Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 1856. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan and Stephen Carter. Thanks, guys. Thanks for always joining me.
Carter
0:12
Yeah, you know what?
Zain
0:13
what? We just like to be with you, Zain. Nothing
Carter
0:14
Nothing else to do. Always
Zain
0:15
Always joining me, yes. No, that's every single time. Even when I show up, you
Zain
0:19
you don't show up. And when I don't show up, you show up.
Corey
0:21
That's how it works. So, what kind of corporate hell are you in now, Stephen? Just keeping us up to date. I'm in
Carter
0:27
headquarters of ABC Vancouver.
Carter
0:30
And it has the same lighting as Severance.
Carter
0:33
Talk to me about the roof curvature.
Zain
0:35
curvature. It's awkward. It's very boomer. And why do you have a very boomer look going here? What's going on? Can you not find
Carter
0:40
find a stack of books? Well, I'm working for a living, and I'm still here.
Carter
0:43
It's been a 12-hour day. Crushing it. Nice. Crushing it. Advanced polls tomorrow. Very good. Very excited about it. Does anyone even
Zain
0:52
even care about your election?
Carter
0:54
Okay. the entire city of vancouver it's an uphill battle uh
Carter
0:58
uh i think we're going to get like 14 voter turnout that's
Corey
1:02
that's low that's where you
Zain
1:03
you thrive carter hey
Corey
1:04
hey hey but like i do want to remind our our not long-time listeners that there was a by-election in 2015 or 16 yes where i believe you predicted live on television that turnout would be 10 and in the advanced polls it was already at 20 does anyone else remember
Zain
1:20
remember that i do i i think we were on air with him we were Yeah, and he learned on air that he had predicted a
Zain
1:25
Yeah, that was lower than the number that was currently already in the can. Yeah, that's right. Was
Zain
1:31
Was he called out?
Zain
1:32
Yeah, I called him out. Oh, you called him out. Thank God. I called him out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zain
1:36
That's what I do
Carter
1:36
do on this show. Yeah, thank God you guys held me to account in that by-election that no one remembers. I'm
Zain
1:41
I'm glad you called him out. It was the Foothills by-election. No, it's good. It was the Calgary Foothills
Zain
1:45
No, Corey is always the man of the facts. Corey, you're going to do your thing. Zane Carter, tell us more about the lighting situation, the speaker situation here. Are you going to be sleeping in this place? Because I am noticing one thing. The crown molding situation is improving. This is actually aggressive crown molding. This is, I think the entire office is crown molding. Yeah, it might
Carter
2:06
might be. The Wi-Fi works, Zane, which it doesn't work in my hotel room. So I'm going to be doing the show from the office as many times as we record this week. That's very exciting. Do people in the campaign even
Zain
2:17
even know you have a podcast or they should think you just go into a room and talk
Zain
2:20
to you very loudly? No,
Carter
2:22
tell everybody. I say, I'm
Carter
2:24
I'm going to go record the podcast now. You're pretending to wave to someone? Is that how desperate you are? Hi, Zoe. I'm recording the podcast now.
Carter
2:35
I'm on the podcast.
Carter
2:37
I make sure the people know. Oh,
Zain
2:39
Oh, my God. This is a man in an insane asylum telling people he's recording a podcast. Yeah, this is Shutter Island. This is a big show.
Carter
2:45
it's a big show
Zain
2:49
there's 10 people who listen to it is what I'd say Corey your week has been going well it's
Zain
2:55
it's been going you
Corey
2:57
it's been going that's all we
Zain
2:58
we can ask for you it's Monday
Corey
3:00
Monday what else could you actually want I
Zain
3:02
I just wanted an update to fill some time what is
Carter
3:08
tomorrow is April Fool's Day only
Zain
3:09
only one day away from Liberation Day we should come up though we should come up with a good
Zain
3:15
good April Fool's Day Do you have any URLs to purchase, or can I move on?
Corey
3:20
You move on. Do you think aprilfoolsday
Corey
3:22
.ca is available? I'm
Corey
3:24
I'm sure it's not, but... Okay, I
Zain
3:29
I think there's a 10% chance it's available.
Zain
3:32
available. I'm going to check. Now you think no way? You think whoever bought aprilfoolsday.com just bought .ca?
Corey
3:38
Well, this is a country of over 40 million people. I'm sure somebody in this nation...
Zain
3:43
Has purchased aprilfoolsday.ca? .ca. Well, we're both looking at it because I don't trust you.
Corey
3:47
It's taken, but domain agents might be able to help. So, you know, maybe we could. I
Corey
3:52
I think we should do it.
Carter
3:54
No, we're not buying aprilfoolsday.ca.
Carter
3:58
not going to happen.
Corey
3:59
April1.ca is available though.
Zain
4:02
Like the number one?
Corey
4:03
Yeah, like the number one, like April 1. You know, it's a rebrand. It's a hip new rebrand of April
Zain
4:11
April 1 sounds like, April 1's pretty good. I say, I mean, I don't have a use case for it, but
Zain
4:17
but I say we grab it.
Zain
4:18
I say we grab it right now. I
Corey
4:20
I think we better.
Zain
4:21
don't want anyone else to think about the rebrand that we've just thought about on this show. I think we purchased april1.ca. And,
Zain
4:28
And, Carter, that is how brown people spend money, okay?
Zain
4:31
As soon as we come to into a little bit of it, we just spend it like that, Corey and I. Well,
Carter
4:35
Well, I'm pleased we spent it. Let's make sure we redirect it to something that's meaningful.
Zain
4:40
I think so. Yeah, we should certainly redirect april1.ca to something that's meaningful later on. Okay, let's move on to our first segment, our first segment, to be or not to be Stephen Carter. I have a very simple question, one that I think is the
Zain
4:56
the foundation of all, not all, that's
Zain
4:59
that's maybe too much, a lot of the political chatter right now. And I want two strategists to give me their perspective on it. And the question Stephen Carter, and of course, one Corey Hogan, who's, of course, busy Is he buying a domain? Registering a domain.
Zain
5:11
domain. No, I know. I know you're multitasking right now.
Zain
5:16
the question is, how do you know if
Zain
5:20
if a ballot box question is baked?
Zain
5:24
And by extension, where
Zain
5:26
where do we find ourselves in this race?
Zain
5:29
because the the current mo
Zain
5:33
the pierre pauliev campaign seems to be that
Zain
5:37
that a the question is not baked and b could swing over to affordability and if it does i win hence
Zain
5:42
hence why all and this this i think is the underlying foundation of all the chatter right now the cory tenikes of the the doug ford campaign manager the former harper uh strategist coming out and saying the conservative campaign is not focusing on trump and they the campaign refusing even pure polyethic knowledge today i'm not gonna you know in more words than this thing fuck i'm not doing that right i can win this on the issues uh and the issue set the 1a issue set maybe not the one if one is trump and 1a is affordability polyeth feels like he can win on 1a so carter help folks understand this because i don't think anyone's had the broad-based discussion of how do you know how do you understand How do you get to the point of figuring out when and how a ballot box question is baked? I know we've talked about on
Zain
6:29
on this show, just to add a bit more context before I let you answer, that we've maybe entered an era where there isn't a singular ballot box question, that there isn't one issue driving Canadians. So if that's the case, how do you think about where we find ourselves right now? And then let's get into specifics of this campaign and how the Liberals and Conservatives should be dealing with the one and the 1A, which has been a nuanced and oftentimes interchangeable dance?
Carter
6:55
Well, I'd say right off the top that it's very difficult to win on someone else's ballot box question. So
Carter
7:01
So if someone else has framed the ballot box question, you know, like it is going to be about Donald Trump and the tariffs, which is Mark Carney's question, then it is very difficult to imagine that Pierre Polyev is going to sweep in and suddenly redefine the ballot box question question to suit himself, to suit his party. That is highly unlikely to happen. So instead of having a singular ballot box question, he needs to have another ballot box question, and he has to switch people over to it. So in 2012, Alison Redford, the ballot box question is, do we want to change? That is the Wild Roses ballot box question, and Danielle Smith. We changed it over to, do you want to elect those bigots and our ballot box question wound up holding the day and it was only framed about eight days before the election so yes there is the opportunity to frame late a ballot box question but you have to frame that to be your own question you can't there is very little chance i think that pierre poliev is going to go in take over the ballot box question of Donald Trump and the tariffs. He needs to develop some sort of new ballot box question, and cost of living could be it. I'm not convinced that it is, but who
Carter
8:17
who knows how things unfold in the next three weeks.
Zain
8:20
Corey, so Carter's advice for the conservatives in particular is to switch it. And we've talked about that, which is you can't win on someone else's terrain.
Zain
8:29
But do you feel like we're in a campaign where it is already baked that this election is about Trump?
Corey
8:37
no i i definitely think it's heading towards the oven it's been preheated there is a real good chance of it being baked about that and we haven't come up on april 2 you
Corey
8:48
you know maybe we should register april 2.ca tuesday and just as a bit of a parenthetical
Zain
8:52
parenthetical yeah and yeah we'll
Corey
8:56
and that does feel like a bit of a set piece it looks like there'll be more conversation about trump more conversation about tariffs more conversation about what canada needs to do and all of a sudden another week's gone and it doesn't take more another week's gone before it's over and that's that's i think the challenge that uh pierre polliev has he's not wrong that he doesn't want to spend all of his time talking about the issue that elects mark carney but there's a couple of things i want to say about that one is any political advice taken to the extreme is hazard to your political health you can't you can't just so blindly follow it this is this is general advice and you need to make sure that you are being live to the actual moment and thinking about how you can react to the world as it is not the world as you wish it is and i think actually when i think about pierre pauliev and his campaign right now man
Corey
9:41
man is very deep in denial he he wants the campaign that he was denied he wants it to be against justin trudeau he wants it to be about the liberal record god the carbon tax still makes a play every now and then it's not about the fucking carbon tax the carbon tax is gone right so um that
Corey
9:57
that doesn't mean though that you can just kind of keep banging your head against it and through sheer persistence get the ballot question you want the ballot question if you're going to try to propose a different ballot question than what's on canadians minds it needs to mean more to them it needs to trumpet ha ha ha right it needs to be something that it either speaks to them more emotionally than the other question if they're an emotional voter it needs to speak to their head more if they're a thinking voter it needs to appeal more to a sense of authority if that's more their play right if if you want to take it into those frameworks. But it's got to be more. It's got to be more.
Zain
10:32
him- Not just different, but more and more important. Not just different,
Corey
10:34
different, but more. And unfortunately for him, affordability right now feels like a subset of the bigger existential question about Donald Trump. Well,
Zain
10:43
Well, Carter, can we re-examine the fundamental point you put out there? Trump is a losing question for Pierre. Does it have to be a losing question for Pierre? I get wrapping yourself up in the Canada flag is, right? And maybe that's a subset of the Trump question. But does Trump have to be a losing proposition for Pierre? Like, there are elements in the very recent past, prior to the Carney wave and the Trump tariffs, the particular element of Trump that maybe have shot Carney up in bull, where Pierre's qualities were considered to be advantageous to dealing with Trump. So I want to just question the premise, because do you feel like Trump has to be the loser loser for Pierre here? Or do you think we're perhaps skipping a beat?
Carter
11:29
No, I'm pretty old fashioned about this. I think if you're talking about the other person's question, you're talking in their message frame, right? And that, that message frame is something that you don't want to be involved in. Now, there can be a time when someone's chosen a losing ballot box question, right? Where, where, you know, Jagmeet Singh, for example, every question he's ever asked has been wrong. So, you know, there's losing frames. But I don't think that this is a losing frame for Mark Carney. And therefore, I just don't think that Pierre Polyev can work on that frame.
Carter
12:03
So my view is let the frame go, try and find a new frame and, you
Carter
12:10
you know, figure out how it could be. I think that knowing that costs are going to skyrocket when these tariffs come in, there's a very real case to be made for Pierre Polyev that, you know, Someone needs to come in who actually cares about inflation and wants to fight it.
Zain
12:27
Corey, jump in here. Are we overlooking the fact that there could be a winning play or an element of winning play for peer and team on Trump?
Corey
12:37
Yeah, look, I think that there is the possibility that you can look at the Trump issue and find a conservative answer to it. But they seem to be struggling with that. And
Corey
12:45
think part of it is just how their base is divided. You know, there's this idea when you look at polls that one in five conservatives are actually willing to join the United States, let alone have sympathies to Donald Trump's views, which is an even higher percentage. And so that's a challenge he has. That means if he goes too far, he's going to be dealing with a bit of an internal war. Or as soon as I'd say safely 30% of your base feels so strongly different from the other, you've got a big fucking problem on your hands because that's a large enough group that it's not going to feel like the minority. They're going to feel like they're in the majority and they're going to say, what is the leader doing? Why are they so offside with me? So I get his challenge and I get why he's tried to avoid finding the conservative answer to Donald Trump and instead say, let's find the thing that unites all of us as conservatives, which is affordability. But I fundamentally reject that even if prices go up, people are going to say now it's about affordability. I understand they're selfish, but they're going to say it's not affordable because of Donald Trump. And they're going to say, what
Zain
13:44
what are we going
Corey
13:44
going to do as Canadians? How are we going to protect ourselves from this? Not just now, but in the long term. And that's a real problem for Pierre Polyev. He's got to find something as existential as Donald Trump threatening to conquer our nation through economic force in order to sustain a different ballot question. And I don't know how you do that. I honestly don't. I think
Corey
14:05
think that he's got a fundamental flaw in his campaign right now.
Zain
14:09
Carter, what would you do? If you don't know how to do that, what would you do right now? Because it seems like there's two parts to the Corey Tanik advice, the conservative strategist out of Ontario, to the conservative campaign. One is that you're not playing on the question that the majority of Canadians care about right now, which is Trump. And Carter, you've refuted that. If Corey were to give you that advice and you were in the conservative war room, you would reject that, wouldn't you? Yeah,
Carter
14:30
Yeah, I would. it i'd say that's great what's our question you
Carter
14:34
you know we're not gonna we would never win on that question so what's our question maybe
Carter
14:38
maybe it's a variant maybe it's some sort of a sub sub
Carter
14:41
sub genre of it you know maybe we need to uh go to do you want to elect someone who can fight trump or do you want to elect someone who can work with trump i don't think the numbers are there for the work with trump side but maybe they are within his own little circles how
Zain
14:58
how are you processing them this this carter then like if you're receiving this advice from
Zain
15:03
from the outside but also internally you're saying we're on the question that used to be the winner it
Zain
15:09
it no longer is uh
Zain
15:11
uh and the other guy has got the winning question right now you're old school about it so you're saying fuck it i don't even want to take the chance right if this was a stephen carter run campaign you may not run it actually fundamentally at least on this point dissimilar to jenny burn which is that i'm not not even going to venture in the other guy's territory. I might have a line or two about Trump, but I'm not going to make that my play. I'm going to try to find and carve out a different lane.
Carter
15:36
Well, I think we saw that when they were doing all of their various testing. I mean, we could see them doing testing in real time before the election started. I think that the problem that they found is all the stuff that they were testing, nothing was working.
Carter
15:49
So now they have to figure out something that works. And I've been there. I
Carter
15:53
I mean, when you're throwing throwing shit against the wall and nothing is sticking. It's
Zain
15:58
And you're doing it, you're having to do it publicly. You don't have the time
Carter
16:01
time and the airspace
Zain
16:02
airspace and the focus group sort of like scale to not do it publicly, which is what the last number of weeks leading up to this campaign was for the conservatives, was a public spaghetti throwing visual. Yeah.
Carter
16:16
And it didn't work. And that public spaghetti throwing festival has turned into a nothing but a negative for them because people could see that it's not working. And the other side saw that it wasn't working and doubled down on their ballot box question. And I think that that's where, you know, the liberals have retained their strength. And, you know, both
Carter
16:40
both Corey and I were reluctant to project that
Carter
16:43
that this election would still hinge on the
Carter
16:46
the ballot box question that has been formed to this point, because there's still another four weeks. Four
Carter
16:52
Four weeks is an eternity in politics. But right now, it is difficult to imagine that the conservatives have something up their sleeve that might actually work. But
Carter
17:02
But it was difficult to imagine in 2012. 2012 it was difficult to imagine in 2015 that the liberals were able to pull it off until they went but once they listened to our liberal strategy episode things really came together for them yeah
Zain
17:15
yeah yeah no and of course we released the liberal strategy episode this time too which actually it's
Zain
17:21
it's funny and i hate to take credit exactly
Zain
17:23
exactly what we said has happened i
Zain
17:25
i mean exactly what we've said it's unbelievable how we guided them through this uh carter and i I mean, like
Zain
17:32
like I said, I don't like to take credit for it, but we
Carter
17:34
we should. Pretty great the way we sold them all those Patreon memberships. No,
Zain
17:37
No, it's good. We had to, with the bulk purchase, the commercial license. Hey, Corey,
Zain
17:43
mean, I'm struggling with something.
Zain
17:45
Slightly deviating from the ballot box question. I'll come back to it in a second.
Zain
17:50
Who is the enemy for
Zain
17:53
Should it be, even if Trump is not your ballot box question, but enough people want to talk about him. Is Trump the enemy or is Carney the enemy? Who's your political enemy right now if you're Pierre Polyev in this election? And you could get twisted and pretzely about this and, you know, come out the other end being like, I don't know. Or you could play it straight and be like, of course, it's Mark Carney. But where are you at with this?
Corey
18:15
Yeah, at the end of the day, you've got to be ahead of Mark Carney. So that's the fundamental answer. But it doesn't need to mean that's how you play it in terms of your advertising, in terms of your commentary, in terms of how you talk about things. And I actually think Trump could be a fine enemy for the conservatives if they were willing to do that. It doesn't seem like they're willing or able to do that. And I talked about this last time on the Patreon episode, but I find it really, really interesting and a bit transparent how they want us to project all of our bad feelings about Justin Trudeau onto Mark Carney and act as though that makes any sense. And I think that that's going to be a problem for them because there's going to be enough people who say, well, hold on, I'm not so sure I'm buying it. They haven't drank the Kool-Aid so strongly. They haven't gotten onto that bandwagon so vigorously. It's going to be a tough sell. sell.
Corey
19:09
But I think that if you are standing up to Donald Trump, that's an easy sell. And there are ways you could do it as a conservative that probably would be somewhat appealing to Canadians. I think the best one is actually talking about a strong Canada, which is why it's so interesting that the Liberals took the slogan Canada Strong. I mean, in some ways, it's fine. I wouldn't call it great, except for the fact that it might be great because it boxes out the conservatives, right now they feel like they can't talk about a strong canada and canada strong also implies you're going to be strong in a canadian way which goes back to how the liberals perceive themselves and how i believe canadians perceive have
Zain
19:45
have you have you fallen in love with that a bit more than the time to build which was a carney leadership slogan subsequently in terms of where we find ourselves right now i know it's only week the beginning of week two so i want to be you know cautious about it and give you the the rope for the next four weeks but what do you think I
Corey
20:02
think that it is better for a general election. As
Corey
20:05
as I liked It's Time to Build and as much as that's what I'm personally looking for in a government. So yeah, it really speaks to me in that sense. The idea of Canada Strong, It's Time to Build is not inherently about defending Canada. Canada Strong is. And if we're going to take our own advice about ballot box question, that's a much cleaner connection to the ballot box question. because in a way it elevates it and it makes it harder for Pierre Polyev to just then go and say here's my alternative position to make Canada strong like think about it if you're saying it's time to build what you're implicitly saying as Mark Carney is I'm going to make Canada strong through building and then you're going to be fighting with Pierre Polyev saying I'm going to make Canada strong through lower taxes but you've just come in and said I'm just gonna make Canada strong like you've ignored all of that argument and you've just owned that space for yourself. And I mean, good on you. That was a pretty, pretty savvy move. I think not necessarily for what it does for the liberals, but for what it precludes the conservatives from doing. Carter,
Zain
21:03
Carter, let's spend some time on this. What is a conservative framing on Donald Trump for you? Is there something there that, even if it's not your ballot box question, is there some way you can address it as a shield so you can move on to things like cost of living or what you define as your primary question. What is it for you?
Zain
21:19
Corey's given us one.
Carter
21:21
Donald Trump is a simple man who looks at things simply.
Carter
21:25
That is, are you an ally or are you an enemy?
Carter
21:27
And Mark Carney and the Liberal government is always going to be an enemy.
Carter
21:31
But the Conservatives, we can be seen as an ally.
Carter
21:34
That is going to come in very valuably.
Carter
21:38
I can see Corey
Carter
21:39
Corey just dying. I'm trying, man. Like, I don't know how else to do it. Because I think that the Liberals have boxed out. Everything else that's boxed out is a basketball term, Zane. Yeah,
Carter
21:52
But boxed out, all of the other available... Well, tell me this.
Zain
21:56
Luck or skill? I'm actually more curious than this. By luck, chance, or skill, have they done that?
Carter
22:03
I think it's been a little bit of luck. I
Carter
22:05
I mean, I think that some skill was certainly there, but the ball bounced right into the sweet spot, and they hit it out of the park, which is a a golf term mixed with a baseball term. Yeah.
Zain
22:21
yeah. That's good. Yeah. And just right through the uprights. Corey.
Zain
22:30
actually, before I come to you, I
Zain
22:31
I want to get Carter on this question because I think it is important.
Zain
22:34
Who's the ultimate enemy? If
Zain
22:36
If you were leading that conservative campaign right now, is the ultimate enemy Mark Carney or Donald Trump for you, Carter? Whose face do you have in your war room with a circle on it? is it trump or is it carney i
Carter
22:49
think it has to be carney i mean carney's a a relative unknown who's got sky-high positives right now but uh one would have to assume they're wafer thin and if you started to poke holes in them uh but you can't poke holes into in them by saying that his thesis his thesis was copied right you can't poke holes in him by by trying to tear him down by with with paper cuts.
Carter
23:14
You've got to poke holes into them by what we don't know about them. What don't we know about Mark Carney?
Carter
23:20
This is not a person who's had a chance to lead yet. That's how I would go after it if I was the conservative. It's not what
Carter
23:28
what we know or
Carter
23:29
or the inconsequential, but
Carter
23:31
but what we don't know that could be consequential.
Zain
23:34
Corey, what are the risks for the liberals right now?
Zain
23:36
They're up in the polls, depending on which poll. I think the aggregators got them about five, which is a very modest but people like nanos on ctv are you know gesticulating um and being like this is like unheard of and a lot of this is right like he wouldn't be wrong being like oh my god this is reversal of fortunes is incredible and the lead is growing is what he was saying earlier today um you got other polls showing that that similar level of growth which is you know you combine the growth in in the horse race combined with the liberal vote efficiency and you're you're looking at a landslide majority in certain cases.
Zain
24:09
Today, though. So Corey, what would the advice that Corey Hogan strategists would give the liberals right now, as a word of caution, so to speak, because there is, you know, a narrative out there saying this week is going to be Trump week, you got next week, and then debate week, and then here we are, we're voting, and it's over, the cake is already baked. There's a large group saying, are we ready to call time of death on the conservative campaign, including some conservatives right now? So what advice would you have for the liberals uh both on strategy but as well as a caution for them yeah
Corey
24:39
yeah lose four weeks left and even in the way you describe it it's like hey this week is tariff week next week's another week and then we're in debates right okay what the fuck happens next week right and so you've got to be careful that you're not surrendering weeks or allowing drift or calling the game too early because that that does tend to really hurt a front-runner campaign the other thing i would would point out is the conservatives have had such a bad first week they might there's
Corey
25:05
there's nothing so clarifying as a near-death experience for a political party right that might force them to go out and change the approach change the way they're looking at things change up some of the staff even and it won't happen with jenny burn being ceremoniously fired that's not how these things happen it'll be somebody else is hired to work with jenny maybe even report to jenny but but they're going to be, they're
Corey
25:26
they're going to be the one calling the shot. And if
Zain
25:29
if that happens, and there's
Corey
25:30
there's a lot of time to turn it around. The other thing is, we
Corey
25:34
we don't see much evidence of this right now in terms of his actions with tariffs, but Donald Trump has gotten pretty quiet about Canada the last week. I think he really does understand that anytime he opens his mouth, he risks helping the liberals and he's, he has very poor impulse control. He will fail, but he is going to try not to, and he could easily get distracted. distracted and i think distraction is probably donald trump moving on to something else is probably something that as canadians we shouldn't feel very comfortable about because it's not as though he's lost interest he's just had interest distracted so
Corey
26:06
are the risks what's
Zain
26:06
what's what's some advice for the liberals right now four weeks to go cory makes a good point next week's a week weeks after but you know there are something to be said that if the conservatives want to make something land they may not have enough soak time per se with the with the public they may not have enough time to get some of the voters that they're actually losing to the liberals because of liberal growth, certainly on the backs of the NDP predominantly, but also taking away some conservative vote in certain areas. So the point there to be made is a good one, Corey. But Carter, word of caution, advice from Stephen Carter, who's seen this before, what would it be?
Carter
26:39
Don't take anything for granted.
Carter
26:42
Every threat that comes forward needs to be dealt with in a specific and fast way. You can't be so high on your supply that you think you can just float through and not respond to anything. That's ultimately how questions get changed when things start to dog you and you don't actually respond to them. You know, I'm not sure, I can't remember the MP's name in Toronto or Mississauga or wherever the hell it is, Brantford, that's
Carter
27:14
that's being dogged right now. Sorry, did you say Brantford? branton branford branton branton this is saga this is not going well for you my my point is just this uh you got to make sure that that doesn't dog you for for too long and that no you're talking about added to it paul
Zain
27:32
paul shang and markham yeah yeah yeah
Carter
27:33
yeah markham sorry that's what i was thinking of markham we
Zain
27:36
we all knew we all knew the whole time but we wanted yeah to wait for branford no
Carter
27:43
are you bugging me now this
Carter
27:44
this show was done live this is hard stuff i'm letting you you know this is hard stuff especially
Zain
27:48
especially with all that crown molding just forcing just keeping the
Zain
27:53
could hear fucking people in that office what
Zain
27:56
what do you want when they
Carter
27:56
they all left they all talked fucking
Zain
27:58
fucking shit about them right now now that they're gone what do you want to tell me about go ahead just you and i you
Carter
28:02
you know what there's
Carter
28:03
there's some real issues here uh
Carter
28:05
uh leadership right at the forefront um
Zain
28:11
you now can i ask you this and this is a serious question
Zain
28:15
but you are on the abc campaign yes
Zain
28:19
yeah have you done the
Zain
28:21
the alec baldwin abc speech to them
Carter
28:25
no i have not have you just
Zain
28:26
just bring in a set of steak opportunity lost and just see if any of these millennials and gen z understand what you're talking about none
Carter
28:34
none of them will and if they do promote
Zain
28:35
promote them to candidate okay
Carter
28:37
okay i'm on it i'm
Carter
28:38
i'm on it you
Zain
28:39
you see this roll good advice corey you say this watch yeah
Zain
28:43
more than your car it does cost more than cory gets it he gets it yeah um can i talk about something else related but
Zain
28:50
but i want both of you put to put your strategist head on and and you know i am kind of fascinated by what cory tonight did this week uh
Zain
28:57
uh the materiality of what he said we've
Zain
29:02
the one element of it and there's another element which is how pierre sounds like trump the the cadence the words the three letters the three Three word slogans. We'll get to that in a second, because I find that fun to talk about. But Carter, as a strategist, there's two elements here. Number one, that often people can't get through to the campaign, so they go public.
Zain
29:24
Do you buy that?
Zain
29:26
Do you buy that, that if you're part of a particular party, you're not able to get through, so you go public? That's been the working line, that that's why Corey did this.
Zain
29:37
I find that, like, from folks that have worked on campaigns, I find that really, really interesting. So I want to ask both of you, do you buy that? And then the second part of it is the timing of it in week one. Helpful? Not so helpful. I want to talk about that. So, Carter, you
Carter
29:53
This isn't a unique thing. This isn't the first time the Doug Ford campaign has been offside with the Pierre Pelliev campaign. campaign i think that doug ford has sent a number of messages to the pierre pauliev that he's uh he's far more interested in being on the side of the winner than being on the side of the ideologically aligned and that has meant uh things like doug ford's uh 25 percent uh in you know tax on electricity going from ontario to the united states it means that cory tonight makes a statement It means that, you know, Doug Ford's office leaks that there was a fight between Pierre Polyev and Doug Ford when Polyev says, well, I thought we had a great conversation. You know, these are legitimate or illegitimate means
Carter
30:42
means by which they're dividing the conservative
Carter
30:45
conservative world in Ontario. And Doug Ford, whether
Carter
30:50
whether he has a personal beef or whether he feels that it's in some fashion better for the province of Ontario to have Mark Carney as the prime minister, he's
Carter
30:57
he's certainly been behaving in such a fashion that
Carter
31:01
making Mark Carney the prime minister makes more sense. I
Carter
31:04
I believe that Cory Tanik was sent out and
Carter
31:07
and told to make a speech.
Carter
31:09
I think that that's what happened.
Carter
31:11
I don't believe that it had anything to do with actually
Carter
31:14
actually trying to make a message available
Carter
31:16
available to anybody but the greater population of Canada.
Corey
31:19
Cory, what do you think? i
Corey
31:23
it's so hard to imagine this hurting pierre polly have more if it was a liberal government like it's so hard to picture something that could be worse for the guy because not only are you clearly fighting with one of your conservative brethren but the hit comes more because a recently successful one
Corey
31:44
just yeah and you're supposed to be ideological ideological compatriots so it's reinforcing some of the negatives of a pierre polliev he's too ideological he's he's not likable you know some of the stuff you hear that's floated around him forever right and when you have a very successful premier of ontario who has no like there's no election coming up in ontario for four years at this point you lose nothing you could you're going to pivot 30 times between now and then right so you could do whatever you want consequences of electorate be damned if you wanted to help pier polia and you don't want to and that is wild if there was a liberal government right now doing the same things it wouldn't hurt him at all but it because it is a conservative government it
Corey
32:28
it it hurts man like these the times we're in are supposed to be ones of ideological purity everyone assumes a certain ideological purity and he clearly does not want him to win well
Zain
32:38
well let me ask you the most you know straightforward
Zain
32:41
straightforward question I think both of you have answered this, but can we get this out for clarity?
Zain
32:45
This mission or, you
Zain
32:49
you know, self-actualization, whatever you want to call it, by Corey, meant to help or actually meant to hurt Carter? I think I'm hearing you say hurt. I'm saying hurt.
Corey
32:58
Corey, hurt as well?
Corey
32:59
Yeah, I'm saying hurt. I do think you could make a very squint and you'll see it case that by doing it in week one, you're saying they've got time to pivot. Which
Corey
33:08
Which is what I want to
Zain
33:09
to get to in a second. it
Corey
33:10
i don't see that i i think that you there are other ways to help friends that's not how you help friends advice sincere advice as to how you can better yourself does not come through a press release you know to put it bluntly
Zain
33:21
bluntly we do this podcast mainly
Zain
33:23
mainly to help each other and mainly one of us that's two
Zain
33:25
us helping one of us yeah well each of us two of us helping one of us yeah how's your situation there bud you're
Zain
33:33
you're doing okay carter you
Zain
33:34
you doing okay the crown molding okay cool just checking uh i
Carter
33:38
i mean i'm doing okay i mean it's still a little nerve-wracking everybody's left i'm all alone this this building is a couple hundred thousand square feet and i'm literally the only person in it well
Zain
33:47
well we're with you which is why i said we do this podcast to help one of us uh cory but you you you think it's you can squint and you can see help but this is not no
Corey
33:57
i could make a case why
Zain
33:58
why why do you think the current media narrative is that this is meant to help or or this is meant to call why do you think people aren't calling it out straight up being like this is fuck your buddy 101 this is steven carter playbook this is yeah which by the way do we own fuckyourbuddy.ca i don't want it i'm just maybe that's the line i don't want to cross yeah i'll
Zain
34:16
i'll look it up for you guys because you guys are so like ramadan is over be
Carter
34:21
be careful you don't know what you're gonna find yeah what
Zain
34:24
what i'm gonna find carter is a domain name that is available fuckyourbuddy
Corey
34:32
not not gonna get that one yeah
Zain
34:34
yeah but okay okay Okay, think about this. Think about this. Dozens of listeners we have on this show, right?
Zain
34:39
right? Dozens times dozens.
Corey
34:40
dozens. Twos of them. Twos
Zain
34:44
you want any one of them owning it?
Zain
34:47
Just ask yourself that question. Because there is someone right, if we do not buy it, there is someone right now. Someone else
Corey
34:52
else who's going to buy it.
Zain
34:52
it. Right now, who's going to buy it. Fuckyourbuddy.ca. I want to
Zain
34:55
what they can do with it.
Corey
34:58
So here it goes. This is the first
Zain
35:00
first of our strategies. I don't want to see that.
Carter
35:01
Domain jump ball. Okay? Something really bad is going to happen between you and me, Corey. We
Zain
35:07
We are leaving fuckyourbuddy.ca available to you, the listener. Oh,
Zain
35:12
we're leaving it available to you, okay?
Zain
35:15
And we're giving you, tomorrow, April 1st. How perfect, okay? It is kind of perfect.
Zain
35:21
April 1st. If you commit a sin, who cares?
Corey
35:23
It's April 1st. You were joking. April 1st. We call it April 1st
Zain
35:26
1st now. Which, by the way, you can find out a lot more about at april2.ca. You can find out everything you need about April 1st at april2.ca april1 is it's reserved for something completely different which is going to blow your mind
Zain
35:40
but april2.ca is where you found out about april1 that's where you're
Corey
35:42
you're going to find out about april1
Zain
35:46
any one of you
Zain
35:48
show us what you got
Zain
35:52
I don't think it's a mistake
Zain
35:54
I don't think it's a mistake I think it's a mistake this is the first ever strategist jump ball domain jump ball I like this Corey domain jump ball okay that's good good
Zain
36:02
Corey Weiss of media covering this not for what it is, which is people trying to fuck over people that they've got beef with, people that they've got history with. There is a straight line, I'm not even talking about dotted line, where if Pierre Poliev doesn't win this election, Doug Ford could be next in line to lead the Conservative Party of Canada. Here we
Zain
36:20
we go, right? So what do you think?
Corey
36:24
Well, I think that that's not nearly as much fun for the media to cover during a federal election then what does this mean for the federal campaign is this good advice is the is the conservative party of canada falling apart the the peripheral intrigue of who doesn't like who within the conservative movement is whatever but the idea that you might have a campaign that was up by 25 points yeah in december all
Corey
36:48
all of a sudden down by five and people reporting that the wheels have fallen off this fucking wagon if apparently if you give contrary advice you're called a liberal Or a Laurentian, which is just really funny to me to imagine a bunch of presumably
Corey
37:03
presumably adults going around and be like, what are you, a Laurentian? You know, like, that's, that's funny to me. That's a really funny thing for me. But the
Corey
37:12
reality is, that's a process story that people want to listen to during a federal election.
Corey
37:20
The other one's not.
Zain
37:23
just want to remind people we're asking you to use the dot ca the dot com i have not looked up but in these trying times for our country we want you to purchase it by a dot ca of course and more particularly by fuck your buddy dot ca okay well and then show us show us what you i know you are trying to drag us back but carter and i are very into this no
Carter
37:43
no i'm really not this is a terrible idea one of
Zain
37:47
is into this okay yeah carter does not want his campaign to endorse this activity
Carter
37:52
this is a bad idea so
Corey
37:54
so this this domain was registered from the abc headquarters guys
Carter
37:58
guys when i'm saying something's a bad idea it is not a good idea what
Zain
38:04
is the idea we're doing nothing
Zain
38:08
according to daniel smith we're not telling people what to do we're telling what what not to do, which means we're not telling anyone anything. We'll get to that in a second. Carter, I want to talk about the strategy here. Let's say you were running a campaign. You received this public advice, regardless of its motive. Is it actually more helpful to you in week one, helpful, than it is in week three?
Zain
38:28
Talk to me, why or why not?
Carter
38:31
I think that public advice like this isn't useful at all, ever. Week one, week two, week three, week four, you know, I mean, I was
Carter
38:41
I've been hounded by critics through the course of a campaign before I mean every campaign you're hounded by critics and you
Carter
38:51
know it's really hard to figure out what is just being hounded and what is actually potentially useful advice and I believe that Corey Tanik's advice wasn't
Carter
39:01
wasn't actually useful so
Carter
39:03
so if I was Jenny Byrne or in the conservative war room at all I'd
Carter
39:10
more or less just angry that we had to deal with this as a single-day, multi-day story, because it's just a frustration.
Zain
39:20
Corey? Well, is it never helpful, or would you rather, regardless of motive, take it week one than you would take it in the chin week one than you would take it week three when people are trying to write narratives about how they could have done this thing better?
Corey
39:33
Well, I'd rather have it week one because I've got time to recover. cover i don't want it at all i'm very much with steven i like there's a couple of things here right one is what are you really saying when you say i've got to take this public because they're not listening you are saying that they don't listen like that's the only thing people are going to hear right and you're saying they won't listen to me they won't even listen to doug ford this winning conservative it's pretty damning critique yeah
Corey
39:58
it's a pretty damning critique and not one that you just change staffing about because it's fundamentally a critique that's leveled at Pierre Polyev, right? So
Corey
40:06
it's a character critique. And that's the point I want to make. You're not talking about the tactics at that point. You're talking about the character of the individuals and how they will not take advice. The other thing I would say is if they wanted to take that advice, now it's really fucking tough for them to do it because it looks like they had to do it under duress and nobody's going to give them credit for it. It's going to undermine their credibility. It's going to encourage people when they see things they don't like to take this exact same tactic going forward so in a funny way to
Corey
40:36
to use our phrase of the episode they've boxed them out of this they can't do it now like even if it was good advice and i think steven and i both are pretty doubtful of that they can't do it which is
Corey
40:47
both of you say tonight
Corey
40:48
force them to do it yeah
Zain
40:49
yeah it looks like he's your puppet master or whatever he's the brains behind what made this successful well
Corey
40:55
well it encourages this behavior going forward right like so just just imagine you do And the next time somebody's got a critique with the campaign, are they going to think Jenny Burns the final word? Are they going to think Pierre Polyev's the final word? Are they going to say, I just need to go into the media and raise a bunch of shit up and get a bunch of conservatives angry and I'll get them to do that that way instead? No, your only option as a campaign manager is to freeze that stuff out, shut it down and say, this is not how we make decisions in this organization. conversation.
Zain
41:22
Carter, if Jenny and Pierre win on their terms, which, by the way, in a couple episodes, I asked you if we're asking the wrong question, not if they can pivot, but do they want to pivot?
Zain
41:32
I think that that's turning out to be part of the equation here. I'm not saying that's the complete truth, but it's at least part of the equation, that they want to win the election they plan to win,
Zain
41:41
the way they plan to win it, regardless
Zain
41:42
regardless of what's changing. And there's good strategic sort of thinking behind it, which is you're never going to win on the other guy's question. So even if the moment has changed, fuck it, we got to go with the 1A issue or the number two issue, because we own issues two to nine on the list. This just happens that Carney owns issue number one, right? If they
Zain
42:01
they win, how are they seen here? I'm
Zain
42:04
I'm really curious, as a strategist, as a fellow strategist, as a fellow practitioner, do
Zain
42:10
do they always have an asterisk if they don't pivot and do their own thing? Or do they actually kind of come across and come out even
Zain
42:18
even better if they win despite the headwinds that their own people gave them? I'm just kind of thinking how lore and legacy and myth of people like that Pierre and Jenny's kind of made on the back end, should a W be what is
Zain
42:32
is achieved by them? And Corey, I'll come to you in a sec.
Carter
42:34
Yeah, I mean, I think that that is a, it is
Carter
42:38
is interesting. If you win against the critique of your colleagues you do look better um again tons of personal experience when everybody's shitting down your throat and you win anyways it's a pretty great feeling and people notice they notice for sure uh and it does embolden you to stick to your guns
Carter
43:02
fuck you fuck that guy and we've heard that the last 36 hours
Zain
43:05
hours have pretty much been that yeah
Zain
43:07
-bombs by them but i bet there were some behind the scenes but But Pierre pretty much came out today being like, fuck all you all. Like, that was pretty much the message,
Carter
43:16
Well, I think that's the right message, because they're not going to change.
Zain
43:20
Corey, what do you think? What has this done to their mythology? Should the W be what they conquer in 28 days or so?
Corey
43:27
Look, if they win, victory washes all of this away. And there has been a time in every winning campaign that somebody has doubted the strategy that got them there. For sure. There's no question about
Zain
43:37
that. that yeah but
Corey
43:38
but the thing i keep coming back to is nobody would create this campaign at this moment like if you dropped pierre polliev into the leadership right now and said pierre here's the situation here's what's going on with the united states here's what's going on with canada here's here's the general vibe of the country build a campaign he's not building this campaign he's running he's building something entirely different and that is ultimately what i think is damning about them continuing to go on to strategy they they don't seem to be able to react to the stimulus around them like strategy we
Corey
44:09
we talk about this a lot like strategy is not interchangeable you can't take candidate a strategy in 2015 and give it to candidate b in 2029 or 2019 right that's not how strategy works because of the environment because of the resources you have because of all of the other inputs to strategy your strategy needs to change based on the inputs and strategy is not a straight jacket you don't need to say well i guess that's my fucking strategy strategy forever. There's a lot of examples of what we'd call in the business, abandoned strategies. There's a lot of examples of what we call in the business, emergent strategies, where we just say, oh, I'm going to grab that. That looks really good. I'm going to take that strategic opportunity. To continue to run the way he is, to me, like it's almost operatic, right? It's this perfect example of how like in act one, the hero is there and he's going to do these things this way. But by act three, you see, he's kind of sealed his own fate, right? Like the thing that made him great is also really troubling. And for him, it's discipline. Pierre Polyev is a very disciplined politician, but we
Corey
45:12
we are seeing the downside of that he can't react to a changing world. And I will say as a Canadian, that's
Corey
45:18
that's really dangerous at this time more broadly to not just in the context of a 36 day campaign. Carter,
Zain
45:23
Carter, let's end on this.
Zain
45:26
Does a word of advice in line with the Stephen Carter celebrity trajectory apply here, which
Zain
45:35
which is Polyev's fall and then Polyev's rise? People are relishing in the fall. Will they also be excited about the potential rise, and should the liberals be cautious? I know the celebrity trajectory is what we've talked about, but the people loving the fall, but also being excited about the rise here, which could get Polyev some momentum. Is that something the liberals should be watching out for here or not so much?
Carter
46:00
Because the rise doesn't need to be as dramatic as the liberal rise over the last three months, right? Half a dozen points and here we go. Switch things out by four points either direction. You know, liberals come down by four, the conservatives go up by four. And suddenly you've got yourself a conservative minority at the very least, and potentially a conservative majority. You know, that that's not a huge shift. Especially when you consider how much it just shifted to the liberals in three months, that has to be soft. It can't be be firm because it didn't exist before. so
Carter
46:38
so now it it has to you
Carter
46:41
know it doesn't have to shift that much for pierre polyev's structure and strategy to suddenly become genius um it just it's only four points and it's four points in the right place if he suddenly gets a breakthrough and in doug ford's ontario um suddenly
Carter
46:59
suddenly everything becomes a lot easier and another four points and maybe it's six points in ontario that they need but it's not changing the world and that's probably how i would focus on this i'd say okay we're not gonna you know where are we going to see this turnaround are
Carter
47:14
we going to see this turnaround in the lower mainland of british columbia yeah i see the turnaround in british in in you know there's not much more to gain in in alberta
Carter
47:22
alberta saskatchewan manitoba but ontario would probably be where i'd be focusing all of my efforts if i was pierre polly f because a six Six-point shift there changes the game.
Zain
47:35
Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, help a brother out. Corey, can you help a brother out?
Corey
47:41
Yeah. What do you need? What do you need, brother? It's
Zain
47:44
It's not me. It's my twin. I'm just going to look up his name, Jagmeet Singh.
Zain
47:47
Jagmeet Singh, this is a guy that I know well. Canadians know well. Corey, he's 9% in the polls.
Zain
47:56
It's a low number. Most people think he's not going to win the election. election he's running like he's going to win the election what
Zain
48:02
what should jagmeet sing do
Zain
48:07
there are many strategies being thrown out i'm going to throw a couple you don't have to accept any of them run
Corey
48:12
run like talking i gotta google who this guy is okay i'll
Carter
48:15
i'll let you i'm trying to figure out his name jagmeet okay
Carter
48:19
you just keep talking
Zain
48:20
talking jagmeet sing yeah jagmeet
Zain
48:21
jagmeet sing yeah i'm just gonna skip it um keep
Zain
48:24
keep doing your thing man keep
Zain
48:26
keep focusing on workers keep running the campaign that you are uh you never announce that you want to run for anything that isn't to become prime minister anything like that is fatal you
Zain
48:38
you run what you are you're doing thing
Zain
48:39
thing number two you
Zain
48:42
you say you want to be the balance of power in a liberal minority thing
Zain
48:46
thing number three you say you're going to focus on 50 ridings or so uh thing number four combine a lot of those elements and you admit you're not not going to win this election.
Zain
48:57
And you come out with the honest truth, and maybe people reward you for that. And you give them a list of ridings where you are competitive and say, you need us here. Here's what we're going to do. Because while these two parties duke it out in terms of who's going to win or on the Trump question, we're going to always be there for people.
Zain
49:12
These are just a few ideas. I'm just throwing them out there. These have just been floated around, and I've loosely thrown them out there. Help a brother out. What should he do right now? He's at modern historic historic lows for the NDP, single digits. That seat count translation doesn't look great. It's like six in some ways. It's not great, right? It's also in single digits. Help a brother out here. How does he take what is a campaign where he's talking about NDP issues, which usually render them 20 points and 30 seats, to now where he finds himself where the vote split is really advantaging the liberals in Kearney? What would you tell him to do?
Corey
49:47
Oh, it's really tough. I think that you've got to somehow position yourself as being part of a winning formula whether that be a conservative government or a liberal one you need a core of new democrats who can who can make sure that any response to america is defending workers who can make sure i don't know like this is the language you would have to use as a new democrat but you're you're gonna really struggle to be noticed and i do think one of the opportunities you must have circled in your calendar probably in vain is the debate like just
Corey
50:19
just to remind people that you exist and present something different and i'm sure there's a lot of stress on you for that particular moment but um yeah you've gotta you've gotta find a way to make yourself independent from the liberals but relevant to this moment and i i don't know i don't know how to do that right off the top of my head and
Corey
50:38
and uh i assume it is by being more more left-wing carving out some space there but it just does not seem to be meeting the the national mood at all i just i will never be able to fully process no matter how long i live the fact that he could a new democrat vote fell in half when the liberals elected a central banker who was the former like chair of brookfield he
Zain
51:00
he moved to the right and their vote collapsed and their vote collapsed you also had a comma to that and they were potentially on the winning side of a uh progressive vote split a mere six months ago if justin trudeau were still in office Liberals would have collapsed. They could have triggered an election. They could have been in a position where they took advantage of the vote split, not being on the historically low receiving end of it, at least from what the polls say right now. Carter, I'm
Zain
51:26
I'm a bit of a fan myself of admitting you're not going to win.
Zain
51:31
I don't know how much further I would go, though, than that. And I don't even know if you agree with my strategy. I may advise the NDP today being like, we acknowledge this is not our race. Maybe you don't acknowledge that the questions of this race are not our thing, because I think that could have historic sort of consequences, being like, it's about the economy. And of course, we're not going to, you know, that's not our thing. So we're just good. Like, you wouldn't do that.
Zain
51:53
But what would you do? I'm really curious, like, how would you be advising our boy and helping a brother out here?
Carter
51:59
Well, here's how I would do it. I mean, when Joe Clark was the leader of the PCs and I was working with him in the early 2000s, I think it was 2000, we
Carter
52:08
we did a focus group basically saying, you know, what does the world look like when the PCs disappear? Kind of a variant on the question of if, you know, any party disappeared, would anybody create it? That, you know, that has been a question posed by Corey in the past.
Carter
52:28
you know we found out that people did want the PCs to survive and that became our primary rallying point how do we how do we survive how do we how do we ensure the survival of this movement everybody's moving to the right you
Carter
52:43
you know isn't exactly the rallying cry that the the NDP want to have what they should be talking about is no matter who the next government is it's going to to be a minority and the only group that's going to stand between um uh
Carter
52:57
uh these minority governments and uh and the and the working people of the of the uh of canada as the ndp and all they need all they need is 20 seats and you steal from my good friend cory hogan my good friend cory hogan who ran a very solid campaign in five ridings in 2012 on
Corey
53:19
on the hatches yeah doubled
Carter
53:20
doubled down on the And for me, it's doubling down on 20 seats. You got to make sure that you have at least 12 when you're done this. Actually,
Corey
53:28
Actually, you know, let me pick up on that because you mentioned a campaign that I ran there. So in 2012 for the Liberals, our vote collapsed overnight when Alison Redford was elected leader of the PCs. Literally, it went from about 23, 24 percent to 10, 11 percent. It was pretty crazy. And we had five incumbents running again. And we expanded the net a little beyond that to, I think, nine ridings, maybe it was eight. And we said, there is no rest of Alberta. Our entire platform, our entire resourcing, our entire everything is focused on what's going to be popular in these eight ridings. And we did that. And we stuck pretty tough to it. And we had a platform and we pulled in all at the time, 83 ridings of Alberta, every single individual component, we found the most popular ones. We put together bundles in those eight ridings, didn't care what the rest of the province thought. And we put together bundles that allowed us to see whether those would resonate with that group. And then we carpet bombed those ridings. We printed full booklet platforms and we dropped them in those ridings in swing areas. We put all of our advertising in those areas on those issues and anything else that was existing outside of those ridings was mostly just to show ourselves as minimally viable so that we would be viable in those ridings. And that is available to the NDP as well. Unfortunately, that's a pretty tough strategy to deploy on week two of a campaign. Right,
Zain
54:51
Right, with four weeks left in a historically short campaign.
Zain
54:54
campaign. The question I have for both of you, maybe starting with you, Corey, did you ever acknowledge that with your outside voice, that that is what you were doing?
Corey
55:03
No. I mean, even I think on the campaign manager meetings in the morning, that would be a pretty difficult sell. so
Corey
55:09
so i think there were certainly people inside the party who were very well aware of the strategy right um and uh that you have to and and this is maybe where steven like that's a hard strategy to be very public about we certainly had a version of it where we said you know we want to make sure that this is a story that resonates with our base we had ways to talk around it for sure but no we're not saying to the entire public we're only viable in these writings because Because unfortunately, then we wouldn't get coverage. And one of our strategies was, when you pick up the newspaper, different era, people cared about this, right? When you picked up the newspaper, there'd be four stories, there'd be the, you know, Party A, Party B, Party C, Party D. In our case, in Alberta, it was the PCs, Wildrose, Liberals, and New Democrats. And like clockwork every day, you would have those four stories, right? But if we had said to the media, we don't stand a chance outside of eight ridings, and frankly, we don't think we stand a chance outside of five ridings, they never were going to cover us like that. Our tour would have collapsed. It wouldn't have worked. There's
Zain
56:09
There's something so fascinating here, Carter, because while I agree—it's not to say you said something you agree or disagree, but I'm almost trying to now take Corey's strategy and say, can you right-size that for Jagmeet, right?
Zain
56:21
right? And any part of it do you mention with your outside voice? Because I could see a world in which you do, and
Zain
56:28
and you may lose the national sort of coverage, but it may almost free you from doing a national race, having to kind of pretend to
Zain
56:37
to do this shit and just be like, let's get that legendary NDP ground game working for us in these 30 places so we can hold the balance of power, right?
Zain
56:46
right? Almost like free ourselves of the national burden. You may not look at it that way. But if you do acknowledge it, you do also potentially have that risk of saying you're no longer seen as a national party. Now, whether that stain lasts for one election or more, if there's like deeper effects of that is to be determined. So I'm kind of curious, would you say this 20 riding strategy with your outside voice or would this be, you would?
Carter
57:08
Yeah, I would say with my outside voice. I mean, you're half a step away from Kevin Falconing this, this fucking party right now. so
Carter
57:13
so you know like kevin falcon shut down the bc liberals uh because he knew he was dead and would split out the vote i think that uh you
Zain
57:22
could do that now carter you could do that on week two you think 20 writings were focusing on him i
Carter
57:26
i think that i would be very aware of and i would maybe say maybe i'd say it this way um we know we're not going to be the government but we know we're going to be instrumental in any government that's formed what
Zain
57:40
do you think of that cory is that like Like, does that mean anything to you? Does that, like, move you in any way?
Corey
57:46
It has the benefit of being honest. I think that any overswing by the NDP right now would just kind of look silly.
Zain
57:53
But wouldn't you say their current campaign's an overswing?
Corey
57:58
Yeah, so, like, pare it back.
Zain
58:01
Carter, talk to me about the next step on being honest here. You be honest. Talk to me about what the ramifications beyond this election might look like. That's what I'm fascinated. I feel like many of the NDP moves that we have seen or not seen historically, and I think I want to, that, you know, Jagmeet on Bill 21 in Quebec is an interesting one, right? Which is that he didn't speak out on
Carter
58:28
Yeah, I mean, I think that the big thing with this is that this whole campaign is going to define the NDP for a generation. it
Carter
58:37
will either be relevant and small or it will be irrelevant and gone yeah
Zain
58:43
yeah well that's that sounds about right okay uh carter you've got a hard stop because um of course when you travel west your bedtime is a one hour earlier yeah
Corey
58:51
yeah it is yeah it's it's it doesn't make sense but
Zain
58:54
but when you think about it with the gravitational pull of the crown molding uh and the fact that you're going to be designing uh fuck your buddy.ca it does make sense so we need you to get your rest uh terrible
Zain
59:05
the record i want people to know cory is saying no and carter you are also saying no
Zain
59:09
no it's a bad idea you're also saying no you're also both of you are saying no let's move it on quickly to our over under our lightning round stephen carter we do this for you overrated or underrated in your mind the criticism and i know this comes from the cory tonight letter but the criticism that pierre's cadence and sloganeering sounds very trumpy is that overrated or underrated do you think that's material to to anyone's thought process of pierre right now it's
Carter
59:34
it's underrated i mean the guy has been trying to model himself on trump uh since the very beginning and he had success with it and now he's starting to find that he's having a harder time um and uh it's it's i think it's fascinating i think that uh uh this is this
Carter
59:55
is the end for pierre because electioneering and sloganeering is is is kind of dead right now quite
Zain
1:00:02
quite overrated underrated the uh the peer sloganeering three-wording uh slogan strategy yeah
Corey
1:00:08
i think underrated i don't you know it's funny i definitely think there are some trumpisms in there i don't know that i would confuse him for donald trump but there's certainly so many cues from it that you're gonna get yourself into trouble like imagine this imagine you're at work and
Corey
1:00:21
and there's this guy jeff and you think jeff's a a really cool guy so you start taking on all of jeff's jeff's mannerisms to be cool just like jeff well fast forward six weeks what you know 12 weeks you're kind of cool like jeff now you're acting exactly like jeff turns
Corey
1:00:35
turns out it was jeffrey dahmer and he's been eating people and so
Corey
1:00:40
now you've got those mannerisms it doesn't matter you're not jeff people are like fuck me i don't know that's not a vibe i'm jeff light i'm down with yeah
Zain
1:00:50
good episode name jeff light I was potentially going to suggest fuckyourbuddy.ca, but Jeff...
Corey
1:00:54
Jeff... Yeah, that wasn't going to make it. That wasn't going to make it. Corey,
Zain
1:00:58
Corey, I'm going to stick with you for our next one. Overrated or underrated, the fact that conservatives are coming out. We talked about the veracity of the Corey tonight from a strategist lens in terms of what that means, but that's not the only one. There's Globe and Mail, 11 unnamed sources, CBC, half a dozen. There's rumors of MPs wanting to come out. Overrated or underrated in your mind, based on where we're at in this campaign and what's happening? happening um
Corey
1:01:21
um i'm gonna go with overrated because truly in every campaign that's going badly you have a version of this right uh but that's not to say it's not important it's just it's not so unprecedented i guess
Corey
1:01:32
that's the point i would make carter
Zain
1:01:33
carter overrated underrated in your mind
Carter
1:01:36
i think it's a nine out of ten zane i think that uh when you have this many people complaining there's definitely some uh some fire where all this smoke is yeah
Corey
1:01:45
yeah that really makes sense thanks Thanks, Carter, for that answer.
Zain
1:01:48
Last one, Stephen Carter. Are you in or are you out? Out. On
Zain
1:01:53
On Premier Daniel Smith from a pure political strategy level. Out. The way she took credit for Ben Shapiro going on his national talk show after she met with him down in the States and talking anti-tariffs. Are you in or are you out on the political play of Daniel Smith?
Carter
1:02:11
I'm out on everything Daniel Smith right now. Oh,
Zain
1:02:13
Oh, good. Intellectually honest. I appreciate that. the
Carter
1:02:16
fact that she went down to Florida to spend any time with Ben Shapiro I hated
Zain
1:02:21
thing even the politics and how she played it on the back and you were out damn
Zain
1:02:24
damn right Corey are you out as well or are you in or out
Corey
1:02:27
I'm out on her taking credit for it that's so risky you're taking responsibility for what Ben Shapiro says are you out of your mind like that's the next time he says something about Canada like that's very dangerous
Zain
1:02:38
we're going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1856 of The Strategist my name is Zane Velji with me as always As always, Corey Hogan, Steven Carter, and we shall see you next time.