Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a strategist episode 1816. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan and Stephen Carter. Guys, we're
Zain
0:09
we're not supposed to be recording.
Zain
0:11
It's the summertime. Yeah, it's really the summertime, but we are back because there is breaking news. Okay, there is breaking news. Carter, J.D. Vance is accusing the Democrats of calling him racist for drinking a Diet Mountain Dew.
Carter
0:32
mean, that feels racist. I'm not sure why, but I'm always going to side on it probably is racist. If it's involving J.D. Vance, it's probably racist. Corey,
Zain
0:42
Corey, you see those white Appalachian lips lock in with some fantastic diet Mountain Dew aluminum. And the first thing you think is, racist?
Corey
0:55
i sincerely do not understand what like what the through line is between drinking mountain dew and racism and i worry that makes me so out of touch that i'm accidentally being racist when i myself partake in a mountain yeah exactly
Corey
1:08
yeah no i actually never do mountain dew is garbage but no
Zain
1:12
no okay here's the thing of all the um lemon lime is that what you'd call cantaloupe inspired is it cantaloupe inspired what i think
Corey
1:20
think it's cantaloupe inspired
Zain
1:23
the best cantaloupe-inspired drinks.
Zain
1:28
You have, well, it's a limited list now that I think
Corey
1:31
think about it. Squirt? Wait, squirt, cantaloupe? Well,
Zain
1:34
you could do straight cantaloupe.
Zain
1:38
Just straight up cantaloupe.
Zain
1:39
cantaloupe. Do people drink
Corey
1:40
drink cantaloupe juice? Is that
Carter
1:41
What happened to this show?
Carter
1:43
What happened to this show?
Zain
1:43
show? It's the summer. We're doing summer-related content.
Corey
1:48
Okay. Tying into the thing. There's probably people listening to us with cantaloupe right now who are nodding ahead.
Corey
1:54
Yeah, they're like, okay. Just really, really there. They're probably
Zain
1:56
probably doing it in the classic fashion. Diced.
Zain
1:59
So they're probably doing diced, okay? That's
Corey
2:01
That's classic, though. Sliced
Corey
2:02
Sliced is classic. Come on. Yes.
Zain
2:04
Yes. No, diced is classic. Sliced is poor.
Zain
2:08
You slice cantaloupe if you do it yourself. You dice it if you buy it from the store. Most of our listeners, they're buying. They're store-bought cantaloupe people, okay? okay?
Carter
2:18
I'm a cantaloupe wedge guy. I don't know. This
Zain
2:21
This is actually becoming three-dimensional. I really like that we're on this thing. You know what? No, let's not. Let's not. Let's not. Let's not. Because we've got Slice versus Dice competing with Mountain Dew versus Mellow Yellow. And we got to actually- Oh, I forgot about
Zain
2:37
We got to order the list, okay?
Zain
2:39
okay? With those four items. Now, some might say this is an apples and oranges thing. Not for us, okay? We're very good. at selecting between apples and oranges. They're
Corey
2:51
understand why people are confused by that. Yeah, no,
Zain
2:54
no, for sure. Corey, your fourth pick. Sliced, diced, mellow, yellow, or Mountain Dew? What is in fourth?
Zain
3:02
Diced is in fourth? Wow. Bold. Okay, diced is diced in fourth. Carter, what's in fourth?
Carter
3:09
Sliced. Sliced. I mean, it's just so basic.
Carter
3:13
Sliced is poor. Sliced is basic. You just said it
Corey
3:15
it was your preference.
Carter
3:17
No, I do wedges. Did I say
Carter
3:18
say it was my word? I do wedges.
Corey
3:19
Oh, wedges. Is that not sliced?
Carter
3:21
Isn't that what we're talking about? Wedges is like... No,
Carter
3:24
Sliced is cute, to be clear. A twelfth of the half,
Corey
3:27
right? No, sliced is like you cut it, and then you cut it at another angle, and then you're left with wedges. No, no, no. Those are
Carter
3:33
are slices. Those are wedges. Slices are when you go, soop, soop, soop, vertically.
Carter
3:38
I guess we've got
Corey
3:38
got a fifth. Soop, soop,
Zain
3:39
soop, soop, soop, vertical. Carter's going with pure...
Corey
3:43
doing that? Slices. You're going to get, like, these absolute garbage pieces. This
Carter
3:46
This is why it came in last. I mean, what is wrong with you?
Zain
3:51
Do you think J.D. Vance is running the media narrative on other podcasts like he is ours? Anyways, let's keep going. Okay. He's running the show. So, in fifth is Slice Slash Wedges. Corey, give me fourth. Give me fourth, third. Just go to the top, okay? I don't know. I don't want to waste so much fucking time on this like you guys. Are you sure you
Zain
4:09
Jesus Christ. You guys are fucking the worst.
Corey
4:13
Okay. Okay, well, if we're going to go in very last place, we're going to go diced, followed by sliced, apparently. I don't even know what that is. Nobody does that. It goes
Corey
4:22
diced, sliced, diced, diced, wedged, wedged, wedged, mellow yellow, because I forgot it existed. And I could kind of go for one now. And then, look, this is a list of five bad things. I don't much care for cantaloupe, but I will give it to Mountain Dew.
Zain
4:37
I love cantaloupe. Now, Carter, here's the twist, because I know you have got the mental acuity and flexibility that Corey Hogan does not possess on this show.
Zain
4:46
I'm going to throw the diet versions of
Zain
4:48
Mountain Dew and Mellow Yellow on the table. Now, can you give me your bottom-to-top list of cantaloupe-inspired cantaloupe or cantaloupe-inspired drinks altogether on one consolidated cantaloupe list?
Carter
5:00
I mean, you have to start with the diet Mellow Yellow, diet
Carter
5:02
diet Mountain Dew. You literally
Zain
5:03
literally said it was sliced.
Zain
5:06
sliced. What are you talking about? You said sliced was at the bottom.
Carter
5:09
No, I already did those. Those are already at the bottom. Those are the three bottom ones, and then I'm moving on up. Because anything that's carbonated is better. You
Zain
5:16
You guys didn't bring the drinks into the cantaloupe section. You guys actually kept
Carter
5:21
kept them down after the design. It's been five minutes and 20 seconds, Belgie.
Carter
5:25
This is all predicated as well on the idea.
Corey
5:28
idea. I feel like he's running down my ass here.
Corey
5:29
This is all predicated on the idea that Mountain Dew is a cantaloupe-based drink, which I'm
Corey
5:35
sure it's not. You said
Zain
5:36
said it was. It was. You said it was. Although my keyboard isn't working. Hold on. Hold on. Can we just wait? Can you guys just... No. How about we do
Zain
5:46
are doing a show. Jesus. This is the people love it. This is J.D. Vance content. Yeah. This is excellent. J.D. Vance content. While I look up if Mountain Dew is cantaloupe inspired, and Carter, before we get to the news of the day, talk to me quickly about Trump potentially regretting his J.D. Vance pick. Corey, is this probably the funniest story that's ever come out? It's the funniest subplot,
Zain
6:09
Yeah, okay. Talk to us about this funny subplot. Have you caught any of
Corey
6:12
of the reporting? Well, I think it's pretty loosely sourced at this point, but you're seeing people like Tim Alberta, say, talking to folks in the Trump camp. There's some concern that maybe this was a bad pick, and maybe there's some regret because of a combination of them realizing he has the personality of cantaloupe or Mountain Dew on his best days. Yeah, Diet
Carter
6:32
Diet Mountain Dew. Yeah. And
Corey
6:33
And then this was a pick that was supposed to rile up the base. They thought they were cruising to victory. Of course, this was a confirmed pick right after the assassination attempt on Trump, where I think even us were saying, oh my God, like this just feels really over. Although it's not feeling as over now, right? It's actually shocking how quickly the media cycle has moved on from the assassination attempt. There's reasons for that. We kind of teased out some of them last time. the
Corey
7:01
big one being it doesn't seem like it was a deeply politically motivated attack but yeah now they're stuck with vance now they're stuck with this guy who uh is swing state poison who
Corey
7:13
has the energy of a wet fish that's been left in the sun and they don't know what to do with it that's the rumors that's the rumors that are out there because his whole appeal was that he appealed to the kind
Corey
7:26
kind of folks you don't want to be stuck in an elevator with, but that the Trump campaign wanted to animate and motivate and get out to go do things for them.
Carter
7:35
That was the theory. That was the theory. And it did not happen that way.
Zain
7:41
Mountain Dew may not be flavored like anything. My limited research. That's like Dr. Pepper.
Zain
7:50
we have got so much news to talk about. I don't know why we spent seven minutes and 50 seconds shitting. It does seem insane, doesn't it? And you know what? I think we did it well. I feel like it was entertaining even to us. Carter, let's move it on to our first segment, the Democratic nominee quiz. Carter, we do this every time we have a new Democratic nominee. We have a one-question quiz that is presented to you last year. It was in 2020, I should say. It was about Joe Biden. He looked like the presumptive favorite. And I, of course, start a one-question quiz that I ask you. This is really to kind of get us going. In most cases, this would be the pre-show banter, but in this case, we had that excellent cantaloupe section, which people can refer back to if you missed it and you started this podcast at around 7.50. Yeah, if you started late. Catch the first 7.50, and it's first seven and change. It's some solid content. Okay, Carter, are you ready for the Democratic nominee quiz? This is, of course, the one-question quiz that we do every four years. Sometimes we do it every eight years because it's an assumed nominee, but we've got some things going on. Well,
Carter
8:53
Well, I've never been more ready. Okay, here we go. What is
Zain
8:57
is the first and last name of the presumptive Democratic nominee now that Joe Biden has popularized now? Handed the torch. Kamala
Carter
9:08
Kamala Harris. I'm sorry, can you say that? Kamala Harris.
Zain
9:13
Interesting. I want to dig deeper a little bit on that first part of that name. Yeah. I'm going to actually get you to say it again. Kamala?
Corey
9:21
okay i feel like if you asked him to say it five more times though he would break like he's doing an okay job hard i'm
Carter
9:26
i'm doing pretty good like you
Carter
9:27
knew this was coming carter
Zain
9:29
carter which are the which of the following did you say kamala
Zain
9:40
carter carter which one of the three was it i
Carter
9:42
i hit all of them
Carter
9:49
come out now you fucked me up i was doing really well okay
Zain
9:52
okay now you're back at it carter what is the name this is exactly this happened last time with joe biden i remember yeah he could barely get joe out uh carter what is the name of
Zain
10:01
of the presumptive democratic nominee for president of the united states in in the year 2024 vice
Carter
10:06
vice president harris cory
Zain
10:09
cory we're gonna move on to our next segment our next segment nuts for coconuts yes indeed taking a suggestion off twitter let's talk about carter
Zain
10:17
carter in case you want to know it's kamala oh
Zain
10:20
as in comma i
Carter
10:20
i said it right kamala harris comma you didn't
Zain
10:23
you you did not say it right cory let's talk about this let's get you in on this action uh you were wrong steven was wrong it was about what a little bit more than a week ago you guys thought this whole biden leaving thing was done that any conversation about it was over but here we are uh cory yeah
Corey
10:44
well it it all moved pretty quick didn't it it seemed that after um
Corey
10:50
after the the trump assassination attempt then there was the the rnc convention and even during the convention all of a sudden they started to it was as though everybody it was like when you're playing street hockey and everyone says oh we got to get off the street for a minute but now let's get our net and Let's go back onto the street again. Game on. And the Democrats in the House and the Democrats in the Senate just continued this drip campaign of telling Joe Biden to resign. And I can't remember who the first one was, but I remember there was somebody in the Democratic Party who suggested that perhaps he should go. And it was like everyone said, oh, yeah, we're doing that. And they went back to putting the gentle pressure on him that that resulted
Corey
11:31
resulted in not so gentle pressure along the way.
Zain
11:35
Carter, let's just dig into a bunch of strategy questions. There's so much pretense here. I don't want to describe any of it. Sure. Let's just dig into strategy. If people are listening to this, they know everything that's happened for the most part. This is not the podcast where you kind of learn about this for the first time or even are reminded about it. Yeah. Talk to me about some strategy questions that I find fascinating. The Pelosi, Obama, Schumer, Jeffrey strategy.
Zain
11:57
What did you think of its execution? and and and what does this do to to the and what does this tell you about the political chops of these people um who who may not and some of them do others do not hold formal positions in the party at one point they all did uh what does this tell you about them as political strategists and tacticians well
Carter
12:17
well i mean i i think that people are have been singing the praises of nancy pelosi especially uh and i think that she is is absolutely key to this you know putting pressure like
Corey
12:27
like like this this is an this speaking of insane subplots like forget the jd vance oh yeah
Corey
12:32
pelosi apparently still runs the democratic party that's that's to me one of the most shocking she
Carter
12:37
she made the call she's the one who said you know this is going to go the you know i don't think she said this is going to go the easy way or the hard way but i think it was certainly implied this is going to go the easy way or the hard way and she was gearing up to do the hard way you already you You started to see the leaks of the Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, and that was all being orchestrated by someone who doesn't hold any official role within the
Corey
13:03
the Democratic Party. So it was her allies who started getting back onto the street, you know, calling
Corey
13:06
calling game on again, right? And then, and so a lot of reporting, a lot of people saying, oh, it looks like Pelosi's against Biden now. It looks like this is all being organized. And then, not to jump ahead, but when Harris becomes the presumptive nominee in the sense that Biden points to her and says, she should be the one. Kamala Harris needs to be our candidate. Everyone stops and sort of says, well, where's Pelosi? And if you look at charts of when people got on board with it, gets to a certain level, plateaus, and then Pelosi says, yeah, good with me. And it basically goes to 100% across the board.
Zain
13:40
It's amazing because you're right, Corey, that she still runs the party. She's clearly not
Zain
13:45
not the speaker anymore, but she definitely does not hold that formal position, still a congresswoman, but even heard Obama say in the past, Carter, that she's an incredible tactician, one of the best he's ever seen politically. Proving it right now, I want to go through a list of other strategic items. There's so many things to capture within strategy calls. Corey, let's start with the Biden letter. He releases it at about 11.45 our time, Mountain Time on a Sunday. It does not include the endorsement of Kamala Harris within the letter. No.
Zain
14:16
No. Talk to me about that strategic play. That comes as a tweet 20, 30 minutes later. Do you like it or do you not like it as one fell swoop? And now, and to the public's consciousness, it was probably all muddled together because it was so quick back to back, but there is something to dissect there around what he was doing and perhaps even why that I think this podcast, maybe in particular, can spend some time talking about. out
Corey
14:37
so for me i got it all at once i i wasn't right on top of it and in fact stephen carter of all people said hey i can't believe nobody is talking about this biden stuff and so of course then i went to the newspaper and i saw this
Corey
14:51
this biden stuff and at that point so you have to go to the
Zain
14:53
the newspaper wow okay very
Corey
14:54
old website yeah for
Corey
14:57
for the new york times but uh the um but i do like the idea were you the only
Zain
15:01
only person in the continent who did not have people texting you about this that you had to
Corey
15:06
to actually go seek it out? I did, but the first text I saw happened to be C. Carter's after I got off the highway. I was driving through the mountains and we stopped in Revelstoke and that's when I learned about everything that had happened. And the, you
Corey
15:20
you know, I read the letter and I didn't immediately see the Hera stuff and I thought, oh, where's this endorsement from? And then I got caught up that it all happened on social. I liked it. I'll tell you, even though I managed to capture it all at once, I like the idea that you make the letter about the thing. you know it's a big thing this is a dramatic event this is a serious thing i'm a sitting u.s president and i'm saying i am not going to run again i am the candidate and i am saying i'm dropping out of the race you give that one piece of communication to be about you but
Corey
15:48
but you don't give it enough time that everybody starts wondering about well why didn't you endorse harris and if you had even waited another hour i think people would have said well he just did it because of the pressure that came afterwards but the the very small gap that he provided made it clear it was always his intention to endorse Harris, but it allowed him to stand alone and be the big story for the first bit.
Zain
16:12
Carter, what do you think? And even more broadly, what's the political strategy or practical lesson here around separating two very important pieces of communication?
Carter
16:21
Well, I think the practical reality is that by dropping out, he made history about him. And
Carter
16:28
And let's be very clear, this is one of the most historic tweets ever created. It's It's got to be up there with Elon Musk tweeting about himself on some levels, you know, but he, this is a, you know,
Carter
16:45
know, this is an octogenarian who's using the medium very, very well. I mean, the other piece that you haven't brought up is that he hadn't told his staff, like he told them at, you know, 145, he released this at 146, you know, one minute later, he He didn't give any chance for leaks. He didn't give any chance for anything else. He made this about himself for the first 30 minutes. And then by making the second tweet about Kamala, he was able to really focus
Carter
17:15
focus the attention where he wanted it focused. First
Carter
17:18
First on him, then on her. This decision was made, while it was made hastily, it was made and executed exceptionally well.
Corey
17:30
I just think it's good advice to break up news that once the news you have is so big that it could be two stories, you should be thinking about breaking it up and considering how you might use that to your advantage to control narratives and get out of it what you want. And he got a little bit more of what he wanted. He got to have people talking about him for a bit. Now, I think one of the things we have to acknowledge is the news cycle moves on so fucking fast. I mean, we know this, we talk about this, but you really felt it in the past couple of weeks between the Trump assassination, the RNC, all of the things that ultimately led us to this moment we're here at. But you could go to the front page of any newspaper website in the country, and you're going to see Kamala Harris, you're not going to see Joe Biden, like he's off the front pages. Yeah.
Corey
18:16
Yeah. And for those reasons, if you've got more than one thing to say, you have to you have to acknowledge the limitations of the environment we're in. Our people are only going to want to hear about the most recent thing.
Corey
18:28
So why not? Why not put it into two?
Zain
18:31
Let's move on. Like, I'm almost going to try to do this chronologically, pseudo chronologically or quasi chronologically, Corey.
Zain
18:38
As soon as he announces there is a massive wave of Biden is like putting himself above country, almost like in unison, like it was at a talking point released that he's putting himself above, you know, sort of putting country above himself, unlike Trump, that this will go down in history. This is a rare occurrence. All those things are true. true do you feel like the democratic hype machine if i could call it that this is was
Zain
19:05
was on overdrive and as over corrected on the biden thing or is this like the right strategy for them to elevate him up here because this is still a man who's got 100 plus days of the presidency left and so i want to talk about like what that kind of means in terms of him executing on the job um as they try to hypen up and and talk about how this is a an unbelievable move but also like as they talk about joe biden's legacy while he with with a tweet yeah
Corey
19:32
yeah the number of references we've seen comparing this to george washington's farewell address where he decided to step down and set this precedent un-fucking-real like just a little over the top but one of the things that we saw in the weeks leading up and you often see this with stories is um when
Corey
19:51
when people are really pushing for something to happen there's an awful lot of hypothetical that gets drawn out and articulated in long form in in various newspaper opinion pieces and whatnot and and i just love how key
Corey
20:04
key messages manifest right and i don't mean the ones that a political campaign comes up with but the ones that we organically all shift to as movements i think yeah right so all progressives are all of a sudden saying the same thing all small c conservatives are all of a sudden saying the same thing how that happens and and what does tend to happen is somebody writes something and And somebody says, that's really fucking good. And another prominent person uses it.
Corey
20:28
it. And we certainly saw in the weeks leading up as they were putting pressure on Joe Biden over those three weeks, one
Corey
20:35
one of the very big arguments that was presented in advance was this would be such a selfless act by Joe Biden, right? So in many ways, that was pretty easy messaging for everybody to reach to because a lot of people had already said it. There had been a lot of nodding like, yes, yes, it would be a selfless act. So it becomes very easy to say it because you know in
Corey
20:54
in the echo chambers that you live in, everyone's going to embrace it and retweet it and say, yeah, we love Joe Biden now. And we always said this was a good thing for him. And this was never about us being dissatisfied with him. And that's kind of the simple answer, right? It was right there on the shelf, ready to be used. And we all knew it based on the three weeks of lead up to it. it.
Zain
21:16
Carter, what's your take on how people dealt with the Biden legacy and are currently dealing with the Biden legacy, especially as he has to govern, especially as he has to, you know, do certain things, still has to speak to the country, as he said he would this week at some point. Do you feel like that that has been over the top to the point where it's a strategic liability? I
Carter
21:39
I don't think it's a strategic liability. I think that what has happened is that All of the other elements that could have been legacy, all of the chipsack, the various acts that he's pushed through, the infrastructure pieces, the build back better elements, all those things, they're now gone. The
Carter
21:59
The only thing that we're going to remember him for. In the same way that we remember Richard Nixon for leaving office under the cloud of his improper acts, or we remember Johnson stepping down, or stepping forward, I guess, and being sworn in after the assassination of JFK. I mean, I think that this is the this
Carter
22:23
this is this is a moment
Carter
22:26
moment where we're only going to remember him now as the person who did the action of stepping aside for Kamala Harris. And that is going to be how he is remembered in the history books. It's not, you know, if every president gets a chapter, every president gets a paragraph, whatever it might be, this is his paragraph. now this is going to be how he's remembered and that
Carter
22:52
history unfolded in front of our eyes so quickly um within
Carter
22:57
within the span of like three hours we went from this is happening to this is now and now we're writing how we're going to how we're going to remember him and uh it
Carter
23:08
must be something when you're that old especially when you're that old and to watch your obituary being written right in front of you um that's got to be really really quite real uh because that was and that was wild
Corey
23:21
yeah i don't know about that i mean this action didn't just fall out of a coconut tree and it's got to be considered in the context of things and the important one for his legacy is does harris win if she wins i think you're right i think it becomes he did a selfless thing he stepped down because he knew it was time and then he handed over the baton to the next generation if she she fucking loses. People are going to be second guessing this decision forever. And it will entirely change the way people perceive this particular act. And it will be seen as, holy shit, was the Democratic Party ever in decline? Their
Corey
23:56
Their leader couldn't string some thoughts together during a debate, had to resign, total chaos. Vice President came in, everybody rushed. Because the narrative will be, the Democrats rushed to re-nominate Joe Biden without testing And when he failed on primetime, they rushed to nominate Kamala
Corey
24:12
Kamala Harris without testing her, right? That's going to be the narrative if it goes down the road. And it will not be about selfless Joe Biden. It will be about chaos
Corey
24:21
chaos in the Democratic Party and Joe Biden tried to hold on too long. Or
Zain
24:25
Or the party or the party let him go unchallenged in a nomination race completely. And so then
Zain
24:31
becomes an entirely different story. Like,
Corey
24:33
Like, let's put it this way. If George Washington had given the farewell address, and then the next president had become the first king of the United States, I think we would think about that farewell address a bit different, too. It's
Zain
24:43
true. Carter, here's what's happened there on After. Kamala Harris has had an incredible, how long has it been? Three days. Yeah.
Zain
24:49
Fundraising record, consolidation of power, key endorses, delegates, governors, senators. It's done incredible from the stump. Multiple speeches. Has gone viral. Charlie XCX, like, this whole brat thing. Like, it's a memification, like, for the constantly online folks, you're like, what the fuck is happening? going.
Zain
25:12
There's two questions here that I have that I want you to apply your strategic frame to. And I'll let you guys choose which one you want to go with first, okay? My first question is, is this real or is this a sugar high?
Zain
25:25
And my second question is, is this coronation what the Democrats need?
Zain
25:31
So one's more analysis and one's strategic. Which one do you want to start with, Carter? Because it seems like it's going to be a coronation. None of her rumored competitors are going to run against her. They've all endorsed her. So there's the coronation question. And then there's the sugar high versus is this real? And then that question is really also a strategic one inherently, because if it is one, how do you make it the other? And if it is, if it is real, how do you keep it real? Carter, where are we starting?
Carter
25:56
Well, I think we're going to start with the sugar high. Is this a sugar high? Yeah, I think it is a sugar high. But I think that that's all we get now in politics. You know, I think that, you know, in 2015, Justin Trudeau gave us the, you know, the eight page spread in McLean's magazine with the family photos, and that's all we get. I think that, you know, you get these shallow moments. And if you're able to string enough of those shallow moments together, you get yourself elected now. Donald Trump is the king of the sugar high he just continues to pull out the candy floss and give it to his uh his supporters one event after the other that's what he does so i think it's safe to say that that that politics has devolved um to the point where sugar high is what we seek now is it real yeah
Carter
26:46
i think it is real because sugar highs are
Carter
26:51
are real like we you know there's a there's something i i guess in science that says the kids you know don't get a sugar high but i think that parents you know and cory's cory and you uh will know this better than me now but uh i think parents still complain about their kids when they've had too much sugar um so you know this is a sugar high that is real this is actually happening and i think that this is going to be um the defining moment of if she's able to string these things together we had an assassination attempt last time we were talking talking on the podcast. We've all forgotten that already, which is astounding. So she's going to have to move from this sugar high to the next sugar high to the next sugar high if she's going to actually be successful in contesting this presidential race, because that's what we're looking for. We'll talk about how
Zain
27:40
how you turn that into movement, but I want to see if you guys are both on the same page. Corey, I'm giving you a very simple frame. You could feel free to reject it. Is this a sugar high on Kamala Harris on the fact that there's some joy and possibility that there's some some optionality that this is not not stuck with Joe Biden, which is what's caused this? Not to not give her credit, because it's been an incredible three to four days. Or do
Zain
28:05
do you think this is real? That this is the start of a movement Obama asks something concrete, real demos will fall in place, swing state polling will fall in place, her candidacy and her And her propositional approach will fall in place. Give me your take, Corey.
Corey
28:22
if you're used to dating a corpse, I'm sure somebody in intensive care seems really liable.
Carter
28:27
liable. Oh, my God.
Zain
28:30
Do you think? Okay, there is a school of thought. Kamala Harris was not a celebrated political
Zain
28:37
political figure. Her Senate office was rumored to be run poorly. Her presidential campaign, not so great. right? Accolades, fantastic, DA, Senator, all those sort of things. But
Zain
28:48
But this was not a person, Corey, that if this was a open primary that began on schedule, one would put the betting odds to say is going to take it till the end.
Corey
28:58
think that's true. And I'm actually not trying to be as harsh to Kamala as that sounds. And that was pretty harsh. That was pretty fucking
Carter
29:05
fucking harsh. Yeah, that was not what I just said. Make
Corey
29:08
Make the point. Make the point. But here's the point I'm trying like the democrats have been dying of thirst out there joe biden is i
Corey
29:16
i i know everybody tries to make him into a meme with the you know deal with it and the the ice cream and the sunglasses and all of that he's a fucking 81 year old man and kamala comes around and she seems pretty adroit she seems like mama droid with social media you know like really gets insta and has friends on it and all of that yeah
Corey
29:36
and the hive she well you look back to 2020 there's a whole there was
Corey
29:39
was exactly right yeah and uh and
Corey
29:43
and people are just thrilled they're fucking thrilled because all of a sudden they've got somebody who is able to play around in that space and be popular in that space and i mean you only touch the surface about the memes like the number of memes about
Corey
29:55
about coconuts that are out there the number of memes that are um
Corey
29:59
yeah like kesha released a song that was started with her laugh you know like this it's everywhere right now it's just it's crazy what is interesting though to me is
Corey
30:09
is it's not clear to me yet that this is actually
Corey
30:13
pulling gold you know or or popular money gold it
Corey
30:17
it is money gold but you know another guy who did amazing with money uh bernie sanders he'd get those big money bombs right ran paul he would get those big money bombs you get that enthusiasm but is it going to be the sustained big money that runs uh political campaigns right now tbd is the real answer no but tbd is the real this
Carter
30:37
this money is way bigger than than the money bombs for sanders and first of all and secondly let me let me throw this out at you this
Carter
30:46
this isn't planned there
Carter
30:48
there is no strategist that's back there that said here's how we're going to roll this out from the 30 minutes that we had knowledge that uh that bill biden was going to step out we're going to run the next 72 hours in the following fashion that's not how they're just riding the waves
Carter
31:04
they're just riding the way come on you
Corey
31:07
don't tell me you're
Carter
31:07
you're not hearing me they're not just hitting the surfboard going holy fuck this is a big wave we best not crash yeah
Corey
31:14
yeah well of course they are but i also want to point out that that the biden campaign was seeing donations just disappear for a month that's supposed to be a really big fundraising month. So it feels like a lot of people who are sitting on their wallets said, okay, now I'm not going to sit on my wallet. And you have to expect about 20, 30 million of that is from the people who got off their wallets. There was obviously still enthusiasm about it. I'm not taking away anything from the enthusiasm. The question is not did she raise 80 million? It's can she raise the next five batches of 80 million you need to run a presidential campaign in 2024 and
Corey
31:48
and one of the things that i think should give democratic strategist pause or republican strategist pause or both i suppose is they are sharing the same shit right the the republicans are sharing it like get a load of this woman and the democrats are sharing it like god get
Corey
32:05
get a load of this woman you know yeah
Corey
32:07
yeah and somebody is wrong with swing voters it's
Zain
32:09
it's really interesting you're absolutely right the same content like a lincoln project ad which is now promoting i think it's just a microcosm of the example uh
Zain
32:18
uh it's it's make america laugh again it's a thing where
Zain
32:22
where they highlight three or four laughs that come like she's got a very joyful laugh very and depending on your ear and your eyes quite literally to cory's point you can see that as being oh my god that is desperately what i needed or oh my god that is desperately not what we need what an unserious person yeah
Carter
32:42
but this is the same content content this this is really interesting you know of what you know which which tribe are you a part of because how you react to that is just simply a shibboleth of of how of your tribe that's all it is so you
Carter
32:56
you know i mean i
Carter
32:59
think that it can be i think it i don't think that they're going to wake up one morning and say oh we were wrong i think we're going to wake up and say okay we're both both playing to our base, how do we start playing to middle America?
Corey
33:13
Yeah, you know, a long standing belief of mine, and I've said it on this pod a few times, I'll say it again. Nothing in life is as good or as bad as you think it is. And we tend to think the highs are higher than they are, and the lows are lower than they are.
Corey
33:27
We will get back to earth at a certain point here. And the Democrats will have to see where they are on that particular ride at that moment but i just i well here's thinking that we're going to a kamala landslide now you know here's
Zain
33:40
here's a here's a question for you then cory is it is
Zain
33:44
is it in the interest of democratic strategists to bring this ship back to earth sooner rather than later no
Zain
33:50
okay so you let it you let it you let it you let it coast and you let it ride for as long as you can is that is that you have to you absolutely
Carter
33:58
absolutely wrote a wave with ninji how long was that wave three
Zain
34:01
three months created Crated a wave. Crated a wave. No, you rode a wave. Crated a wave. You rode a wave. You can listen to the Hurley Burley podcast. I talk about how we engineered a wave. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's really good. Keep going though, Carter. You rode a wave.
Carter
34:13
wave. Make a point. Riding that wave, you sustain it as long as humanly possible because there is no way to create a man-made version of that thing that's going to have the same energy. So this energy, this excitement that is jumping out at the Harris team, at the Democratic team, they have to ride it. And if they can get $200 million in the first week, well, that's two of Corey's $600 million pushes that need to happen, that happen naturally, that are naturally occurring. And it means that they don't have to do another one, you know, in October or something along those lines. So I think that this, anytime
Carter
34:54
anytime you can get a natural wave, you're cooking with fire. And these guys have the natural wave and they just need to run and make it last as long as humanly possible. Corey,
Zain
35:05
Corey, using your analogy of not as good or as bad as things may seem and kind of having that moderating force in one's life and perhaps how they view things,
Zain
35:17
this seems like an excellent three, four days for Kamala Harris for the base. base is that fair to say that like it doesn't seem like it has necessarily translated yeah and we'll see on polling but but it doesn't seem like it's necessarily translated beyond a huge sigh of relief excitement joy um opportunity whatever you may whatever words you may want to use for the base is that fair in
Corey
35:44
in your mind or
Corey
35:45
or no so there's a couple of early polls that suggest maybe there is There is a Harris bump here that I'm sure is causing fits within the Republican campaign. The thing about campaigns is they have an awful lot more polling than we see in the news, even. They've got more sophisticated modeling, especially in a U.S. presidential campaign. So they already know what the trend lines are on these particular things. So I get the sense just based on how Donald Trump is tweeting, frankly, that there's probably something to the overall polls moving right now. But the thing I do want to underline, Zane, is the base matters. And the base was pretty despondent between Joe Biden's performance and just the general malaise that people had not gotten on board with him. His approval rating was pretty low, continues to be pretty low, his disapproval rating pretty high. They needed this, right? Right. This is the kind of thing that a campaign, it's a shot in the arm. It becomes the thing that really
Corey
36:39
really gets you back out on the doorsteps, gets you back on the phones. It gets those volunteers getting logged into whatever it's called now, Act Blue or, you know, the latest iteration of it and giving the money. And the, you
Corey
36:55
you know, the enthusiasm of the base matters. It goes back to what we were saying about why Trump picked J.D. Vance, right? right he thought that would fire up his base it's great for the democrats that their base is fired up right now that's fucking wonderful for them that's exactly what you want to see so
Zain
37:10
so it's a necessity yeah yeah and
Corey
37:12
and i think it was more a necessity that two
Corey
37:17
two weeks ago not even a full two weeks ago this party was on the mat it was looking like it was an absolute route it was going to be trump in a landslide right he
Corey
37:26
he he was looking so strong and biden was looking so a week. And now it just feels like that entire narrative is flipped. But again, nothing in life is good or as bad as you think it is. We'll see where everything settles out.
Corey
37:39
But to that point,
Zain
37:40
point, Carter, as a modern day strategist, what's the lesson here for you? Because there is, last week, the Democratic Party had a story that was being told about it. And two years ago, Kamala Harris was having a story told about her, that she doesn't have the X factor, the gumption, the charisma. Now she's set the single, you know, 24-hour fundraising record, seems to be on the path to becoming the first female president of the United States. What does this tell you about stories as a strategist? Is the Trump view of the world correct that you can easily wash away what happened yesterday or the last second or the last minute, that that is something we need to lean into for better or worse? What is the broader sort of lesson here that you're learning, both through the lens of the Democratic Party now having new life breathed into it, perhaps even looking like the only political party when you look at what happened at the Republican National Convention, which we haven't talked about, and or looking at what's happened with the story of Kamala Harris, which maybe the previous chapter need not apply. There's a new movement, new person. She's net new to folks going forward. What do you think? Well,
Carter
38:46
Well, I think that character and story is really important uh and what we are seeing though is that character does not this
Carter
38:54
this character that is created is not necessarily related to the character that existed before just because someone is is lackluster the first time doesn't mean that they're going to be lackluster the second time it means that the character as seen is and the character as created is in much is largely the creation of the audience and how the audience chooses to interpret them so the audience is in charge of how the character is going to be created um authors
Carter
39:22
authors i think do this i think you can see authors that write characters that think that the characters uh you know
Carter
39:28
know one is going to be perceived one way and then all of a sudden you know in the in the story the character is perceived another way or they're the story arc goes a different direction than the author thinks it's going to go and that is the essence of what is happening here is that kamala harris in that first iteration the character was established was interpreted by the audience one way you know keeping in mind who she was running against there were all these different people people buddha judge and uh there's all this energy that was being created and aoc had just even even the moment
Zain
39:59
moment she was running in like the 2020 cycle was very different it
Carter
40:02
it was a different space wanting
Carter
40:04
now we're coming in when the two Two primary characters are near octogenarian or or actual octogenarians who are, frankly, old and tired. And Nikki Haley was the one who said that the group that drops the first, you know, the first group that pushes out their octogenarian candidate will win this election. And I think that that's ultimately what we're seeing right now. This is not someone who's being embraced for being Kamala Harris. This is someone who's being embraced. The character is being embraced as being the not Joe Biden, not Joe Biden. And that's a great character to be in this particular storytelling.
Zain
40:39
Corey, what does this tell you, either in terms of how quickly stories can turn around Carter's whole concept of you don't have to be the same person you were last time, you can forget that chapter, it may not even be part of your book. How do you kind of look at this as a political tactician in terms of what this moment, this extremely quick, quickly changing, rapidly developing moment has taught us, even while we live it?
Corey
41:02
well i i mean i totally agree with steven that it's as much about the audience as it is the actor and you need to have a match of them and if the audience is not in the mood for your shtick and they're in the mood for somebody else's even if you've not changed you just you just miss right the movement the movement in the moment miss but
Corey
41:19
but there's more to it than that there's a couple of things that are always true about political campaigns but especially true about campaigns of this size and scope and it's that they are vehicles right you are the character of Kamala Harris as much as you are the person Kamala Harris. You have a team. That team constructs you. They're writing speeches for you. They're putting ads together for you. They're prepping you for debates. They're telling you this works great, this doesn't. Wear this suit, don't wear that suit. And that all gets built around you as well. And then also, look, people change. People grow. I'm sure that in 2020, she thought, fuck, I fucking lost to Joe Biden because because I missed these things. I better spend the next couple of years developing these things. Look how good he is with common touch, being able to walk around and feel comfortable with these people. I'm sure she learned a lot from Joe Biden. I'm sure Joe Biden learned a lot from her too. But people evolve based on the people in their orbits. And I'm quite certain she is not the same person that she was in 2020. And she probably has all new deficiencies, but she also has all new strengths.
Zain
42:21
Let's talk about a few other strategic things. I want to get to the coronation question in a second carter here's an interesting strategic one that gets a little bit in the weeds she's
Zain
42:30
she's keeping all of joe biden's team including
Zain
42:33
those at the top is
Zain
42:36
today she this is my question is she though is she though and and what should she do carter talk to me about this i
Carter
42:42
i think everybody who's at the top right now should remain at the top and all of a sudden there's three new tops positions right there's going to be you know Her team is going to come in, and her press secretary will become her press secretary, but there'll still be another press secretary. They're not going to come in and just do mass firings or mass layoffs. That would send the wrong message. So the message needs to be, we've got the strong team, but suddenly the org chart suddenly grows at the top by 5, 10, 15, 20 different jobs. jobs, the group at the bottom, all
Carter
43:17
all of those staff are fine, right? You just need boots on the ground and all of those hires will be fine. There's probably more hires to be made, and those are going to be Harris people more than they are Biden people.
Zain
43:30
Corey, do you like the strategy that she's keeping those folks right away, like just inheriting that team, embracing them, etc.? Or are you one of the school of thought that, you know, you only have such a limited runway to make make big changes. And if you want your people in right away, because they know Kamala Harris, these people knew Joe Biden, they were running for Joe. Yes, you were on the ticket. But, you know, we know that VPs don't matter. Like, historical
Zain
43:53
historical polling evidence has suggested VPs are not what people are voting for. So your take on this?
Corey
43:59
Well, there's a couple things. First of all, I'm not it's not clear to me she has another team that could just jump in there. Right. So there is this interesting expediency thing. It's been observed by a few people. One of the things that I think is a bit of a canary in the coal mine, if we look back on this and say, if this didn't work, one of the reasons I think it will have failed is because it doesn't look like she has any political stalwarts that have stuck with her for any length of time, right? Since she began her political career, she tends to rotate through staff, rotate through senior advisors. So she didn't necessarily have the team that was ready to jump in there.
Corey
44:33
So there's that expediency thing. You got to have a team to replace the team with if you're going to replace the team.
Corey
44:39
But the second one is you don't want to come in riding this wave of goodwill, wave of donations, wave of, oh my God, you turned around the name of the campaign and all of the campaign creative and all of that in 24 hours. Now, look to your left, look to your right. One out of three of you is not going to be here as I start to retool this thing. That's just, that's going to, we talk about riding that wave, that kills the wave. Don't kill the wave, right? Retool when it makes sense to retool. Don't retool when you're in the middle of right
Corey
45:08
right in that wave so i think that's the other thing campaigns do naturally evolve over time look how many fucking campaign managers donald trump had in 2016 yeah i think you can expect people will rotate in and out they'll be given roles like they were so good so now they're like executive campaign manager and here's the new day-to-day campaign manager or yeah we've had this conversation before there's lots of ways to expand your team change your team without firing somebody somebody that's how we end up with such grand titles on all of these campaigns and i do expect you'll see some of that as she starts to say i want more of this i want less of this this person really gets me and impressed me this person doesn't get me at all maybe they were great for joe but they're not great for me carter
Zain
45:51
carter let's come down to earth for a second coronation
Zain
45:56
she's got the delegates she's done there's gonna be there's gonna be a technically there's gonna be be an open convention there just may not be anyone running against her yeah
Zain
46:04
should there be even if it's a c-string player or a series of up-and-coming democrats should we have a process between now and convention and more specifically should any of the a-list players who had and who have already endorsed her and who had indicated at least through media reports that they were interested should they not have endorsed so quickly what do you what are you thinking of regarding the the Kamala coronation?
Carter
46:31
Well, I think, first
Carter
46:32
first of all, I didn't expect it to be a coronation. But it has unfolded as such. And it is going to be an uncontested nomination. Again, it was going to be an uncontested nomination with Joe Biden. And now it's going to be an uncontested nomination with Kamala.
Carter
46:51
That makes a tremendous amount of sense when one thinks about about the resourcing um there is no way to challenge now there is no way to make the challenging happen and and and be successful in it so everybody should everybody has decided just to get on board and get behind harris and i think that that's exactly the right thing to do get on board get behind harris and um make this the the the make the only thing now be the thing that everybody was talking about prior to jd vance being appointed as vice president to a nominee or a candidate to uh to donald trump who's going to be number two and
Carter
47:29
and i think that that's a strong enough question to carry them right through their convention you know we get another couple of days of of harris being unstoppable and then we get a whole group of uh who's going to be her running mate uh stories and i think that that carries them into the convention quite well cory
Zain
47:47
cory carter wasn't a coronation person. He's bought into it, timeline-wise, resourcing-wise, including the transfer of the Biden cash to Harris, which is a big component of this, that nearly $100 million that would be difficult otherwise. They'd have to give it away to PACs, which you couldn't coordinate with if it was a different candidate.
Zain
48:06
But it's a coronation, Corey. And we talk about in politics that coronations aren't great, even if they're weak opponents. It's nice to have an opponent. So you could test yourself out, you can push back that there's some resistance, you're running against something. In this case, you can argue she's running against Donald Trump from day one. So it's not like you need a process. But Corey, your thought on this as a strategist, as a practitioner, you
Zain
48:29
you in on the Kamala coronation?
Corey
48:33
You know, I'm not mostly because of what I said earlier, isn't this exactly how they ended up in this situation? They They coronated Joe Biden. Yes, of course, he was the incumbent. Yes, incumbents usually get pretty easy rides, but he was not stress test. And he was going to be the oldest candidate for president, you know, by only beating himself in that record. So I do think that you want to put people through those paces. You want to see how they react in debates. You want to see how they react in or you want to see what people get on them, quote unquote. quote and and how those stories might evolve and it's kind of robbed of that is
Zain
49:13
is there anything imaginative that the two of you could come up with to grant her that opportunity while still ensuring it's just her in the race the
Zain
49:23
the the ability to town hall it and debate it and and push back against her like-minded democratic uh adversaries putting that in air quotes all the things that a primary gets you well
Corey
49:35
well why would she want to do that like i understand why democrats might benefit from it. But why would she, she's gonna have to get out there and fight with Donald Trump and make the arguments that the Democrats need to make. But stress testing implies you're going to put her in a position where we're going to see whether she succeeds or fails. And if you're a candidate thinking smartly and cogently about your campaign, you don't want to put yourself in positions where you fail, you want to put yourself in positions where you can succeed. And so I just don't know what that necessarily does for
Zain
50:05
you agree with that or do you feel like i
Zain
50:07
i shouldn't say good candidates but certain candidates are like fuck it bring it on right like anything to sharpen the knife like if you want to give it to me i've got it i've got the delegates i've got the math bring it on or are you in more cory school of thought that this is a fight to trump and let's just move it on to that i
Carter
50:22
i think you have to move it on to the second you know move it on to trump i mean what are you going to do debate joe mansion uh like it's just it you know joe mansion and pete Buttigieg are going to come onto the stage today and they're going to mock debate me. I mean, the only person who's even floated the idea that he might run his mansion, right? Like, um,
Carter
50:39
um, what are you going to do? He's not even a Democrat anymore. What are you going to do? Like an undercard, uh, debate? Like, uh, I think you could do certain things. Like you could do a town hall, uh, a televised town hall. That might be interesting. A one-on-one, uh, you know, like a televised town hall would, might be interesting with some really interesting journalists. journalists um but why put yourself into that crucible why not instead focus on getting through the mid-august convention uh get yourself i mean it looks like she's going to have to name a vp by august the 7th do the virtual roll call around august the 7th in order to be on the ballot in ohio then push into the convention right after that like why
Carter
51:23
why would you like why would you even entertain this get through get through the middle of august and then start putting the pressure on donald trump to do a debate with you in september as agreed with joe biden that's what i would be focused on is is move yourself up to the major fucking leagues not to the minors yeah
Corey
51:41
yeah like why why create that doubt and kill your wave right yeah like right now everybody thinks you're
Corey
51:47
you're the woman like you got it like you are the person looking at this why create doubts in your base why give yourself opportunities to fail why create openings for your opponent just game on here
Zain
51:59
here we are let's
Zain
52:00
let's move it on to our final segment steven carter over under in our lightning round we got a few things to cover here and i'm going to start with you we do this for you thank you uh of course we do we always do carter the
Zain
52:09
line of attack for
Zain
52:11
for the republicans against kamala harris
Zain
52:14
crafted for me the
Zain
52:15
the line of attack just a line just a line the the most potent
Zain
52:19
potent line of attack against a new Democratic nominee. What is it for you?
Carter
52:28
California woke prosecutor who doesn't understand how to actually solve crime, who is instead focused on making sure that everybody's using the right pronouns.
Zain
52:43
You go with far left, you go with woke, you go with California, you go with things that seem to, at least in the present moment, have slightly more rejection from the swing populace. Corey, I'm
Zain
52:53
I'm giving you the same opportunity. The line of attack doesn't have to be an actual line. I like what Carter did, but the line of attack you feel like is most potent against Kamala Harris right now, instinctively, rather than having your petulant meltdowns, which is what the Republican Party has decided to do. What would be your line of attack, your starting point?
Corey
53:11
I like his starting point. We want the California solution to crime. We want the Biden White House solution to Washington.
Corey
53:19
Of course we don't. you know, we want to make America great again. And we do that by doing the things that made America great.
Zain
53:27
Pretty good. I like that. Corey, I'm sticking with you on this one. In a round on the following, there
Zain
53:31
there should be a
Zain
53:33
a mini primary process on the VP pick.
Zain
53:37
There should have been.
Zain
53:39
It's too late. The timing, the timing, August 7th. We're looking at July 23rd. August 7th is the date, if I'm not mistaken, and if we believe Carter, which we shouldn't, because
Zain
53:48
because we believed him into to the lie that that mountain dew was a cantaloupe exactly when it is a
Zain
53:53
it's a honeydew drink yeah it's right in the name honey in the name yeah it's not it's not a honeydew drink either um
Zain
54:00
cory should there be a primary process on vps on
Corey
54:04
vps uh on vps on vps yeah that's
Corey
54:07
what i'm like on the vp pick
Zain
54:09
no no you think it's a straight on selection like always she's getting eric holder well
Corey
54:12
well because i actually don't care what the public thinks this is a very strategic decision it's based on where do i need an extra couple of points who do i think can shore up my perceived weaknesses we've talked about the fact vps don't seem to have a significant effect there is a modest effect within home states though so that to me makes sense hey what's what's kind of a that's why i think you're probably looking at shapiro or kelly right yeah and um and
Corey
54:41
know maybe you you build out some more stories around there. But I think all of that's largely overblown. You build a whole person out of your ticket. But most importantly, you get some swing state love.
Zain
54:52
Carter, do you agree? Or should there be a mini primary process for VPs, the top four debated out or something like that? And then there's a bit of a selection there on after? What do you think? There
Carter
55:05
There is nothing less democratic than choosing your running mate in American politics. It is a tried and true tradition of fuck it, I get to choose and I'm going to choose. So, you
Carter
55:20
there's not going to be any other methodology. It's going to be just a simple choice made by
Carter
55:26
Harris and her team. So there shouldn't be a primary. And Corey's right. I think it's going to to be um probably shapiro or uh or
Corey
55:38
cory you want to jump in on this well
Corey
55:40
well there's it's such a small thing and i guess you could preclude them ahead of time but the president and the vice president can't come from the same state or at least they can't get the electoral votes if they're both from the same state so why open it up to a bunch of people that are not even possible for consideration like
Corey
55:57
like you couldn't go to newsom yeah
Zain
55:59
yeah you couldn't and carter here's a question for you. As a political strategist, political operative,
Zain
56:06
you are, would you want to inherit the Kamala Harris situation?
Zain
56:12
Fourth quarter, you're down by a few points, but you get to jump in. Or would you want a beginning to end conventional, you pick the horse, you run the campaign, you beat all your primary contestants, and you get to this point. You've got the benefits of fits to both, but this is more so a personal sort of strategic philosophy question, strategic upside-downside question. Give me your take. Would you want to inherit a situation like Kamala Harris? You get catapulted in, leapfrogged in, one might say, into the fourth quarter, or would you want a beginning-to-end, you know, I want to do it all, and if I don't do it all, it's not as meaningful full to me well
Carter
56:50
well i mean for me there is a you
Carter
56:54
know you're you're you don't have to
Carter
56:58
work for the last 350 days trying to win this win a primary to get all the different slog that all these other candidates have and you get 104 day sprint to the end i'd be thrilled with that i am 104 days feels like forever in the canadian system in the british system and a lot of different systems but in the united states that is just a simple sprint to the finish line she's fresh you get to see all the energy that she's brought to the table in the last two you know three days and 104 more days of just sprinting to the finish line i think that that would be fantastic i think that coming into this energized not like trump already tired um not like biden already dead This is a true opportunity for Kamala Harris.
Zain
57:47
Corey, the question was supposed to be personal. Of course, Carter made it personal about people that are living, including the current president of the United States. Corey, would you want to take on the Kamala Harris sprint? Or are you more of a distance runner saying it's not a real thing unless it's end to end?
Corey
58:04
No, I would want. Look, the campaigns we remember, all
Corey
58:09
all campaigns are about stories. The campaigns we'll remember are the dramatic stories. And this is one hell of a story, right? It is pure Hollywood. People doubted you. People wrote you off. Your wise mentor stumbles. You step up. You slay the dragon. Like, that's fucking every Hollywood plot of every adventure movie ever. And you get to live that. And you get to be that and do that if you do things right. And people will remember this for a very long time. I'll tell you something. I think her just casually winning a contested primary, ending up in a place where she's the candidate, eking out a victory, whatever,
Corey
58:46
whatever, man, that's almost every president of the United States has ever had. This
Corey
58:50
This is big time crazy stuff. This is stuff people will be talking about for a very long time. For decades.
Zain
58:56
decades. Is there, and last question for both of you on this, from a strategy perspective, is there value for her to lean into that sprint narrative? I'm almost thinking of this as our favorite sport on this podcast, Corey, baseball, which is there's closers, right, in baseball.
Zain
59:12
The dudes who can come in, throw 95 and just they only are good for the inning. But man, can they have a low ERA and a high strikeout count for that one, one and a half innings or one and two third innings to be technical. Well,
Corey
59:26
Well, I was thinking of it. Does
Zain
59:28
Does she lean into
Corey
59:28
into the closer? Does she lean into that narrative being like,
Zain
59:31
you know, I know with being respectful to Biden, but is there is there a there there in your mind as you as you as we end on this note? Yeah,
Corey
59:38
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think you can say, I'm going to finish what Joe started. I'm going to prosecute the case. I'm a prosecutor brought in to prosecute a case against a felon. This is what I was fucking made to do. And I'm going to do it, right? I'm going to do it for you, America, because it's so important. But I think that the bigger point is, it's not even a closer. For me, it's a line change. It's like in hockey, you're the home team, you get to change your line last. And in
Corey
1:00:02
a way, isn't this great for the Democrats? I mean, there's a reason Donald Trump is freaking out now. And I don't even mean she's better than Biden. I mean, the fresh legs, you get somebody in there, you get to choose the matchup. Joe Biden looked at it. He did the calculations. He decided, A, obviously, it's easier to go with the vice president. But B, yeah, I think this hunts. And so makes that decision. decision.
Zain
1:00:24
Carter, your final thoughts as we wrap up here. Is there strategic value in Kamala Harris leaning into the closer frame, the person who gets it done, the short distance sprinter frame of the campaign with the fresh legs that she has, with the energy, the enthusiasm, the 104 days that you've mentioned? Does she just do it? Or does she talk about what she's doing over the course of the next 104 days?
Carter
1:00:48
I think this is a moment where you show don't tell, right? You enter the the race and and and this is what we've seen i mean we've seen more uh media events media appearances actual actual activities out of harris in the last 72 hours than we saw out of biden in the uh in the three weeks prior um so this is showing this isn't telling i and i think this is exactly what she needs to do we'll
Zain
1:01:13
we'll leave it there that's a wrap on ip 1816 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time