Zain: This is The Strategist, episode 1856. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan and Stephen Carter.
Zain: Thanks, guys. Thanks for always joining me.
Zain: Yeah. Yeah,
Carter: Yeah, you know what? We just like to be
Zain: Yeah,
Zain: you know what? We just like to be with you, Zain. Nothing
Carter: Nothing else to do. Always
Zain: Always joining me, yes. No, that's every single time. Even when I show up, you
Carter: Always joining me,
Carter: that's every
Zain: you don't show up. And when I don't show up, you show up.
Corey: That's
Zain: That's
Corey: That's how
Zain: how it
Corey: it works. So what kind of corporate hell are you in now, Stephen? I'm
Carter: I'm in the world
Corey: world headquarters of
Carter: world headquarters of ABC Vancouver.
Corey: Okay. And it
Carter: And
Carter: it has the same lighting as Severance.
Corey: it
Corey: it has
Carter: Talk to me about the roof curvature.
Zain: Talk to me about the roof 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 a stack of books? Well, I'm working
Carter: find a stack of books? Well, I'm working for a living, and I'm still here.
Carter: It's been a 12-hour day. Crushing it.
Carter: Crushing it. Advanced polls tomorrow. Very good. Very excited about it. Does anyone care about
Zain: Crushing it. Advanced polls
Zain: Very good.
Zain: Does anyone care about your election?
Carter: No. No.
Zain: No. No.
Carter: No.
Carter: No. The entire city of Vancouver, it's an uphill battle. uh
Carter: uh i
Zain: uh i
Carter: i think we're gonna get like 14 voter turnout that's
Corey: that's low that's where you
Zain: that's low that's where you
Zain: you thrive carter hey
Corey: 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 that i do
Zain: remember that i do i i think we were on air with him we were yeah and he learned on air that he predicted a number yeah
Corey: we were yeah and he learned on air that he predicted a number yeah
Zain: yeah that was lower than the number that was currently already in the can yeah that's right um was
Corey: in the can yeah that's right
Zain: was he called out yeah
Zain: i called him out oh you called him i thank god i called him out yeah yeah yeah that's
Corey: i called him
Zain: what my that's
Carter: that's what you guys held me to account in that by-election that no one remembers i'm glad
Corey: that's what you guys held
Corey: remembers i'm glad
Zain: glad you called my by-election no it's good calgary foothills
Corey: glad you
Carter: you
Corey: you called my by-election no it's good calgary
Zain: foothills by-election um
Carter: um
Zain: um no cory is always the man of the facts uh cory you're gonna do your thing 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. The Wi
Corey: cory
Corey: gonna do your thing
Carter: I think
Carter: 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 on the campaign even know
Zain: Do people on the campaign even know you have a podcast or they just think you just go into a room and talk to you very loudly? No,
Carter: and talk to
Carter: No,
Zain: No,
Carter: No,
Zain: No,
Carter: No,
Zain: No, I tell
Carter: I tell everybody. I say I'm
Carter: 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 i'm
Zain: pretending to wave to
Carter: on the podcast i
Carter: i make sure the people know oh
SPEAKER_00: make
Zain: make sure
Zain: oh my god this is a man in an insane asylum telling people he's recording a podcast yeah this is shutter island
Corey: man
Carter: man
Corey: man
Corey: island this
Zain: this is a big show it's
Carter: this is a big show it's a big show
Zain: 10 people who listen to it as well i'd say yeah uh cory uh your week has It's been going well?
Zain: It's been going. You
Zain: You know? Yeah. It's
Corey: You know? Yeah. It's been going. That's good. That's all we can ask for you. It's Monday. What else could you actually want? That's
Zain: That's good. That's all we can ask for you. It's Monday.
Zain: That's true. I just wanted an update to fill some time. Clearly, I got nothing.
Corey: That's true. I just
Corey: to
Carter: to fill some time. Clearly, I
Zain: What is tomorrow? Tomorrow
Carter: Tomorrow is April Fool's Day.
Zain: Only one day away from Liberation Day. Okay, this is tracking. We should come up, though. We should come up with a good
Carter: this is tracking. We should come
Corey: come
Carter: come up,
Corey: up,
Corey: though. We should come up with
Carter: good April
Zain: April Fool's Day. Do you have any URLs to purchase, or can I move on?
Corey: April
Corey: You move on. Do you think aprilfoolsday.ca is available? I'm
Zain: aprilfoolsday
Zain: I'm
Corey: I'm sure it's not. but okay i
Zain: i i have a 10 i think
Corey: i i
Zain: think there's a 10 chance it's available there's
Zain: there's no way it's available uh i'm gonna check now you think no way you think whoever bought april fools day dot c dot com just bought dot ca well
Corey: well i don't know man this is a country of over 40 million people i'm sure somebody in this nation has
Zain: has purchased april fools day dot ca dot ca well we're both looking at it because i don't trust you it's
Corey: you it's
Corey: it's taken but domain agents might be able to help so you know maybe we could i
Corey: i think we should i think we should do it no
Carter: we're not we're not buying aprilfoolsday.ca okay
Corey: okay it's not
Carter: not gonna happen april1
Corey: april1
Corey: april1.ca is available though like
Zain: the number one yeah
Corey: yeah like the number one like april one you know it's a it's a rebrand it's a it's a hip new rebrand of april fools day april
Zain: of april fools day april
Zain: april one sounds like april
Zain: april one's pretty good i say i mean i don't have a use case for it but
Zain: i say we grab it i
Zain: say i say we grab it right now i
Corey: we grab it right now i think we better i
Zain: don't want anyone else to think about about the rebrand we've just thought about on the show i think we i think we purchased april 1.ca and
Zain: carter that is how brown people spend money okay as
Corey: carter that is how brown people spend money okay
Zain: soon as we come to into a little bit of it we just spend it like that cory and i well
Carter: well i'm i'm pleased we spent it let's make sure we redirect it to something that's meaningful i
Zain: think so yeah we should certainly redirect april 1.ca to something that's beautiful later on yeah okay let's move on to our first segment our first segment to be or not to be steven carter i have i have a very simple question one that i think is the
Carter: yeah we should certainly
Corey: certainly
Carter: certainly redirect
Corey: redirect
Carter: redirect
Corey: redirect
Carter: redirect april
Corey: april
Zain: foundation of all not all that's
Zain: that's maybe too much a lot of the political chatter right now and i want okay two strategists to give me their perspective on it and the question steven carter and of course one cory hogan who's of course busy buying the domain as registering the domain no i know i know you're multitasking right now um
Corey: buying the domain as registering the domain no i know i know you're
Corey: um
Zain: um but
Zain: carter the
Zain: question is, how do you know if
Zain: a ballot box question is baked? And
Zain: by extension, where
Zain: where do we find ourselves in this race?
Zain: Because the current MO
Zain: of
Zain: the Pierre Polyev campaign seems to be that
Zain: A, the question is not baked, and B, it could swing over to affordability. And if it does, I win.
Zain: Hence why all, and this I think is the underlying foundation of all the chatter right right now, the Corey Tenikes of the Doug Ford campaign manager, the former Harper strategist coming out and saying the conservative campaign is not focusing on Trump. And they, the campaign, refusing, even Pierre Poliev acknowledged today, I'm not going to, you know, in more words than this, like, fuck, I'm not doing that. Right? I can win this on the issues and the issue set, the 1A issue set, maybe not the one. If one is Trump, and 1A is affordability, polia 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
Corey: I can
Zain: on this show just 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 and there isn't one issue driving 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. Well,
Carter: I'd say right off the top that it's very difficult to win on someone else's ballot box question. 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 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 um 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: knows how things unfold in the next three weeks. Corey,
Zain: 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: But do you feel like we're in a campaign where it is already baked that this election is about Trump? No,
Corey: 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.
Corey: You know, maybe we should register April 2.ca Tuesday and just as a bit of a
Zain: should register
Corey: parenthetical. Yeah,
Zain: parenthetical. Yeah, we'll get to
Corey: we'll get to it.
Corey: And
Corey: that does feel like a bit of a set piece. It looks like there'll be more conversation with 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, I think, the challenge that Pierre Polyev 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 just so blindly follow it. 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 Polyev and his campaign right now,
Zain: it doesn't
Corey: man is very deep in denial. 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? Right. So that
Corey: 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 of their play, right? If you want to take it into those frameworks. But it's got to be more. It's got to be more. Unfortunately for him. Not just
Zain: Unfortunately for
Zain: him. Not just different, but more and more. Not just different,
Corey: more. Not just different, but more. And unfortunately for him, affordability right now feels like a subset of the bigger existential question about Donald Trump.
Zain: 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 for Pierre here, or do you think we're perhaps skipping a beat? No,
Carter: 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. 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: So my view is, let the frame go, try and find a new frame and, you
Carter: 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, But, you
Carter: you know, someone needs to come in who actually cares about inflation and wants to fight it.
Zain: Corey, jump in here. Are we overlooking the fact that Trump could be, there could be a winning play or an element of winning play for peer and team on Trump?
Corey: 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 I 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 are we 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 Poliev. 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 that he's got a fundamental flaw in his campaign right now.
Zain: And I think part
Zain: what are we going
Zain: think that
Zain: 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: Yeah, I would. I'd say that's great. What's our question?
Carter: We would never win on that question. So what's our question?
Carter: Maybe it's a variant. Maybe it's some sort of a sub-genre
Carter: -genre of it. Maybe we need to 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: are you processing this, Carter, then? Like, if you're receiving this advice from
Zain: from the outside, but also internally, you're saying we're on the question that used to be the winner. It
Zain: It no longer is.
Zain: 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? Right. If this was a Stephen Carter run campaign, you may not run it actually fundamentally, at least on this point, dissimilar to Jenny Byrne, which is that I'm 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. Well,
Carter: 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: so now they have to figure out something that works and i've been there i
Carter: mean when you're throwing shit against the wall and nothing is sticking it's
Carter: it's particularly and you're
Zain: particularly and you're doing it you're having to do it publicly you don't have the time and 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: time and airspace
Carter: yeah and
Carter: and and 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: both Corey and I were reluctant to project that
Carter: that this election would still hinge on the
Carter: the ballot box question that has been formed to this point, because there's still another four weeks. 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 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
SPEAKER_00: Four weeks is
Zain: things really came together
Zain: yeah yeah yeah yeah no and and of course we released the liberal strategy episode this time too which actually it's
Carter: yeah yeah
Zain: it's funny and i hate to take credit exactly
Zain: exactly what we said has happened i
Zain: mean exactly what we've said it's unbelievable how we guided them through this uh carter and i mean like
Zain: i said i don't like to take credit for it but we
Carter: we should pretty great the way we sold them all those patreon memberships no
Zain: great
Zain: no it's good we had to with the bulk purchase the commercial license hey cory
Carter: purchase
Carter: cory
Zain: cory yeah tell me this i mean
Zain: i'm struggling with something
Zain: slightly deviating from the ballot box question i'll come back to it in a second who
Zain: is the enemy for
Zain: pierre poliev should
Zain: it be even if trump is not your ballot box question and 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 poliev in this election and you could get twisted and pretzely about this and you know come out the 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? Yeah,
Corey: 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 uh 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're not they're not 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. But
Corey: 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. In some ways, it's fine. I wouldn't call it great, except for the fact that it might be great because it 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 themselves. Have
Zain: which goes back
Zain: 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 the beginning of week two, so I want to be cautious about it and give you the rope for the next four weeks, but what do you think? I
Corey: subsequently in
Corey: I think that it is better for a general election. As much 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. 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. it. Carter,
Zain: As much as
Carter: And if
Zain: Carter, let's let's spend some time on this. What is a conservative framing on Donald Trump for you? Is there is there something there that for 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: Corey's given us one.
Carter: Donald Trump is a simple man with simple and who looks at things simply.
Carter: That is, are you an ally or are you an enemy?
Carter: And Mark Carney and the liberal government is always going to be an enemy. me
Carter: the conservatives we can be seen as as an ally um
Carter: um that is going to come in very valuably i
Carter: can see cory just dying i'm trying man like i don't know how else to do it because i think that i think that the the the liberals have boxed out everything else that's boxed out as a basketball term zane yeah
Corey: can
SPEAKER_00: can see
Corey: see cory just
Corey: don't know how
Zain: yeah
Zain: yeah no
Carter: no
Zain: no no
Carter: no um but
Zain: no um but
Carter: but boxed out uh all of the other available well tell me this luck or
Zain: tell me this
Zain: luck or Or skill? I'm actually more curious than this. By luck, chance,
Zain: chance, or skill, have they done that?
Carter: I think it's been a little bit of luck. I
Carter: 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 golf term mixed with a baseball term.
Zain: Yeah, that's
Zain: that's good. And just right through the uprights. Corey?
Carter: that's
Zain: You
Corey: You
Zain: You
Zain: know, actually,
Zain: actually, before I come to you, I
Zain: I want to get Carter on this question, because I think it is important.
Zain: Who's the ultimate enemy?
Zain: If you're 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: think it has to be Carney. I mean, Carney is a relative unknown who's got sky high positives right now. But one
Carter: one would have to assume they're wafer thin if you started to poke holes in them. 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 paper cuts. guts.
Carter: You know, you've got to poke holes into them by what we don't know about them. You
Carter: You know, what don't we know about Mark Carney?
Carter: You know, 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: what we know or the inconsequential,
Carter: but what we don't know that could be consequential. Corey,
Zain: what are the risks for the liberals right now?
Zain: They're up in the polls, depending on which polls. I think the aggregators got them about five, which is a very modest, but people like Like, Anos on CTV are, you know, gesticulating 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 reversal of fortunes is incredible and the lead is growing, is what he was saying earlier today. You got other polls showing that similar level of growth, which is, you know, you combine the growth in the horse race combined with the liberal vote efficiency, and you're looking at a landslide majority in certain cases.
Corey: wrong being
Corey: oh, my God, this reversal of fortunes
Zain: 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 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 a death on the conservative campaign, including some conservatives right now? So what advice would you have for the liberals, both on strategy, but as well as a caution for them? Yeah,
Corey: So what
Corey: there's 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. 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 does tend to really hurt a frontrunner campaign. pain the other thing i would point out is the conservatives have had such a bad first week they might there's
Zain: what the fuck
Corey: there's nothing so clarifying as a near-death experience for a political party right that might force them to go out and change their 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 they're gonna be they're
Corey: they're gonna be the one calling the shot and uh if that happens yeah if that happens and there's a lot of time to turn it around the other thing is we
Zain: if that happens yeah if that happens
Corey: 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 going to try not to and he could easily get 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 those are the risks what's
Zain: those are
Zain: 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 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 With the public, they may not have enough time to get some of the voters that they're actually losing to the liberals, because the liberal growth is 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: Don't take anything for granted.
Carter: 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
Carter: just float through and not respond to anything. That's ultimately how questions
Carter: 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?
Carter: That's being dogged right now. Sorry, did you say Brantford? Branton. Brantford. Branton. Branton. It's a saga. This is not going well for you. Anyways, my point is just this. You got to make sure that that doesn't dog you for too long and that no one else gets added to it. Paul
Zain: Branton.
Zain: It's a saga.
SPEAKER_00: saga.
Zain: This is not going
Corey: going well
Zain: well for you.
SPEAKER_00: Anyways,
Zain: else
SPEAKER_00: else gets added to
Zain: Paul Chang and Markham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Carter: Yeah, Markham. Sorry, that's what I was thinking of. Markham. That's what I said. Markham. We all
Zain: That's what I said. Markham. We all knew the whole time, but we wanted to wait for Brantford.
Carter: to wait
Carter: No, hey, are
Carter: are you bugging me now?
Carter: This show was done live. This is hard stuff. I'm letting you. you know this is hard stuff especially
Zain: show
SPEAKER_00: show was
Zain: was done
Zain: especially with all that crown molding just forcing just keeping the
Zain: could hear fucking people in that office what
Carter: could hear fucking people in
Carter: what
Zain: what do you want when they
Carter: what do you want when they all left they all talk fucking
Zain: fucking shit about them right now now that they're gone what do you want to tell me about them go ahead just you and i
Carter: you know what there's
Carter: there's some real issues here uh
Carter: uh leadership right at the forefront um
Zain: uh leadership
Carter: um right
Zain: right
Carter: have you
Zain: have you now can i ask you this and this is a serious question
Carter: But
Zain: But you are on the ABC campaign,
Zain: yes? ABC,
Carter: yes? ABC, yeah.
Zain: yeah. Have you done the
Zain: the Alec Baldwin ABC speech to them?
Carter: No, I have not. Have you?
Zain: you?
Carter: you? Just bring in a set of steak knives. That's a real opportunity lost. And
Zain: Just bring in a set of steak knives. That's a real opportunity lost. And just see if any of these millennials and Gen Z understand what you're talking about.
Carter: None of them will. And if they do, promote them
Zain: And if they do, promote them to candidate.
Carter: Okay, I'm on it.
Carter: I'm on it. You see this Rolex? That's good advice.
Zain: You see this Rolex? That's good advice. Corey, you see this watch?
Corey: advice.
Zain: Yeah.
Corey: Yeah.
Corey: Yeah.
Carter: Yeah.
Zain: Yeah. It costs
Corey: Yeah. It costs more than your car. It
Zain: It does cost more than your car. Corey gets it. He gets it. Can I talk about something else? Related. But
Zain: I want both of you to put your strategist hat on. And, you know, I am kind of fascinated by what Corey Tanik did this week.
Zain: The materiality of what he said, we've
Zain: we've discussed one
Zain: element of it. And there's another element, which is how Pierre sounds like Trump, the cadence, the words, the three letters, the three words, 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: Do you buy that? Do
Zain: 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. I
Zain: 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
Zain: buying
Carter: buying
Zain: buying what he's
Carter: he's selling?
Zain: This
Zain: This
Carter: This isn't a unique thing. This isn't the first time the Doug Ford campaign has been offside with the Pierre Palliev campaign.
Carter: I think that Doug Ford has sent a number of messages to Pierre Palliev that he's far more interested in being on the side of the winner than being on the side of the ideologically aligned. line. And that has meant things like Doug Ford's 25% tax on electricity going from Ontario to the United States. It means that Corey Tanik makes a statement. It means that Doug Ford's office leaks that there was a fight between Pierre Polyev and Doug Ford when Polyev says, well, I thought we been a great conversation um you know these are these are legitimate or
Carter: or illegitimate means
Carter: means by which they're dividing the the
Carter: the conservative world in ontario and doug ford um
Carter: um whether
Carter: 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: he's certainly been behaving in such a fashion that
Carter: that that making
Carter: Mark Carney the prime minister makes more sense. I believe that Corey Tanik was sent out and
Carter: and told to make a speech. I
Carter: think that that's what happened.
Carter: I don't believe that it had anything to do with actually
Carter: actually trying to make a message available
Carter: available to anybody but the greater population of Canada.
Corey: Corey, what do you think? I
Corey: think that it's
Corey: so hard to imagine this hurting Pierre Polyev more if it was a liberal government. 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 you're supposed to be ideological compatriots.
Zain: you're supposed to be ideological compatriots.
Corey: compatriots. So it's reinforcing some of the negatives of a Pierre Polyev. He's too ideological. He's not likable. 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're going to pivot 30 times between now and then, right? Right. So you could do whatever you want. Consequences of electorate be damned if you wanted to help Pierre Polyak 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 because it is a conservative government, it
Zain: Some
Corey: 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: Well, let me ask you the most, you know,
Zain: straightforward question. I think both of you answered this, but can we get this out for clarity?
Zain: This mission or, you
Zain: 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.
Zain: Corey,
Carter: Corey, hurt
Zain: Corey, hurt
Corey: hurt as well? Yeah,
Zain: hurt
Corey: 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
Zain: Which is what I want to get to in a second. I don't
Corey: Which is what I want to get
Corey: I don't
Corey: don't see that. I think that 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, to put it bluntly. Well, we do
Zain: bluntly. Well, we do this podcast mainly to help each other and mainly one of us. That's true. Two of us helping one of us. Well, each of us. Two of us helping one of us.
Corey: podcast mainly
Corey: Two of us helping one of us. Well,
Carter: helping
Corey: helping one of us.
Zain: Yeah. How's your situation there, bud? Running
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Zain: doing okay carter you're
Zain: you're
SPEAKER_00: you're doing
Zain: doing okay with the crown molding okay cool just checking uh i'm
SPEAKER_00: doing okay
Carter: okay with the crown molding
Carter: uh 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 we're with
Zain: well we're with you which is why i said we do 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
Carter: help one of us
Corey: not no
Corey: no i
Zain: i mean i could
Corey: i mean i could make a case why why do
Zain: 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 fuck your buddy.ca i don't want it i'm just maybe that's the line i don't want to cross yeah i'll
Corey: yeah which
Corey: maybe that's the line i
Zain: i'll look it up for you guys because you guys are so like ramadan is over be careful you
Carter: like ramadan
Carter: over be
Carter: be careful you don't know what you're gonna find yeah what
Zain: what i'm gonna find carter is a domain name that is available
Zain: fuckyourbuddy.ca is
Corey: is available again not not gonna get that one yeah but okay think
Zain: available again not
Zain: yeah but okay think about this okay think about this dozens of listeners we have on this show right
Zain: right dozens of those twos
Corey: right dozens
Corey: of those twos of them twos of
Zain: twos of dozens do
Corey: do
Zain: you want any one of them owning it
Zain: just ask yourself that that question because there is someone right if we do not buy it there is someone right someone else who's
Corey: right someone else who's gonna buy right now
Zain: buy right now who's gonna buy fuck your buddy.ca i want to see what they can do with it
Corey: want to see what
Corey: it
Zain: it i just i'm really we're actually okay so
Corey: we're actually okay so here
Zain: here it goes this is the first i don't want to see that domain
Carter: i don't want to see that domain jump ball okay something something really bad is going to happen between we we are
Zain: are leaving fuck your buddy.ca available to you the listener no mistake
Carter: you the listener no mistake no we're leaving it
Zain: no we're leaving it available to you okay and
Zain: we're giving you tomorrow april 1st how perfect okay it is kind of april 1 if you commit a sin who cares it's
Corey: april 1 if
Corey: it's april 1st you were joking april 1 we call it april 1 which by
Zain: april 1 which by the way you can find out a lot more about it april 2.ca i can find out everything you need about april april 1 at april 2.ca april 1 is it's reserved for something completely different which is going to blow your mind um but
Corey: is it's reserved
Zain: april 2.ca is where you found out about april 1 that's we're gonna find
Corey: that's we're gonna find out about april one yep
Zain: april one yep fuck
Zain: fuck your buddy.ca any
Zain: any one of you buy
Zain: it show
Zain: us what you got
Carter: a mistake i
Zain: i don't think it's a mistake i don't think it's a mistake i think this is the first ever strategist jump ball domain jump okay i like this cory domain jump ball okay that's good good cory
Carter: mistake i
Carter: this is
Corey: is the first ever
Zain: weiss the media covering this not for what it is which is people trying to fuck over their people that they've got beef with people that they've got history with like there is a there is a straight line i'm not even talking about dotted line where if pure if Pierre Palliev doesn't win this election, Doug Ford could be next in line to lead the Conservative Party of Canada. I know, like, here
Zain: here we go, right? Like, so what do you think? Well,
Corey: I think that that's not nearly as much fun for the media to cover during a federal election than what does this mean for the federal campaign? Is this good advice? Is the Conservative Party of Canada falling apart? The peripheral intrigue of who doesn't like who within the conservative movement is whatever. whatever but the idea that you might have a campaign that was up by 25 points yeah in december
Corey: 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: presumably adults going around to 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 um the
Zain: like that's
Zain: but um the
Corey: uh And the reality is that's a process story that people want to listen to during a federal election.
Corey: other one's not. I
Zain: just want to remind people, we're asking you to use the .ca, the .com. I have not looked up. But in these trying times for our country, we want you to purchase a .ca. Buy a .ca, of course. And more particularly, buy fuckyourbuddy.ca, okay? And then show us what you – I know you are trying to drag us back, but Carter and I are very into this.
Carter: No, I'm really not. This is a terrible idea. One of us is
Zain: One
Zain: One
Zain: One of us is into this, okay? Yeah, Carter does not want his campaign to endorse this activity.
Carter: is into
Corey: This
Zain: This
Corey: This is
Zain: This is
Carter: is a bad
Corey: is a bad idea.
Zain: bad
Carter: bad idea. So
Corey: So this domain was registered from the ABC headquarters? Yeah, let me tell you something, guys.
Carter: Yeah, let me tell you something, guys. When I'm saying something's a bad idea, it is not a good idea.
Zain: idea.
Carter: What is
Zain: is the idea? We're
Carter: We're
Zain: We're doing nothing.
Zain: According to Daniel Smith, we're not telling people what to do. We're telling them what not to do, which means we're not telling anyone anything.
Carter: to
Corey: to Daniel Smith, we're
Zain: We'll get to that in a second. Very good. good 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 um than it is in week three talk
Zain: to me why why or why not i
Carter: think that public advice like this isn't useful at all ever um week one week two week three week four um you know i mean i was uh i've
Carter: been hounded by critics uh through the course of a campaign uh before i mean every campaign, you're hounded by critics. And, you
Carter: 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 actually useful. So
Carter: So if I was Jenny Byrne, or in the conservative war room at all, I'd be more
Carter: or less just angry that we had to deal with this as a single day multi-day story um because it's a it's just a frustration cory
Zain: cory 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 well
Corey: i'd rather have it week one because i've got time to recover 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 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
Zain: damning critique yeah
Zain: yeah
Corey: yeah
Zain: yeah it's
Corey: 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 it's a character it's a character critique and that's the point i want to make like Like 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
SPEAKER_00: so it's a
SPEAKER_00: it looks
Corey: 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 why both of you say tonight force them to do it yeah
Zain: which is why both of you say tonight force
Zain: yeah it looks like he's your puppet master or whatever he's the brains behind what made this successful well
Corey: looks like he's
Corey: well it encourages this behavior going forward right like so just just imagine you do this 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 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 you your only option as a campaign manager is to freeze that stuff out shut it down and say that this is not how we make decisions in this organization carter
Zain: if if jenny and pierre win on their terms which by the way a couple episodes i asked you if we're asking the wrong question not if they can pivot but do they want to pivot and
Carter: and i
Zain: i think that that's turning out to be part of the equation here i'm not saying that's the a complete truth but it's at least part of the equation that they want to win the election they plan to win on
Zain: the way they plan to win it regardless of what's changing and there's good like 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 right um if
Zain: they win are they how are they seen here i'm really curious like As a strategist, as a fellow strategist, as a fellow practitioner, do
Zain: 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: 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 has kind of made on the back end should a W be what
Zain: is achieved by them. And Corey, I'll come to you in a sec. yeah
Carter: yeah i mean i think that that is a uh it is
Carter: interesting if you 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
Carter: they notice for sure uh and
Corey: they
Carter: and it does embolden you to stick to your guns
Carter: fuck you fuck that guy and we've heard that the last 36 hours
Zain: we've heard that the last 36 hours have pretty much been that yeah
Carter: yeah without
Zain: without the f-bombs by them but i bet there were some behind the scenes but pierre pretty much came out today being like fuck all you all like that was pretty much the message you
Carter: the f-bombs
Carter: message you
Zain: you know well
Carter: i think that's the right message um because they're not going to change cory
Zain: cory what do you think what is this done to their to their mythology should the w be what they conquer in in 28 days or so look
Corey: if they win victory washes all of this away and there has 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 that yeah but
Zain: question about that yeah but
Corey: but
Corey: 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 don't seem to be able to react to the stimulus around them. Strategy, we
Corey: we talk about this a lot, like strategy is not interchangeable. You can't take candidate A's strategy in 2015 and give it to candidate B in 2029 or 2019, right? 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 straitjacket. You don't need to say, well, I guess that's my fucking 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, 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 Pierre Polyev is a very disciplined politician, but
Zain: 2019, right?
Corey: we're seeing the downside of that. He can't react to a changing world. And I will say, as a Canadian, that's
Corey: that's really dangerous at this time more broadly, too, not just in the context of a 36-day campaign.
Zain: Carter, let's end on this.
Zain: Does a word of advice in line with the Stephen Carter celebrity trajectory apply here,
Zain: which is Polyev's fall and then Polyev's rise? People are relishing in the fall. fall will they will they also be excited about the potential rise and should the liberals be caught i know the celebrity trajectory is what we've talked about but the people love in the fall but also being excited about the rise here which could get poly have some momentum is that something liberals should be watching out for here or not so much because
Carter: because the rise isn't doesn't need to be as dramatic as the liberal rise over the last three months right you know every every points Yeah. 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. majority um
Corey: you
Zain: you know every every points Yeah. Switch
Carter: um you know that that's not a huge shift um 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
SPEAKER_00: so now
Carter: so
Carter: so now it it has to you
Carter: know it doesn't have to shift that much for Pierre air poly of 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 in, in Doug Ford's Ontario, um, suddenly
Carter: 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 going to, you know, where are we going to see this turnaround?
Carter: Are we going to see this turnaround in the lower mainland of British Columbia? Are we going to see the turnaround in British... There's not much more to gain in
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to see
Carter: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, but
Carter: but Ontario would probably be where I'd be focusing all of my efforts if I was Pierre Polyev, because a six-point shift there changes the game.
Zain: Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, help a brother out. Corey, can you help a brother out?
Corey: Yeah. What do you need? What do you need, brother? brother? It's
Zain: It's not me. It's my twin. I'm just going to look up his name, Jagmeet Singh.
Zain: Jagmeet Singh, this is a guy that I know well. Canadians know well. Corey, he's 9% in the polls.
Zain: It's a low number. Most people think he's not going to win the election. He's running like he's going to win the election.
Zain: What should Jagmeet Singh do?
Zain: do? There
Corey: There
Zain: are many strategies being thrown out. I'm going to throw a couple. You don't have to accept any of them.
Zain: I've
Corey: I've got to Google who this guy is.
Carter: I've
Zain: I've got
Carter: got
Carter: I'm trying to figure out his name. Jagmeet?
Corey: I'm
Zain: I'm trying
Corey: trying to
Carter: Jagmeet Singh. You just keep talking.
Zain: Jagmeet
Corey: Jagmeet
Zain: Jagmeet Singh. You
Corey: You just keep talking.
Zain: talking. Jagmeet Singh, yeah.
Zain: Jagmeet Singh. Yeah, I'm just going to skip that.
Zain: Keep doing your thing, man. Keep
Zain: focusing on workers. Keep running the campaign that you are. You never announce that you want to run for anything that isn't to become prime minister. Anything like that is fatal. You
Zain: run what you are doing.
Zain: Thing number two, you
Zain: say you want to be the balance of power in a liberal minority. Thing
Zain: number three, you say you're going to focus on 50 ridings or so. Thing number four, combine a lot of those elements, and you admit you're not going to win this election. And
Zain: 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. These
Zain: 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. Helper Brother Out, what should he do right now? He's at, like, modern 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, you know, 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: single digits.
Corey: It's like
Corey: 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
Corey: 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 to remind people that you exist and present something different and i'm sure there's a lot of 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
Zain: like just to
Corey: 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 national mood at all i just i will never be able to fully process no matter how long i live the fact that you could the new Democrat vote fell in half when the liberals elected a central banker who was the former chair of Brookfield. He moved to
Zain: you could the new Democrat
Zain: He moved to the right and their vote collapsed. And their vote collapsed. You also add a comma to that and they were potentially on the winning side of a progressive vote split 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
Corey: their vote collapsed.
Corey: I'm
Zain: I'm a bit of a fan myself of admitting you're not going to win.
Zain: 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. Like, 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 We're just going to – like you wouldn't do that.
Zain: But what would you do? I'm really curious. Like how would you be advising our boy and helping the brother out here?
Carter: 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: we did a focus group basically saying what would – what does the world look like when the PCs disappear? Kind of a variant on the question of if any party disappeared, would anybody create it? That has been a question posed by Corey in the past. And we
Carter: found out that people did want the PCs to survive, and that became our primary rallying point. How do we survive? How do we ensure the survival of this movement? Everybody's moving to the right.
Carter: isn't exactly the rallying cry that the NDP want to have. What they should be talking about is no matter who the next government is, it's going to be a minority. And the only group that's going to stand between these
Carter: these minority governments and the working people of Canada is the NDP. And all they need, all they need is 20 seats. And you steal from my good friend Corey Hogan. My good friend Corey Hogan, who ran a very solid campaign in five ridings in 2012, doubled
Corey: doubled
Carter: doubled
Carter: doubled down on, 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: 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% to 10-11%. 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 bend 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 writings. We printed full booklet platforms and we dropped them in those writings in swing areas. We put all of our advertising in those areas on those issues. And anything else that was existing outside of those writings was mostly just to show ourselves as minimally viable so that we would be viable in those writings. 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.
Carter: I ran
Zain: So
Carter: So
Zain: So in 2012
Zain: Right. With four weeks left in it, historically. that's it uh
Corey: that's it uh
Zain: uh short campaign the question i have for both of you maybe starting with you cory did you ever acknowledge that with your outside voice that that is what you were doing um
Corey: no i mean even i think on the campaign manager meetings in the morning that would be a pretty difficult sell 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 to be very public about we certainly had a version of it where we said you know we want to make sure that there's 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 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 be the you know party
Zain: sell so
Corey: 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 writings and frankly we don't think we stand a chance outside of five writings they never were going to cover us like that you know our tour would have collapsed it wouldn't have worked there's
Zain: wouldn't have worked there's something so fascinating here carter because while i agree not it's not so you said something thing you agree or disagree, but I'm almost trying to now take Corey's strategy and say, can you right-size that for Jagmeet,
Zain: 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: you may lose the national sort of coverage, but it may almost free you from doing a national race, having Jagmeet having to kind of pretend
Zain: to do this shit, and just be like, let's get that legendary NDP ground game working for us in these dirty places so we can hold the balance of power, right?
Zain: 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: 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.
Corey: party right now.
Carter: So, you know, like Kevin Falcon shut down the B.C. liberals because he knew he was dead and would split out the vote. I think that you
Zain: you
Carter: you
Carter: could
Zain: could
Carter: could
Zain: could
Carter: could do
Zain: do that now, Carter. You could do that on week two. You think 20 ridings were focusing on him?
Carter: I think that I would be very aware of and I would maybe say maybe I would say it this way. 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: do
Zain: you think of that, Corey? Does that mean anything to you? Does that move you in any way?
Corey: It has the benefit of being honest. I think that any overswing by the NDP right now would just kind of look silly.
Zain: But wouldn't you say their current campaign's an overswing?
Corey: Yeah, absolutely.
Corey: absolutely. Yeah.
Corey: So, like, pare it back.
Zain: 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 that Jagmeet on Bill 21 in Quebec is an interesting one, which is that he didn't speak out
Zain: on it. Yeah,
Carter: 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 will either be relevant and small, or it will be irrelevant and gone.
Zain: Yeah, well, that sounds about right. Okay, Carter, you've got a hard stop because, of course, when you travel west, your bedtime is one hour earlier.
Carter: right. Okay, Carter,
Carter: Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but when you think about it, with the gravitational pull of the crown molding and the fact that you're going to be up all night designing fuckyourbuddy.ca, it does make sense. So we need you to get your rest.
Carter: you're
Corey: you're going to be up all night designing fuckyourbuddy
Carter: you to get
Carter: Terrible. On the record, I want
Zain: On the record, I want people to know Corey is saying no, and Carter, you are also saying?
Zain: No, it's a bad idea, Zane. Okay, you're also saying no. Both of you are saying no. Let's move it on quickly to our over, under, or lightning round. Stephen Carter, we do this for you. Overrated or underrated in your mind? The criticism, and I know this comes from the Corey Tanik 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 anyone's thought process of Pierre right now?
Carter: Zane. Okay,
Corey: Okay, you're also
Carter: It's underrated. I mean, the guy has been trying to model himself on Trump 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,
Carter: uh, it's, it's, I think it's fascinating. I think that, uh, uh, this is, this
Carter: is the end for Pierre because electioneering and sloganeering is, is, is kind of dead right now.
Zain: Quite overrated, underrated, the, uh, the Pierre sloganeering, the three wording, uh, slogan strategy. Yeah,
Corey: 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 going to get yourself into trouble. Like, imagine this. Imagine you're at work and
Corey: and there's this guy, Jeff, and you think Jeff's a really cool guy. So you start taking on all of Jeff's mannerisms to be cool, just like Jeff. Oh, fast forward six weeks, you know, 12 weeks. You're kind of cool like Jeff. Now you're acting exactly like Jeff. Turns out it was Jeffrey Dahmer and he's been eating people. So
Carter: taking on all
Zain: So
Corey: So now
Corey: 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
Corey: yeah jeff
Zain: jeff
Corey: jeff
Zain: jeff
Zain: jeff light good episode name jeff light i
Corey: jeff light good
Zain: i was potentially going to suggest fuck your buddy.ca but jeff
Corey: jeff yeah that wasn't that wasn't gonna make it i wasn't gonna make it i'm gonna stick with you for
Zain: yeah that wasn't
Zain: that wasn't gonna make
Zain: i'm gonna stick with you for our next one overrated or underrated the fact that conservatives are coming out we talked about the veracity of the quarry tonight from a strategist lens in terms of what that means but that's not the only one there's a globe and mail 11 unnamed sources cbc half a dozen uh they keep 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 what's happening
Corey: of what
Corey: 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 that's the point i would make carter
Zain: guess
Zain: carter overrated underrated in your mind i
Carter: 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
Zain: yeah that really makes sense thanks carter
Corey: carter
Zain: carter for that
Corey: that answer uh
Zain: uh
Corey: uh
Zain: uh
Zain: uh last one stephen carter are you in or are you out out on
Zain: on premier daniel smith from a pure political strategy level out the way she took credit out for ben shapiro going on his national talk show after she met with him uh down in the states and talking anti-tariffs are you in or are you out on the political play of daniel smith i'm
Carter: i'm out on everything daniel smith right right now oh good intellectually honest
Zain: oh good intellectually honest i appreciate that the
Carter: the fact that she went down to florida to spend any time you didn't love any hero i hated the whole even
SPEAKER_00: spend
Zain: spend any
SPEAKER_00: any
Zain: any time you didn't love any hero i
Zain: hated the whole even even the politics and how she played it on the back and you were out damn right cory are you out as well are you in or out i'm
Corey: 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 we're
Zain: next time he says something about
Zain: we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1856 of the strategist My name is Zayn Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen
Zain: Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.
Carter: Okay, thank you.
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