Corey
5:22
so we're gonna do two minutes okay from
Corey
5:25
from you yeah and then we're gonna do two minutes from me which will probably be a nice or two minutes so you know it's like we're going to ease sort of back in and then we're fucking moving on and
Corey
5:34
and we're going to be fucking professionals are
Corey
5:37
are well that's the plan okay you know i like
Carter
5:39
like i like your thinking i like your optimism hogan yeah i mean these
Corey
5:43
these plans sometimes work they don't sometimes so you got it though okay
Corey
5:47
all is klar here
Carter
5:49
okay i'm ready just give me the finger thing okay which we do all right i'm
Corey
5:52
i'm gonna do the finger thing Okay.
Carter
5:55
Number one, it should be Chiman Nkendram running, not Nahed Nenshi. Chiman Nkendram has always had a passion for provincial politics. Nahed has always had a passion only for municipal politics. I've seen this passion unfold firsthand.
Carter
6:10
So I'm not sure why Chiman Nkendram is not running instead of Nahed Nenshi, but I think that it's a fraud. I think that it's a mistake because Chiman Nkendram should be the person actually standing up. Number two, I
Carter
6:20
I think that politics
Carter
6:22
politics Politics in partisanship land is a team sport. I have said time and time again,
Carter
6:30
Nawhed is an individual person who excels as an individual. Let's not take anything away from that. It is a fantastic skill to have, but he is an individual, not a team player. And you need to be a team player if you're going to come into a 38-person caucus. Number three, this
Carter
6:47
this is not a game. This isn't just something where we come into to and we decide that we're going to run on a whim and i fear that this is a whim for him this is a a thing that we you know he has thought oh i'm just going to go in and and i'll just clean up this ndp thing and i'll be perfect and i'll be able to to win this election this next election this last election should not have been lost by the ndp the fact that we've had danielle smith for we're going to get danielle smith for four fucking years is an abomination the idea that she could win again over a Nahid Nenshi that is not everybody's cup of tea. That for me is very upsetting. And number four, let
Carter
7:27
let me just return to the team player thing.
Carter
7:30
This is a team fucking sport and he's not a team player. And I just don't understand that. I talked to people who are on his team and people who are on his team like to be on his team because of the people around him, not necessarily because of the person that he is. Now try dealing with that as a 38 person caucus try dealing with that with a staff of 15 in the premier's office well more like a staff of 45 it's just simply not going to work that is my last reason okay
Corey
7:57
okay that's that's wonderful i guess i don't know it seems like kind of a thing to praise you had none because i forgot i was actually going to dock you five seconds and there was an alarm there that you probably heard you know i didn't
Carter
8:08
didn't hear it okay
Carter
8:10
was talking too much you
Corey
8:12
you want me to do the two minutes yeah you do my my two minutes i think that's only fair because then you have the thing and so you
Corey
8:17
you know am i supposed to bam or
Corey
8:19
or you're going to be able to figure this out in any kind of sense i'm
Carter
8:21
i'm ready i'm ready if you are okay
Carter
8:27
on your marks get
Corey
8:30
well listen i think nahed is a very talented individual i have immense appreciation for what he's done but i think he's got way too much history for starters he wasn't super popular before he left the theory he delivers calgary doesn't really convince me given that he had 40 strong disapproval before he decided not to run again and yes his popularity has rebounded but that's nostalgia for you and even george w bush enjoyed a popularity rebound but when he returns to public life i have concerns people are going to pick up with him right where they left off which is not a great place for the ndp to be public's memories are short his
Corey
9:05
his opponent's memories are long and they're going to hold it against him lots of baggage after being mayor of a city like calgary and
Corey
9:10
oppo research team's memories are even longer and if he's leader we're
Corey
9:14
we're going to have to get used to hearing this one line for the next three years he raised calgarians property taxes 85 that's
Corey
9:21
that's all they're going to have to say and they're going to paint him as a tax and spend liberal and that's all they're going to do and
Corey
9:27
and the other problem i have is you know how we're prone to saying politicians and generals are always fighting the last war well what is this if not that it's people trying to create an optimized version of 2023 it's going to be different people are saying hey imagine if we we had a great debater. Imagine if we had a leader from Calgary. And if I want to, and if I want to pretend that you wouldn't lose anything by losing the positives of Rachel Notley, I still can't imagine that it would be a particularly good strategy in 2027. You can't optimize for 2023.
Corey
9:55
Agree with you about the team player.
Corey
9:57
Worried that he barely beat Bill Smith in 2017.
Corey
10:00
Nahid's very smart, but he always thinks he has the answer. He has moral clarity, but that can crowd out other people's opinions. Nahid's a great talker, but I worry about his listening and he knows what kind of province he wants but he sometimes comes off as not caring about the province we have and
Corey
10:14
and i fundamentally don't think you compete in 2027 with 2010
Carter
10:20
well done cory thank
Corey
10:21
thank you all in
Carter
10:21
in there so that okay let me let me see if i understand that was the warm-up and
Carter
10:25
and now we get to do no
Corey
10:27
no we're done now we've said our thing about him and now we are going to dispassionately assess this like professionals oh
Corey
10:36
like professionals professionals like the professionals we aspire to be on we're going to
Carter
10:39
to suddenly become professional is
Carter
10:41
is what i'm understanding yeah
Corey
10:43
yeah for the first time ever this is i think okay
Carter
10:46
should we talk about now that was great should
Carter
10:48
should we talk about uh justin trudeau yeah
Corey
10:51
yeah no we're going to talk about him we're going to talk about him we're going to talk about the effect he's had on the campaign it is significant yeah
Corey
10:58
and we're going to talk first and foremost about his launch so i'll do my zane impression here and say he came into the race on monday yeah
Corey
11:05
with much fanfare with much fanfare yeah
Corey
11:08
uh website launched orange and purple logo uh very very quickly kind of had all sorts of media buzzing about him instantly social media virality the type that many people just dream of the
Corey
11:22
the entire conversation all of a sudden became about now i had neji tons of enthusiasm out there the entire game changed overnight yeah tell me your thoughts about his launch He
Carter
11:31
He launched as the frontrunner.
Carter
11:33
He kind of reminded me of, come
Carter
11:39
come on, Mayor of Edmonton, Amarjeet Sohi. Amarjeet Sohi came in on May the 20th. Everybody else had been in for a number of months already. And the second Amarjeet Sohi launched, everything became about Amarjeet Sohi. So Amarjeet was the dominant candidate from that point on. And I think that this has to be recognized. Nahid Nenshi has entered as the dominant candidate. He has come in. He has put himself into this race. And he will be in the conversation. There is no...
Carter
12:08
no... Sorry, go on. Yeah, what a weak-ass opening. You got to start shaking your palms or something.
Carter
12:13
There is no questioning the fact that he became the central talking point As soon as it started to leak out, he was even considering it. It didn't matter how he launched. It was going to get the coverage and the media was going to be excited about it. Because for the media, this is the only story.
Carter
12:33
Never mind that there were three women in the race before who should have been part of the story. The media were discounting them. And now they have jumped all in for Nenshi and basically given him the coverage of dreams for the last three days. Yeah.
Corey
12:51
There were four women in the race. Just to
Corey
12:54
that one up for you. Yeah. But yeah,
Corey
12:58
I mean, I think you can go back even further. And the minute it became kind of regular chatter that he was going to enter the race, you started to see all sorts of media out there. You had comments from other candidates that seemed to be softening the ground and denting him. You had, quote unquote, you know, background from the premier's office saying, can't wait to run against this guy that once again seemed to be trying to frame out the fight with Nahid Nenshi to come and kind of hold that thought because I want to talk about the premier's office in a bit. Yep.
Corey
13:27
Yep. But let's talk just about the nuts and bolts of it.
Corey
13:30
Came out with a video, very
Corey
13:32
very highly produced, very well done, and
Corey
13:35
told a story that many of us in Calgary are familiar with about his upbringing and what he sort of owes to the city and what he wants to build for the province.
Corey
13:48
Everyone's talking about it. Yeah,
Carter
13:50
Yeah, and that to me was a rerun from 2010. Now, I don't necessarily think it was a bad idea to do that as a rerun. I think that it is a solid introduction to Nahed as an individual. But I think that there were probably stronger elements of his launch than that. uh if you kind of look at how he launched and what you know what were the the the high points the the video was a high point but the story attached to the video like the shooting the the professionalism of the actual video i i thought was excellent but i thought the storyline and the construction of the storyline was actually weaker than the than than the actual technical competency of the video um the technical competency arguably
Carter
14:37
arguably was one of the best videos we've seen um but the story was a little bit uh
Carter
14:43
uh repetitive i think it
Corey
14:45
it really kind of slowed down with the tommy douglas quote too i thought i thought that was trying a little too hard personally to to kind of say hey i'm a new democrat now yeah
Carter
14:56
but you know i mean if you're going to to launch and if you're going to show that you're a new democrat it probably wouldn't hurt to throw in the tommy douglas quote i mean but again i just think that it
Carter
15:08
it lacks a little bit of uh cohesiveness but at the same time i
Carter
15:14
just i don't want to appear to be taking anything away from him that was a fucking monster launch there's just no other way around it it was a a monster launch and it captured the attention of everybody who's in the race and anybody who's pretending to even be interested in the race well
Corey
15:32
well and i think the day obviously when somebody like him enters that's just his day all
Corey
15:38
all of the other candidates i believe
Corey
15:40
believe i i'm not a hundred percent sure but put out a tweet effectively saying welcome to the race right yeah
Carter
15:47
yeah it is one of those things where you you were going to the best way to be in the story was to be in his story right you weren't going to be putting out your big news release uh at any time this week uh and it was
Carter
16:00
interesting to me no one really tried to take him off the front page uh tuesday or wednesday either there just seemed to be some sort of uh agreement that this is the this is the story of this week and it's not going to necessarily change in any way shape or form
Corey
16:12
form yeah i mean like i gotta ask you do you think anybody could have taken him off the front page in the next with
Carter
16:18
the proper announcement you probably could have but
Carter
16:20
but i'm not sure what the proper announcement is i
Corey
16:23
i was gonna say i want to hear hear what you think that proper announcement is.
Carter
16:25
I mean, it probably would have had to be pretty process oriented, because the media is only going to do process, they're not going to do policy. So, you know, what's it going to be? I don't know exactly. But just know that it would be a big process story. And if it was a big process story, and flopped, that there was a probably a pretty big risk to that. And the flopping.
Carter
16:47
I mean, it just felt like the media had their whole story set up for the whole week and they knew that they were covering this as the big story and and nunchi to his credit this is the thing that he does best he gets in front of the media he captivates the media with his speaking capacity and he just owns it he's a quote machine uh you know and and
Carter
17:08
no one else he's
Corey
17:08
he's carter-esque in that sense well
Carter
17:10
well i mean yeah but without getting in as much trouble which
Carter
17:13
which is really impressive uh so you know he he does he does what he wants he gets a tremendous amount of attention and the media just uh just love covering him okay
Corey
17:25
okay i want to tell you a little bit about what i thought about the launch or the thing that really struck me about the launch which i think is maybe
Corey
17:33
maybe something to watch as a potential theme in general and it was less about the video video although there were components of the fight in the video but
Corey
17:41
but it was much more about the commentary around and the conversations he had with the pundits and all of that and that was how aggressive he went after smith like obviously it's the strategy of the nancy campaign to act as though the fight is already nancy versus smith right like on to the next thing already and
Corey
18:00
and we'll get there because what does he do to win i think is a big question we need to tackle at this particular point but when
Corey
18:08
when you think about nenshi
Corey
18:10
nenshi versus smith i
Corey
18:12
i guess i'll say this like in 20 and you were there and i i just you know i saw it but i saw it from a different perch right i was helping a different candidate in 2010 i was living in edmonton it
Corey
18:23
it was just it was different yeah
Corey
18:25
but in 2010 there was this sense that nahed nenshi was the candidate who was gonna speak in full sentences. And there was this deep policy. And yes, I know nobody read the long version of the policy, but it was deep policy. Seems to
Corey
18:40
to be the opposite. Not going to be policy heavy. It's sort of intentionally said there's not going to be a lot of policy. And it's kind of all about the attack and really strong rhetoric against Premier Danielle Smith. Really strong rhetoric. What do you make of that as a strategy, I suppose, both the pros and the cons? Well,
Carter
18:59
Well, number one, it keeps some out of criticizing the other candidates and i think that that's probably very important uh
Corey
19:05
uh oh that's that's a good point like if you start getting into policy differences with them well
Carter
19:10
policy differences but it could you could very easily like nahat nenshi is like i've told many people that the 2010 campaign is amongst the most negative campaigns i've ever been involved in and people are always like what it was such a positive campaign no it was a negative campaign campaign wrapped in a positive blanket. We had lots of ideas and lots of good stuff to talk about and people loved that about it. But ask
Carter
19:34
ask Barb Higgins what she thought of that campaign and she'll tell you. Barb Higgins will tell you that it was a negative campaign. Rick McIver will tell you it was a negative campaign. They felt it. They felt the brunt of it. And Nahid Nenshi is a genius at that. Well, I'm just not sure that works in a one ballot, one member, one vote, single I think that the process requires that he not take the barb. And it's really wise strategically to point instead his his acid tongue against Danielle Smith. And let's be honest, brilliant at it. So he may as well do it. and much the same way when when rick hansen re-engaged with with nenshi about the cost of policing in in calgary in 2010 you
Carter
20:22
know it really gave nenshi a bump um
Carter
20:25
um it was really ill advised from the chief of police uh i'm not sure that danielle smith taking on nahed nenshi is in her long-term best interest uh he
Carter
20:38
know if if you're actually if
Carter
20:40
if you actually think that you you can just beat Nahed Nenshi, I think that you have really
Carter
20:46
really overplayed your hand, miscalculated.
Corey
20:51
Well, and listen, I think this
Corey
20:54
this is early days, and this is going to be a long campaign. And it's going to be interesting to see what other people do. And I actually mean Premier Smith and the people around her at this moment.
Corey
21:05
rank and file will no doubt find it very cathartic to have somebody who is kind of speaking in such harsh terms about daniel smith and the ucp yeah
Corey
21:15
i i do wonder and i actually suspect that nenshi has to know as well
Corey
21:22
is i i don't know i mean that that doesn't seem like a great way to grow the tent i mean this is a leadership race so you're not necessarily trying to get all of albertans to see you in that light you get to be a champion for them maybe that's perfect strategy but i do wonder
Corey
21:38
If this is a well, let me ask you this. Do you think this is kind of a short term tactical thing? Or do you think this is like, what we can expect over the next three years if he becomes leader of the NDP? Well,
Carter
21:49
Well, I think that that's
Carter
21:51
that's a really interesting question. I mean, let's take a look at Jyoti Gondek, who gets into office because she decides early in the campaign to take on our illustrious premier of the time, Jason Kenney. And she kicks the shit out of him at every opportunity. And I think that Kenny had some real discipline in not taking her on very often, but it had to just drive him crazy because we were making hit after hit after hit. And we got media story after media story after media story. story. The media will cover this story of Nahid Nenshi attacking Danielle Smith. It will be the story of the day more often than it will not be. And it appears that Nahid's theory of this particular election is, if I'm on the front page, then I will win this leadership race.
Carter
22:41
question that strategy, but it at least has a coherent, like there's coherent thought behind it it's not something that you can just dismiss out of hand it is a you
Carter
22:51
know it is a strong strategy whether it's the right strategy or not time will uh time will tell well
Corey
22:57
well and honestly it's an open question to me whether daniel smith will even be premier in 2027 so you see my previous comments about 2023
Corey
23:06
2023 not being what the what the next election is going to be when's
Corey
23:10
when's the last time a conservative finished a term ralph klein uh
Carter
23:14
uh ralph klein yeah yeah but
Corey
23:15
but But even he was thrown
Corey
23:17
out, right? Even he was, I mean,
Corey
23:18
mean, it's been decades. Yeah.
Carter
23:22
It's been, it's been quite a turnover. It's been, you know, it's not a real long service record if you get in. So, okay.
Corey
23:31
okay. So you've opened this bracket. Yeah.
Corey
23:33
Which is what appears to be his theory of the campaign, which is suck up the oxygen and you win, right?
Corey
23:41
What does he do to win? like tell me expand a little bit on that theory of the campaign and then tell me what you think he needs to do to
Corey
23:48
to lock this thing well that's
Carter
23:49
that's really interesting because the theory of the campaign appears to be you know hold
Carter
23:54
hold everybody's attention be the front runner and you will win and it has echoes um ironically i think to the daniel smith campaign where she became the immediate front runner. She owned the media all the way through the campaign. Everybody tried attacking her and they
Carter
24:14
they really didn't get anywhere. So when you're looking at the success
Carter
24:18
success rate or the most recent application of this strategy,
Carter
24:24
Danielle Smith, I think, stands as a shining example of someone who did it. Now, she
Carter
24:29
she won on the sixth ballot. She won through attrition rather than winning through roll-up, that doesn't really signal a significant amount of strength. So I'm not really sure that
Carter
24:43
that that's the model to follow, but it certainly is the model that Nenshi is going after. And I think that, you
Carter
24:53
you know, being the prohibited frontrunner is better sometimes than being an underdog.
Corey
24:58
Yeah. Do you think he's going for a first ballot win? you think he's going to try to win a roll-up or what's his what's
Corey
25:04
what's his plan there because this is a ranked ballot for those who don't know yeah i mean and so he get 50 of the roll-up he
Carter
25:10
he told me that he doesn't really buy into the idea of the roll-up right
Carter
25:13
right he doesn't buy into that he he thinks that um you know i think he thinks it more like a first past the post election um where he will be so popular that you know kathleen ganley's members will just come to her regardless of what kathleen wants to do i think that that shows a misunderstanding of the electorate but nonetheless it is a um it
Carter
25:36
it is a viable strategy to be the front runner right
Carter
25:39
right front runners win pierre polliev won and uh
Carter
25:43
uh if you especially if you win on the first ballot you don't have to worry about any stinking roll-up and i think that
Carter
25:48
that's the strategy that he's trying to implement and you can't argue with that strategy you're certainly the biggest name on the the ballot uh but daniel smith was the biggest name on the ballot arguably travis
Carter
25:59
travis taves being the former former finance minister was a big name but uh
Carter
26:06
sarah hoffman was deputy premier right
Carter
26:08
right like sarah hoffman's uh a pretty big name in and of herself and and uh kathleen ganley's former justice minister maybe not as high name recognition raki pancholi has been the the minister or been the MLA to talk to, uh, since the, uh,
Carter
26:24
uh, 2019 election loss. Well,
Corey
26:26
Well, and we had our pal Dan Arnold on and he gave us a bit of a rundown there and, and we kind of have a sense of everybody's name recognition, certainly of the crowd. It's Nenshi and then Hoffman, right?
Corey
26:39
So the NDP, I mean, let's just do some napkin math here. We don't need to get super deep into it. I've
Carter
26:45
I've got three spreadsheets on the go with all the
Carter
26:47
math. Of course you do. Where do you want me to start? Yeah.
Corey
26:51
Well, I just want to start on kind of like the highest level. Actually, just throw it out to me. I won't even force everybody to go through kind of the tortured logic. What number does he need to win, in your opinion? How many? And I want to just contextualize this. Danielle Smith got 35,000 votes in that last election, and she was kind of actively and openly campaigning for like a year before
Corey
27:15
Yeah. Yeah. What does Nahed Nenshi need to win the Alberta NDP?
Carter
27:18
Well, I think he needs to sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 memberships to win this leadership
Corey
27:23
leadership straight up. And what percent do you think show up? Just tell
Corey
27:26
tell me how many votes on the first ballot. I
Carter
27:28
I think it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% that show up, or let's just call it 15,000 ballots.
Corey
27:34
You think 15,000? I
Carter
27:35
I think that's what it's required to win, right?
Carter
27:38
right? I think that 15,000 ballots cast would put him in the 50, 50, 55% range to win on the first ballot.
Carter
27:48
Winning on the second, third, fourth, fifth ballot becomes a lot harder exercise, right? We've seen time and again that the person who comes in first does not wind up winning. winning uh jim jim dinning the best premier that we never had uh gary mar the second best premier that we'd never had yeah
Carter
28:07
these these names uh you know it's it's not just there you can look at multiple races federally um sometimes federally they throw in the point system uh which makes it a little more tricky you can look at british columbia the bc liberal i mean
Corey
28:22
aaron o'toole look at his roll-up his roll-up was ridiculous right the way he managed to pull it off you
Carter
28:27
you see see these things over and over and over again and you start to think you know maybe not being in first place is my best strategy um so but but first place if you get over 40 43 to 45 percent on the first ballot you're probably going to win right i think danielle was at 41 and a half percent on the first ballot
Corey
28:46
ballot like that and
Carter
28:47
and she wound up when it
Corey
28:49
it was kind of torturous it took a while it took her six
Carter
28:52
six ballots and and she won by attrition not through roll up um so attrition meaning that people stopped voting for second, third, fourth place, and all their
Carter
29:01
their choices fell off the ballot, and their ballots then stopped being counted. So attrition was her methodology, and I think that attrition's scary as hell. I think attrition, you don't want to win through attrition, you want to win through roll-up, or you want to win straight up. And Nenji, by the strategy that he's undertaking with Danielle Smith, looks to me like he's just taking a straight up victory approach i'm gonna go and i'm gonna win this thing straight up it's
Corey
29:29
it's okay let's let's let's veer a tiny bit now this is interesting to me he
Corey
29:34
he is for sure dominated
Corey
29:36
dominated an air war this week right i mean it's got to be over 90 of media coverage he's just orbiting him like he's oh he's the sun spectacular it's just crazy yep um you
Corey
29:47
you and i have said many times sometimes,
Corey
29:50
listen, that stuff is so useful. I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it's also not actually how leaderships are won, right?
Corey
29:58
Yeah. It comes down to memberships
Corey
30:00
memberships and it usually comes down to networks and the ability to generate those memberships and then deliver on those memberships. You've
Carter
30:06
You've been the executive director of a political party during this type
Carter
30:09
of process. I mean, what type of, how hard is it to
Carter
30:13
to sell a membership in a leadership campaign?
Corey
30:16
It's hard. And the other thing I will say is I can tell you from the various purchase I've had that the memberships. So there's kind of this like you're
Corey
30:26
you're going to know this, too, like on a campaign. The idea of like the air war memberships is so alluring. It's like, oh, yeah, I've just gotten a thousand memberships. And all I had to do was put out a tweet, send an email, a text message, something like that. But the less effort it takes to get them, the more effort it takes to get them to vote. And you do tend to see much lower turnout with kind of the easy come easy go memberships. And so that's another thing that has to be in kind of the calculation of all of this. Well,
Carter
30:54
Well, I've only seen one campaign execute an air war membership sales program. It was
Corey
31:00
was Alison Redford in 2011.
Carter
31:03
And it was because her mother died.
Carter
31:06
It was a extremely
Carter
31:07
extremely unique set of circumstances that wound up, first of all, membership sales on the day of the on the day of the vote. Secondly, that very
Corey
31:18
very different right like it basically was like a general with a poll tax you could just show up you
Carter
31:23
you just showed up you didn't need you know i show up and pay 10 bucks big fucking deal i want to vote for the woman whose mother just died um like it was it's a it's a unique scenario that you cannot see repeating itself and you certainly wouldn't wish upon any candidate that repeat itself no
Carter
31:45
let's assume that he's able to sell a bunch of memberships first of all he's got five weeks to do it right
Carter
31:50
right he's got to do that that 25 000 membership sales that's 5 000 a week right
Carter
31:57
right he's got to do it that that's basically a thousand a day you know through the whole freaking campaign
Corey
32:04
on like i i'd be shocked if he didn't get 10 000 memberships this week i've always said to you and zane and you can back this up right yeah
Corey
32:12
he's going to sell 10 000 like that and the question for me has always been does he get the next 10 000 i
Carter
32:19
well and and again having seen this type of thing happen um only
Carter
32:25
only one time like when i was working on uh mike de young's campaign in british columbia mike de young was an exceptionally well known mla and for us to sell 30 000 memberships in british columbia it was like chopping off one of our arms it took us seven
Carter
32:41
seven months to sell 30 000 memberships this is mike de young the guy who has been around since dirt in the bc liberal party um right selling 30 000 memberships my god like it took us i it took us no less than seven months and it was the most painful thing um
Corey
32:59
so membership's tough man it's not an easy thing for people to kind
Corey
33:03
kind of psychologically get over in some senses like oh am i really going to be the member of a political party and then the other thing is it
Corey
33:10
it is it is not a frictionless experience that's for sure the case well
Carter
33:15
well have you i mean have you gone to buy a membership on the ndp leadership page are they the ndp uh membership sales page no
Carter
33:24
i went on and it's a three-step process that begins with a donation right
Carter
33:30
you're right away i was confused i'm like why am i making a donation instead of buying a membership well it's selected the ten dollar donation right it's the ten dollar membership fee but it doesn't make that clear then you've got to click
Carter
33:41
through and and fill out all the information i'm telling you each each step of that process each step of that there's
Corey
33:48
there's going to be loss along the way you see
Carter
33:50
see people fall off on that piece so each of the campaigns is running this process where they've got a membership capture on their on their their home page and
Carter
34:01
and then it feeds them through to the the NDP leadership page. And I'm just not sure what the attrition is going to be, what it's going to look like compared to, you know, the number of people who land on your homepage versus the number of people who actually complete a membership sale. And I would argue, and I think successfully that the person with the, with the air war membership sales versus the actual ground game, um, membership
Carter
34:25
membership sales is going to see the highest rate of attrition. I'd love to see those no questions you know yeah
Carter
34:32
what's the referral rate what's the completion rate i'd love to be able to see those now
Corey
34:37
now what the campaigns do have going for them of course is if you filled out that information on the first page and you don't show up on a membership list there's follow-up that's possible right but and that again goes down to like not air war you've got to have the ability to follow up you got to have a little bit of ground game well
Carter
34:52
well and to be clear he did he did have a very successful volunteer he called it both a volunteer event and a rally so i'm not sure what what it was but he did have a very successful turnout of people showing up yeah
Corey
35:04
yeah that was very smart that that got into the next day i was going to bring that up in the launch section but we kind of allowed ourselves to go here but you know there was all of this footage all of a sudden of all of his volunteers and i think this you know here's
Corey
35:15
here's the thing i mean do you ever remember that episode of seinfeld where george costanza meets a woman who thinks he's a tourist because he's wearing like a tourist clothes like his clothes gets mixed up and so he's walking around new york and he doesn't look like he's from new york and he starts dating her and he wants to continue and jerry's like how are you going to keep this going and he's like well i'm just going to pretend i'm going to move to new york and so he
Corey
35:38
he says to this woman like i think i'll move to new york and this woman says like oh this city's going to eat you alive and that really eats at him but one of the things he says is if you put all of my accomplishments into like the span of a week they look pretty impressive like my job my apartment all of this right and
Corey
35:54
and i do want to say like i'm not to diminish it was a really well done they had a lot of enthusiasm probably
Corey
36:01
probably the strongest rally that i've seen even footage of here right sarah hoffman's was also very strong but if
Corey
36:08
if you've been preparing for a month and if you've been mayor for 10 years before and you have all of these lists and you put all of that into one day it is going to look impressive right and it's designed to look impressive and it's designed to make people think oh fuck maybe this is over or meanwhile you think about all the other camps that are doing like events of like 10 volunteers 10 volunteers 10 volunteers 10 volunteers right but
Corey
36:31
if they were all at one event it might look fairly similar so you know there is an optics game that he's playing very well to make his campaign look as big and as imposing as possible well
Carter
36:40
well and that's his structure and his strategy i mean this is going to be an excellent example um for us to look at afterwards the other thing that's weird about this campaign is just the sheer distance between april 22nd and june 22nd you
Carter
36:56
you know the membership cutoff is
Carter
36:57
is on the 22nd of april how is nahed going to keep this excitement
Carter
37:03
from the 22nd of april to the 20 i think it's the 22nd of may that the actual voting occurs and then the i mean you don't really give a shit about the excitement level from the 22nd of may to the 22nd of june but he's he's got there's there's some momentum challenges that all of the candidates frankly you're going to have to deal with this i mean we've covered off before what a poorly constructed leadership structure this is a group of people clearly who haven't been involved in a leadership for a long time uh making up leadership rules and and uh i mean i i was joking with a i spoke to a class uh at mount royal today i was joking with them that uh the The NDP take 30 days to count their ballots. It took us four hours for the PCs, right? Like it's just, it's utterly ridiculous.
Corey
37:52
Well, we talked about this. I think that the party brass tried to make it like the most risk-free situation possible by giving themselves all of these buffers. But that is a bit of an excitement kill. There's no question about that. This
Carter
38:03
This is a fascinating question though, Corey. And let me ask you to start. This leadership was struck, the leadership rules were struck to prevent an outsider from coming in and taking over the party and
Carter
38:16
and yet here we are right
Carter
38:18
right like that was the the rule like the reason they put these rules in place was so they could look at all the different memberships that were coming in and ensure that those members were in fact legitimate members of the new democrats um yeah but
Carter
38:30
but here we are and
Carter
38:32
and an outsider's coming in you
Carter
38:35
you know and i've I've talked about his tepid response or his tepid endorsement in the 2023
Carter
38:43
You know, if he'd done an overwhelming, resounding endorsement,
Carter
38:49
do the NDP win?
Carter
38:52
Like, it's just, it's a fascinating question. It's such a small margin of loss.
Corey
38:56
6,000 votes in Calgary, right? I mean, it is an interesting question. Look, what you've actually put your finger on is something that's fascinating because you have to both to
Corey
39:06
to to actually really get behind this candidacy you have to both think that he's the man who can deliver those votes yeah
Corey
39:12
but not hold it against him that he did not deliver those votes
Corey
39:17
that's actually really interesting um okay
Corey
39:21
okay well look i i don't want to break our yeah yeah
Corey
39:25
yeah yeah yeah so like i let's go to the next section though okay which is what do do his opponents need to do to stop this like he has got a strategy hold everybody's attention try to just essentially seem inevitable and um and obviously deliver enough on the back end that he can do that and maybe he thinks just simply by sucking all the oxygen it
Corey
39:46
it will just damp enthusiasm for the other camps too here before
Corey
39:50
before i hand it to you i will say i don't get the sense that there's quit in any of them at this moment like i don't get the sense any campaign is about out to fold up shop right let's
Carter
40:01
let's be clear i think that all three of these campaigns that are i mean i'm not going to count jody and
Corey
40:05
and i'm not going to campaigns yeah
Corey
40:07
going to kill yeah um
Carter
40:09
all three of the larger campaigns are let's
Corey
40:12
let's say roughly equal you
Carter
40:14
you know and even if they're not roughly equal even if there's a 10 point gap or an eight point gap anyone can win right
Carter
40:22
right i think I think that that's the beauty of where this race is unfolding is if Nenshi doesn't win on the first ballot, then
Carter
40:32
the major campaigns, if they're running a let's keep the NDP the NDP, and
Carter
40:39
and they've made their memberships and they've sold their memberships on that kind of mantra, then ensuring that those ballots don't go to Nahed Nenshi on the second choice is actually relatively straightforward, right?
Carter
40:52
right? Right? Vote for one of the NDP women. One of the NDP women. Vote for one of the NDP women. And it's your first choice, your second choice, and your third choice. And I think that that type of campaign is entirely viable.
Carter
41:05
And that's ultimately what has to happen. All they really need to do is each get in the 17 to 20% range. And this is a ball game. So what is 17 to 20% in terms of actual vote you know i think that if we give 15 000 votes to nenshi and that's a straight up win then we're only talking about what uh 7 500
Carter
41:28
500 votes each kind of in a maximum like 7 500 votes each should be totally attainable for sarah hoffman raki pancholi and kathleen ganley yeah
Corey
41:39
yeah well i'll tell you this i i of course worked on a leadership campaign in 2006 where the The candidate who was going into that race in fourth, you
Corey
41:49
you know, going into that convention, I should say, and different delegated convention, but ended up winning the thing and winning it pretty handily, because that roll up can really, can really shock you, right? It doesn't take so much for even the person in fourth to be bumped ahead of the person in third. And all of a sudden, that person in fourth's votes go to the person in third. And that person in third is now the person in second. And that person who was in second is now giving their votes to that person. And all of a sudden, Michael Ignatieff, who seemed inevitable, is not leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, right? These kinds of roll-ups can and do occur all of the time. And one
Corey
42:24
one of the interesting things for me is like, if you're sitting there, and
Corey
42:29
and like, let's talk to the media for a second here. Like if you're the media and you're sort of assessing what's going to happen in this thing, there's no doubt you're looking at it and you're saying, oh, Nahed Nenshi, that
Corey
42:38
that guy's the front. You would be an idiot not to think Nahed Nenshi was the front runner, right?
Corey
42:43
Can we agree to that? Absolutely.
Corey
42:46
But you almost have to do what you're talking about and say, okay, Nahed is bigger than any of them. Is he bigger than all of them?
Corey
42:54
And that's not to say they're going to be able to deliver all of their votes. That's not what I'm suggesting. not
Carter
42:58
not all of their votes it's a significant percentage of their votes and
Corey
43:02
and there is a psychology that is just innate here because generally
Corey
43:07
generally speaking and again generalizations not always we're talking about percents if
Corey
43:13
if you can see yourself with the front runner you usually go to the front runner right
Carter
43:19
this is you know this is so good i mean the in-group out-group of this like this is why i say they have to make it about the ndp women versus that guy And if they do that, right, there's an in-group, out-group that immediately forms. I'm with the women. I'm with him. And that in-group, out-group will be so strong, they will hate one another by the end. Not because they should. Not because that's what you're cultivating. But because the closeness of the election actually defines that. I actually, Corey,
Carter
43:49
Corey, I don't like to brag or anything, but I finished the second chapter of my book, and it was this type of discussion.
Carter
43:55
Thank you. I've only got seven more to
Carter
43:56
um we'll get there eventually this
Corey
43:58
this is a nine chapter book yeah
Corey
44:00
doesn't matter i don't i don't even care uh it's called the tyranny of the less
Carter
44:04
less engaged uh you can order it uh at the strategist that's okay you
Corey
44:08
you can't damn it though yeah i was gonna say is there a pre-order every
Carter
44:12
every fucking uh url known to mankind uh
Corey
44:16
yeah we do we do but you
Corey
44:18
you know i did our as you know i did our accounting on the weekend yeah
Corey
44:22
i am i am not just the smartest person on the podcast but uh i'm also the guy who does all of the books if you were
Carter
44:28
were the smartest person on the podcast would you be the guy doing the bookkeeping that's
Corey
44:33
great point that's a great point i got nothing that i can rebut with that i
Carter
44:38
i just get the money handed to me so tell me how smart i am mr smart
Corey
44:42
zane is the smartest guy on the podcast effort
Corey
44:46
effort to money with that guy is fucking incredible okay he's
Carter
44:50
he's probably getting paid for this podcast he
Corey
44:52
he probably is that ass okay so let's talk about um Um,
Corey
44:56
I, I hear what you're saying, uh, you know, with the kind of the coalition, the idea of the in-group out-group, I think that that is a logic that some, that just exists in campaigns. They start to get really tense. I was saying this to a group of people yesterday. The reality of a leadership campaign is this people
Corey
45:12
people who are on your team, who are suddenly not on your team, that hurts more. And that becomes more of like a thing that drives resentment than if it's just a conservative that you're against and you're not a conservative, right? Because you're used to them being there. And you know, intellectually, it's not a betrayal. They just think somebody else would be better at leader. But it feels like a betrayal. It feels like, why aren't you with me? Why don't you see the things I see? And things get really chippy. It's that politics of small differences, right? Like we see the same thing on all of this. How dare you not see the same thing on this front? And so that develops during leadership campaigns, particularly long ones. And this does qualify as a long one at this point with the amount of time between ballots. So it'll
Corey
45:55
it'll be interesting to see how that goes. goes. I
Corey
45:58
I want to hear you though, on maybe something a little more, maybe foundational, maybe it's not, maybe this is a good conversation.
Corey
46:07
What do the opponents need to do to
Corey
46:09
to win the week? Like, let's not even talk about the contest for a minute. How do they sort of capture back the attention?
Corey
46:15
Or do you think that's just a waste of time? I
Carter
46:19
used to work at Theater Calgary.
Carter
46:21
And when I was working at Theater Calgary, we had a marketing consultant named Helen Moore Parkhouse. And she was asked to go and see a show in winnipeg i think it was we sent her or maybe it was toronto and
Carter
46:31
and the show was called
Corey
46:32
called basically the same dr jekyll
Carter
46:33
jekyll and mr hyde and
Carter
46:35
and she was going she was sent to figure out the best way to sell this show and
Carter
46:41
and she came back and she said uh take your money that you've set aside for marketing and spend it on the next show don't
Carter
46:50
don't just do not market dr jekyll and mr hyde shots
Corey
46:53
shots Shots fired of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Offer free seats to the
Carter
46:57
the show, to any subscribers. Offer make-up seats for the next... It was the worst show. It was called The Show That Killed Regional Theatre in Canada. And...
Carter
47:07
Really? Oh, it was a terrible show. So
Corey
47:09
So this isn't even like a subtle dig. This is like, this was a thing that brought down theatres. It started off
Carter
47:14
off as a two-act play that lasted just over three hours. It finished as an 84-minute one-act. uh the actors were going so fast just to get off the fucking stage that the so my thinking for this week is it's thursday you
Carter
47:29
you lost the week start
Carter
47:31
start planning on how you're going to win monday okay
Carter
47:34
how are you going to win monday is your new strategy great
Corey
47:35
great fucking advice how do they win monday i
Carter
47:39
i think it's process story i
Carter
47:40
i think there needs to be some sort of a process story uh where where they get out and they talk about tour dates, right? We have had our 100th coffee party. We're having, you know, so we've seen 1,480 people in person, and we've sold just shy of 3,700 memberships. We are so far ahead of Nahed Nenshi, we can't even begin to tell you.
Carter
48:06
I don't know what the numbers are. Corey, I'm kind of pulling them out of my tushy. but we
Carter
48:12
we we did process story on the nenshi campaign in 2010 all the time here's
Carter
48:17
here's the number of facebook followers or here's our number of facebook friends here's the number of people in our group here's the number of um you
Carter
48:25
know here's our number of twitter followers look at it grow look at how big it's getting um these process stories don't need to be real they just need to look real and the media tend to follow them because the media would rather cover a process story uh than covering a uh a policy policy and i guarantee you that the ninji campaign is going to put out already he's saying that he
Carter
48:46
he woke up and it was 10 times higher than the number that he imagined that was ridiculous
Carter
48:51
that was like what
Corey
48:52
what was the number i can't believe somebody printed that with like with
Corey
48:55
with with nothing additional well what number did you expect what number did you get and what evidence
Carter
48:59
evidence do you have um that
Corey
49:02
that would be sensible things to ask you know what i woke up today and And it turns out that I actually sold infinite memberships for my leadership campaign. Well, congratulations.
Carter
49:11
congratulations. It's been a while. I've been encouraging
Corey
49:14
encouraging you to run for
Corey
49:14
I didn't think I was going to sell infinite memberships, but there
Corey
49:18
there you go. It just happened. I mean, exceeded my expectations pretty significantly. Please print that. I'm
Carter
49:24
I'm going to report it back. Okay.
Carter
49:27
Okay. You bought one for you and one for your wife.
Corey
49:32
Is there a place for polling? Is there a place for somebody even
Corey
49:37
even putting out some of the, like, okay, so in the most general sense, like there was a Leger poll that was in the Calgary Herald today that said, Nahed Nenshi makes people more likely to vote for the NDP. Now, the fine print of that was, it still wouldn't look like enough to win the election, unfortunately, the NDP. And then the other component of it is it seemed to be on the backs of Calgary, which sounds good. But if you kind of do a little bit of quick mental math, you're like, huh, seems like he might actually be a drag and have like more negative in other regions of the province just based on the numbers that were shared in the story. Two things annoying about that. I'd like to see those numbers, please, so that we can get the full picture. Yeah. But second thing is, there
Corey
50:22
there is a place for polling, right? Like historically, we have seen in elections, a poll comes out in this data desert that we're in that all of a sudden sort of reframes things a little bit differently. If you're a leadership candidate, are you thinking about that
Corey
50:36
that or data or ways that you get it out? Are you even putting things like, hey, if you tell them three things about Nahed Nenshi, he's actually the most hated person in the province. We did a poll. We told them three sentences about the guy, all facts. And you know what? He's toast. Do you want to put a guy who is that vulnerable out?
Corey
50:54
Is there a place for something like that? I
Carter
50:56
I would be probably spinning that the most accurate, you know, the most accurate poll isn't a poll of the general population,
Corey
51:03
population, it's a poll of the membership.
Carter
51:04
membership. So we've been doing a poll of the membership. And here's what we've come up with. You know, like, that would be a far more interesting story. And I guarantee you, every single one of the leadership camps has a data set that they could present that says they're in first place. um in
Corey
51:22
in part because nature of that's the nature of leadership data leadership campaigns
Carter
51:26
campaigns are really the art of sifting through lies um yeah
Carter
51:30
that to me is is the art of a leadership campaign and then she is interesting because he's not going to have as many lies what he's going to have is soft right i think that the other leadership candidates are all going to be told oh yeah i'm i'm with you or i'm undecided when really they are decided uh both of which are a lie whereas nenshi is going to be getting a whole bunch of new people and
Carter
51:54
those new people are going to be just soft and
Carter
51:57
getting them out to vote is going to be the bigger challenge
Corey
52:01
well you know so i do want to kind of go back to my thing about like so much of the nahed nenshi
Corey
52:09
brand seems to be i can win this next thing and seems to be like i can win this last thing frankly is how i sort of see it but winning
Corey
52:17
winning is kind of inherent in it so if you found general population polling that showed he was actually a drag do you think that would hurt
Corey
52:26
hurt him or do you think it wouldn't because there's just too much data that is out there in in
Corey
52:30
in different contexts as well i
Carter
52:32
think there's just too much data and it's too early i mean it's three years to the next election there's a tremendous amount of time and uh he's still gonna pull so much much better than anybody else just because of his name recognition he's
Corey
52:45
he's got huge name recognition right it's
Corey
52:47
it's a double-edged sword right well we
Carter
52:49
we we covered it off when we talked to our good friend dan arnold i mean danny
Corey
52:53
danny a yeah there's a lot of people who like friends call him danny a is
Carter
52:57
is that what we're
Carter
52:58
we're calling him because of the uh his involvement
Carter
52:59
involvement in the uh afl tipping league and oh yeah
Corey
53:03
yeah i forgot to set my lines this week you still
Carter
53:07
you still have time you can do do it tonight in australia you only missed one you only missed one uh one uh match so far this
Corey
53:14
this okay so that that counts as a loss you
Carter
53:16
you got a loss for this one yeah and you'd only won one
Carter
53:19
one last week so you're i
Corey
53:21
i only won one last week i set my lines last week but
Carter
53:24
but i was actually
Carter
53:26
thinking you hadn't um because you're bottom of the barrel you are in last place i'm
Corey
53:31
i'm in last place the worst part
Carter
53:32
part is that haxum's haxum's in front with danny a number two oh
Carter
53:37
oh very upsetting really
Corey
53:38
really upsetting okay so
Carter
53:41
i think we have to make some changes to this whole okay
Corey
53:43
okay so taking over you think process stories um you think anything else you want to say about how the opponents might kind of break back into it all or well or do they need to what i would actually say is don't fucking
Carter
53:56
fucking break through go
Carter
53:58
go and do more coffee parties sell more fucking sell more
Carter
54:01
more memberships Focus on your strategy. Don't try and play someone else's strategy. Now, what would you say? What would you say? That's
Corey
54:07
That's great advice. No, that's great advice. Listen, I think that there is like a, I will give a modified version of that. I think that there is like, and for every candidate, this line is going to be in a different place, but you do need to sort of, if
Corey
54:22
if it gets to a point where it just seems like there is no conversation and there's no oxygen, that's going to affect your membership sales. That's going to affect some of those things on the ground. So you do need it to feel, you
Corey
54:31
you do need people to know it's a contest still. And there are ways that you can even kind of take advantage of some of the energy that Nahed Nenshi's brought to the race. But a certain amount of effort needs to be exerted just to kind of keep the thing vibrant, I think. I do believe that. Now, you
Corey
54:48
want to do as little of that as possible and then go back to selling memberships. And
Carter
54:52
And if you're going to do it on policy, then you've got to make it really aggressive policy, right?
Carter
54:56
And I think that my problem with all the policies so far is it's been, with the notable exception of, I think it's Pancholi who put out the policy that she was going to disconnect from the federal NDP. Well,
Corey
55:10
Well, checkbox, but yeah. Yeah.
Corey
55:12
Yeah, you know, like select or not. yeah i
Carter
55:14
i mean i would go further but i think that that was a good policy and those are the types of policies that you need to start seeing more of and fewer um climate change policies that that i think also was for acupuncturists that just don't move the needle at all yeah
Corey
55:29
yeah and you know i think that the first throw which was saying we're not going to have a carbon tax was actually a pretty big throw too and if sarah hoffman had not immediately agreed with it would be a fascinating wedge for her to be able to sit and run on but the reality is everybody else then said yeah i guess no carbon tax right well
Carter
55:48
well this is the this is the uh three
Carter
55:51
three women one man strategy and you
Carter
55:54
know hopefully uh well i mean i say hopefully because i don't want not had to win but hopefully the uh the
Carter
56:02
the three the three women that are really the big contenders in this all get together in some fashion and make sure that there is a clear articulation of what the what
Carter
56:12
the ndp looks like what the ndp means what the what it means to be part
Carter
56:16
of the ndp instead of the not head party the
Carter
56:19
the not head democratic party oh my god i just wrote that oh my god write it down it's a genius move
Corey
56:27
i i think that you're not a hack at all with things like that hurtful
Corey
56:31
this is my last thing on the run i only had three questions and And we're doing actually a pretty good job of filling this time, I've got to say. I'll
Carter
56:37
I'll tell you something. I'll tell you.
Carter
56:38
You and I have never really been short of things to say.
Carter
56:43
What people don't understand is this is our average phone call for
Corey
56:46
This is actually true. Yeah. Yeah, this is the same energy. The
Carter
56:49
The only time that our phone calls end early is when you're picking up your kid.
Corey
56:53
is all the time. It
Carter
56:54
It makes me feel like your kid, you're
Carter
56:56
you're shielding your children from me.
Corey
56:59
I am 100% doing that. By the
Carter
57:01
the way, you coming skiing on Saturday? All
Corey
57:04
right, so moving on to the final question here. Do
Corey
57:07
Do you think Daniel
Corey
57:10
Daniel Smith is scared of Nenshi or not? There is some discourse
Corey
57:15
discourse about this, right? There is this idea that the UCP can't fucking wait to run against somebody like Nahid Nenshi. And then there is the counter-argument, very meta, that, oh, no, they actually are very scared of him, and that's why they're saying they can't wait, because they don't want him to win, right?
Corey
57:35
What do you believe is the state of play in terms of the UCP's view of Nahid Nenshi? I
Carter
57:42
both can be true.
Carter
57:44
Because I think that there's so many unknowns. I think that Nahed Nenshi is absolutely someone who can beat Danielle Smith on the debate stage. I think that Nahed Nenshi is a spectacular campaigner. And I think that in the air war, especially, he's going to do an exceptional job. job. But I also think that there are very large pockets of the province that Nahed Nenshi can't win as the leader of the New Democrats. And that may include significant parts of Calgary. I'd be shocked if he was really that viable in many more ridings than the NDP won in the last campaign. I'd love to see a poll by poll, you know, like a riding by riding type of approach to to how this would actually play out. But explain to me how he's going to win in Lougheed or Shaw or any of the other areas that were lost, Calgary Southeast, by the NDP. I mean, maybe he picks up one or two in the Northwest. But even in the Northeast, he's not as popular as people think he is.
Corey
58:49
you know, to me, I think they
Corey
58:52
they are probably – listen,
Corey
58:55
listen, I'll say this right off the bat. Political
Corey
58:58
Political parties are terrible at determining who their scariest opponent is, right?
Corey
59:04
Totally. Totally agree. They
Corey
59:06
They have this kind of view that is almost caricatures of their opponents, right? They're going
Carter
59:11
going to act exactly like this, and
Corey
59:14
and they're going to be a total dumbass, and that's going to mean we're going to win. And I would actually say the
Corey
59:18
the NDP, by and large, rank
Corey
59:20
rank and file fell into this during the last election. the number of people who i saw online and talked to who said some version of rachel
Corey
59:29
rachel notley's gonna wipe the floor with daniel smith in the debate right wipe the floor with daniel smith and
Corey
59:36
and i remember thinking even before the debate like man
Corey
59:39
man i would not want those expectations on me if i'm rachel notley because first
Corey
59:44
first of all rachel notley is brilliant she's
Corey
59:47
she's never been a great debater no You know, the 2015 election was more of like, yeah, I don't want to take anything away from her there. She rose to the moment, but it was more of Apprentice's own goal to decide that he was going to go after Rachel Notley perpetually and then stick his foot in his mouth and then continue to stick his foot in his mouth.
Corey
1:00:06
2019 i think we saw rachel notley had
Corey
1:00:09
had had kind of like a fairly you know average
Corey
1:00:13
average average you know performance and here's
Corey
1:00:16
here's the thing danielle
Corey
1:00:17
danielle smith is a great debater she is very good at that a great
Carter
1:00:21
great communicator in general absolutely
Corey
1:00:23
absolutely and so this idea that you have rachel notley who that's not actually her strong foot versus danielle smith arguably
Corey
1:00:31
arguably it is and people were like rachel notley's gonna kill her she's gonna wreck her because there was this caricature of danielle smith that was out there of this like bumbling hayseed who wasn't going to be able to stop but say the stupidest shit in the world and that's not danielle smith right no and i i think
Corey
1:00:50
just flip it back here i'm sure they believe a caricature of not having energy right this
Corey
1:00:56
this tax and spender this ridiculous guy who's going to provide this target you know this urbanite white Calgarian who is going to resonate with nobody north of 16th Avenue and nobody south of Glenmore Trail, let alone the entire province, probably jeopardizes any chance the NDP have rural, probably has any chance the NDP has in small cities, and so on. I'm sure that there's a lot of belief of that because, you know, political parties fall into caricature here.
Corey
1:01:24
But I also think they think it
Corey
1:01:27
it is best that he limp out of this thing. So I think that both are are true and not in the sense of like conflict i think they'd be like well it's
Corey
1:01:36
it's probably going to be him let's have him barely win let's have some discontent within the ndp along the way that'll make it harder for him in the next couple of years and
Corey
1:01:45
and i i feel that's probably what they think yeah
Corey
1:01:50
so you know like i i actually think that they think nancy would be a fine guy to go against doesn't
Corey
1:01:55
doesn't mean they're right no
Carter
1:01:56
no i and i think that i
Carter
1:01:59
mean i can't see them being scared of the other three either, right?
Carter
1:02:02
right? I don't think that they're sitting back and saying- I
Corey
1:02:04
I don't think they're scared of any of them. I
Carter
1:02:05
I think that they're, I
Carter
1:02:07
I mean, I think that the greatest fear that they have is the leadership review in November if I was sitting in the premier's office.
Carter
1:02:14
Right. You know, and maybe they make it look like Danielle Smith is the only person who can beat Nahid Nenshi and they're not afraid of him in part because they want to keep their hold on this party that is so tenuously held at this particular moment so
Corey
1:02:31
so i had another answer or a version of this that i thought about because i wrote these questions so i i
Carter
1:02:37
really good at this yeah yeah i know right you're really good but
Corey
1:02:39
but i was thinking of saying i
Corey
1:02:42
think maybe daniel smith is afraid of not heading into but the ucp is not i
Corey
1:02:46
i just don't think the ucp is i because again they change leaders all of the time if they find that it's not an advantageous mismatch they'll just change their leader one year before the the election and that'll be that and
Corey
1:02:58
and and they do this thing where they kind of take out the garbage with the leader and then they say hey no no that was the last that was the last guy
Corey
1:03:04
and i actually think that there is a cautionary tale for the ndp here because the amount of effort that they spent
Corey
1:03:11
really destroying jason kenney's reputation yeah
Corey
1:03:14
only to have the party just go not us anymore right no no we're a different thing now we're
Carter
1:03:19
we're daniel smith's party yeah
Corey
1:03:22
they do this every they do this all the time like this you can't be surprised by this play by the conservatives at this moment you just can't i
Carter
1:03:29
i do resent you including them as conservatives uh in the same breath as uh you know the conservatives i was a part of because this is a totally different brand
Corey
1:03:39
brand well you know it feels the same to me it's all the same it's
Carter
1:03:45
so are you coming skiing uh on saturday