Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is Strategists episode 1859. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter. Carter, he just... Oh, never mind. He's here.
Zain
0:10
Corey Hogan. There he is. Oh, my God. And he's got... Nice to see you. What are you... Are you drinking something red?
Corey
0:18
Yeah, I'm drinking red. You fucking... That's what's
Zain
0:23
So deep into it. I'm living that candidate life. Yeah, no, I think we all twice this situation
Zain
0:29
situation could have been planned. This is nice. Thanks, guys.
Zain
0:33
Thanks for the support. Carter, last we left off with what I thought was going to be the last time we'd hear from you, Corey. But we were actually here for the Stephen Carter accountability episode. That's what this
Corey
0:44
this is. I'm not missing the Stephen Carter accountability episode. So
Corey
0:47
just so people know,
Zain
0:48
on a campaign, and that campaign did
Zain
0:51
not win. So we're going to talk to Stephen about that.
Zain
0:53
Would you phrase it that way, Carter?
Carter
0:57
oh no we got our asses handed to us okay okay we
Carter
1:00
we came in sixth and seventh but there were only really three candidates so
Carter
1:06
we got we got fucked up we
Zain
1:09
got all that time with the crowd balding in vancouver uh for what
Corey
1:16
cory uh you have an announcement to make
Corey
1:20
do have an announcement i'll try to let you get through this are
Carter
1:23
are we gonna interrupt him yeah no
Corey
1:24
no i'll i'll try but he's gonna slip up at some point okay zane yeah i
Corey
1:30
i love you to death you're like a brother or a son who i'm stuck with but you have this special gift where you maybe sometimes undercut my serious pleas my serious calls with some uh some
Corey
1:43
some knots here so i'm gonna have to ask you to get on side with this one what do you say definitely no but okay okay yeah no it's definitely
Corey
1:52
definitely no but good try all
Zain
1:54
right keep going yeah you should have just gone for it rather than tell me what you're gonna tell me you should have just done
Zain
2:01
rather than spend the
Zain
2:02
the time now i'm definitely going to interrupt you uh
Corey
2:06
uh okay and i'm bringing carter and i'm
Zain
2:08
i'm bringing carter outside too now that's
Corey
2:11
that's my bad okay yeah that's a mistake that was a mistake that's on me i'm gonna own that yeah as a candidate you should you
Corey
2:16
you know what the buck stops here this is what i'm all about these days i am of course running for the liberals in calgary confederation it's called a battleground by i believe uh stephen carter in the hill times thanks for that bud i
Carter
2:31
know it was good
Corey
2:32
that's really good i
Carter
2:32
i didn't even know who i was i thought i was actually talking about lindsey luna oh
Carter
2:36
oh i got confused but
Corey
2:38
but it's a it's close right we all know it's close it's close riding winnable riding but i'm starting a week late and
Corey
2:44
and so we got to do like three months of campaigning a day. And that's what we're going to try to do Saturday. We're going to try to paint Confed Red. Huh? Yeah? No? Not getting a lot of reactions. From
Corey
2:58
From the Doja Cat song.
Corey
3:01
It's going to really work with
Corey
3:02
with all the white
Corey
3:03
white people in Confed. But
Carter
3:04
going. Yeah, that's fine. That's
Corey
3:05
That's good. They're going to get the red. Paint Confed Red. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to paint Confed Red. Yeah. .ca. I'm going to get that. I hope it's not taken. Oh, you are not going to get that. You think I can't
Zain
3:15
can't buy domain names myself i
Corey
3:18
guarantee you i can do it faster than you i've got a little experience hold
Carter
3:21
hold on that's the domain you're gonna go we logged
Zain
3:23
logged in to domain name purchasing you
Carter
3:26
you're gonna get you
Zain
3:26
you know what jump ball this is not going my way so far let the
Zain
3:32
the audience neither of us take it we make a true okay keep going
Corey
3:37
we are gonna door knock the whole riding in one day it'll take about 500 volunteer shifts about 250 in the morning 250 in in the afternoon they'll be staggered throughout we
Corey
3:46
we can do this and you dear listeners if you do one thing for me on this campaign do
Corey
3:52
do this thing come out to this particular thing if you're in edmonton come down from edmonton if you're in lethbridge come up from lethbridge if you're in bc why
Corey
4:00
why alberta is just so great you should live here this is
Carter
4:02
is a better place lower
Corey
4:07
here and help out on this campaign for that one day and if you do if
Corey
4:13
You may be treated to an episode of a show, legally distinct from The Strategist, called
Corey
4:20
called The Candidate, with special guest stars Zayn Velji and Stephen Carter.
Carter
4:26
Is this what I
Corey
4:29
Yeah, you agreed to come out on Saturday. We didn't do the details. It's okay. My
Zain
4:34
My appearance fee is five grand. By the way, Paint Confed Red is already taken. Is this taken by you or your campaign? Is this how good your campaign is or is not? You know what?
Zain
4:43
say jump ball i jump bud that's how this goes oh
Carter
4:45
oh my god carter there has to be something better than paint confed red right now car i'm
Zain
4:50
i'm begrudgingly attending this uh this event as you know this is not my party i am of course a um a big fan of the calgary party um as cory runs for mpp oh it's cory's running for alderman i believe as cory's running for alderman my party is the calgary party but i'm doing this because it's cory uh carter what's your reason what
Carter
5:10
what am i doing this for yeah
Carter
5:11
my wife's the campaign manager okay well they're yeah that's also news to me to be there and i was like okay that's
Zain
5:19
mii have been yeah
Carter
5:21
yeah thanks for being there bud it's been a busy week and you've just been right somewhere cory
Zain
5:26
cory called me and i was at a
Corey
5:27
a squash tournament so i was doing you were at a squash tournament and i believe you said and i quote i'll call you back i'll call you attention to that we
Corey
5:38
can talk here i'm
Zain
5:39
i'm finding out so much about the campaign
Corey
5:42
okay yeah you're learning a lot paint confederate that's what you're gonna do on saturday cory
Zain
5:47
cory uh usually if this was normal me i would undercut you and criticize you for trying to uh politically uh poison the well of what has been a non-partisan venture the entire time this podcast is true so here
Zain
6:02
here but i wouldn't do that i wouldn't do that uh okay because no because i think i think you you you need the help uh carter and you want to say anything nice you
Carter
6:10
say anything nice about cory i want to say anything i mean if i thought i should be honest he needs the help he
Carter
6:16
he needs the help reeks of desperation that we're doing a live show i'm
Carter
6:20
i'm actually looking forward to
Zain
6:21
to the live show now one thing i do not know cory when
Zain
6:24
when you say it's called like are you actually going to be on stage with with carter and i because Because we prefer you not, just
Zain
6:31
just to be honest with
Corey
6:31
with you. I mean, I was going to be, but
Corey
6:33
but maybe it can be like, you know, we'll see. Can we both ask you questions?
Corey
6:38
I guess so. Yeah,
Carter
6:39
Yeah, because if it's going to be the candidate with Stephen Carter and Zane Velji, see what I did there? I put my name first. Yeah.
Carter
6:45
If it's going to be the candidate with Stephen Carter and Zane Velji, I think that we get to ask you questions instead
Carter
6:54
you and I being asked questions by both of you. In
Zain
6:56
In fact, Carter, I actually love that idea. you so much i want to do that right now as a bit of batting practice um let's call it let's let's call it uh constituent corner uh we'll do it for five minutes we're
Corey
7:06
we're both constituents and he is
Zain
7:07
is a candidate carter
Corey
7:09
uh that's true what's
Zain
7:09
what's your issue that you let's just imagine cory's knocked on your door right there he is right there okay uh he's knocked on
Zain
7:15
door cory can you knock she's
Zain
7:17
she's like do it your standard
Corey
7:17
standard pitch sound effect yeah
Zain
7:19
yeah okay knock sound effect will be added um okay Okay, knock sound effect.
Zain
7:24
Carter, you are a middle
Zain
7:26
middle-aged, older side, a white man living in Calgary Confederation. Corey's knocked on your door. You've got a burning issue. I'll let you take away a chance.
Corey
7:36
so I say hi. I'm
Corey
7:37
I'm Corey Hogan. I'm your liberal candidate in Calgary Confederation.
Corey
7:40
How are you doing today?
Carter
7:41
I'm doing really well, and I'm glad you're here.
Corey
7:44
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm going around. I'm introducing myself. You know, I want to talk about your issues. Here's
Carter
7:49
Here's my issue. Et cetera, et cetera.
Carter
7:51
When is the street cleaning going to start, and why does it seem to start later every year?
Corey
7:57
We haven't had snow.
Corey
7:59
I hate you so much. Why are you laughing at us?
Zain
8:03
We haven't had snow for weeks. This is an older man who can
Carter
8:08
When's the street cleaning going to start?
Corey
8:10
Yeah, it can be really frustrating. That's a municipal issue. Listen,
Carter
8:15
Listen, are you going to run to represent me, or are you not going to run to represent me? I
Corey
8:23
I definitely represent you I'm happy to help you with the city they got this great app 3-1-1 can you
Carter
8:28
call it with me and we'll find out when they're going to start street cleaning oh
Corey
8:32
oh Jesus Christ oh no um yeah yeah why not let's do it now let's
Carter
8:40
let's try it again let's try it with Zane okay we're going okay I'm
Corey
8:42
I'm ready you're going to knock on your door
Corey
8:46
hi Corey Hogan liberal candidate etc etc hey i'm just listening listen i'm just i'm
Zain
8:50
i'm with my kids right now listen um which party are we with just yeah sure i'll give you two seconds yeah go ahead yeah yeah yeah liberal
Zain
8:58
okay yeah how would he's liberal okay who
Corey
8:59
who uh so mark carney he was the former governor of bank of canada governor oh yeah yeah no
Zain
9:05
no i heard about that guy listen um i love what trudeau did with the with the kids thing uh you know the child kids things i have kids um which okay but reminds me um um the fluoride in the water does
Zain
9:20
it cause brain cancer because
Zain
9:23
because i've heard that if you combine the fluoride with the 5g
Zain
9:28
it's not good so like what are you going to do about the fluoride what are you going about the 5g i'm just like i'm kind of concerned uh and i don't have a lot of time so like that's probably my issue oh
Corey
9:38
oh okay okay so um listen i think you're okay with fluoride fluoride's kind of a natural thing it's in a lot of water sources just not in calgary's naturally um it's good for your teeth not not really a federal issue but uh you know happy to generally support good science and good health you know we
Carter
9:56
we should do this weekly no should this is good you know we're gonna do it on stage this
Zain
10:01
this is a preview of the candidate oh
Corey
10:05
oh good you're really selling the live show this
Corey
10:06
this is really good no
Zain
10:07
no well carter and i will bring costumes we'll wear hats we'll play different we'll play a selection
Zain
10:13
of different characters that's good i just played and i'll just get out of method acting mode that was me um playing um brown dad who looked reasonable but was actually spending a lot of time on reddit that
Zain
10:24
that was that was my character
Zain
10:28
who was the character you were playing uh
Carter
10:31
uh a guy named stephen carter okay That's
Zain
10:33
That's good. You're like the Kieran Culkin. Just ride that fucking thing to an Oscar, Carter. Exactly, baby. Carter, we're here for you. We are here. We should be talking federal politics, but why I'm here. Well, I know you're here for federal politics. I understood that. But you are here also
Zain
10:53
What the fuck happened, bud?
Carter
11:01
I'm all for four in british columbia okay
Carter
11:04
are you gonna give up on the place starting to oh
Carter
11:07
no i'm doubling down i gotta go back i gotta figure this out um
Carter
11:11
um this part this one was not mine to win though this one i
Carter
11:15
i don't care who did the campaign it was not going to be successful well
Carter
11:19
tell us the context
Zain
11:19
context tell us what was going on i think we we briefly alluded to it in previous episodes but tell us what was at stake why there was a by-election why
Zain
11:28
why you decided just if you're open into it working with this group um
Zain
11:32
um and then and then some of the dynamics and then lessons learned and share we like to document this stuff well
Carter
11:39
well as you uh i'll start kind of you know in
Carter
11:42
in the middle uh i i worked with this group because they paid me uh i found that to be uh steven that was very influential i don't know if you're gonna be working with
Zain
11:52
with this group again oh
Carter
11:54
no and uh you know they're they're my kind of people um the kind that clean up
Carter
11:59
kind that pay the
Carter
12:01
kind that pay every every month and
Carter
12:04
and so i i worked with them and uh they're
Carter
12:07
they're really great people i really did enjoy working with them but they are two and a half years into a mandate and they're not super popular and this was a by-election where they were replacing two of the left-leaning councillors um who had stepped down to one retired completely and the other one uh became an mla uh so this uh this by-election was you know to replace two left-leaning counselors uh we thought that uh abc vancouver was was uh which
Zain
12:39
which is a group you were
Carter
12:39
were really popular yeah
Carter
12:42
and uh uh we were wrong they were not and uh you
Carter
12:46
you know we did a lot of advertising did a lot of science did a lot of brochure drops did a lot of you know all the things that you normally do did a lot of telephoning um but the truth is that it just didn't have the the ground game that we needed it didn't have the air war didn't stick uh there was no relationship with the media it was really a tricky campaign um and we got and the result was we got absolutely destroyed so
Zain
13:12
so okay we can talk about the lessons of why you lost although i think you've indicated already in some of this the analysis of you know what that looks like what was the coolest most interesting thing you did or the thing you did for the first time that you've been wanting to do that you did on this campaign it could be about people it could be a campaign tactic it could be as simple as how you structure things um
Zain
13:34
um what's something that you got to do new this time or
Zain
13:37
or novel this time novels
Carter
13:39
novels a bit of a stretch but there was a we we did uh what i call the 250 meetings in 50 days right so the The goal was five meetings a day instead of door knocking because
Carter
13:50
because in, you know, like, for example, Corey's
Carter
13:53
Corey's running in Confederation. It is conceivable for him to door knock the entire war riding, you know, in a period of time. Sorry, did you say conceivable
Carter
14:06
With volunteers. With volunteers, yeah. Right,
Carter
14:07
right. It's reasonable size. The city of Vancouver has a city-wide system. so
Carter
14:14
there is no way that we were going to be able to door knock uh
Carter
14:17
some 600 000 homes like it was just not
Carter
14:20
not going to happen i think it's actually more like 400 000 homes yeah the point
Carter
14:23
point is the point is made we
Carter
14:25
we we simply could not door knock that number of doors especially when half of them are in towers so we uh we did this 250 meetings in 50 days uh it went fairly well um but
Carter
14:39
but it in In the end, we were meeting with people who didn't have a high enough give-a-fuck factor to really vote for us. They were happy to take the meetings but not happy to vote for us. I'm
Zain
14:49
I'm very intrigued by this because for two reasons. The second I'll introduce in a moment that might have a tie into the ground game of campaigns across this country in this federal election. But the first part of it was how
Zain
15:00
how did you set up these meetings? Were they of like influencer groups or people that could bring in voters? Were they just random meetings? Who was attending? pending and is this a political tactic you'd replicate? I'm curious about the nuts and bolts of it, Carter.
Carter
15:15
Yeah, I mean, so we met with Chinese benevolent groups. We met with Jewish groups. We met with regular people in their living rooms. We met with every group that had a meeting hall. We were at their meeting hall at some point. Every meeting that we did, we wanted it to be specific to our campaign. Did you set these
Zain
15:40
these meetings up on your own or was this attending events and already existing? We set up the meetings on
Carter
15:47
on our own. 250
Zain
15:49
250 of those in 50 days on behalf of the two candidates on your ballot.
Carter
15:54
Right, and the two candidates attended every meeting. Ken Sim, the mayor, attended probably 80% of them. Really? His commitment was phenomenal. phenomenal um so he went to as many meetings as he could um we had meetings as as small as five or ten people and as large as several hundred people um and it was basically um meet and greets uh where we the two outcomes were to raise a little bit of money and to um get
Carter
16:25
get people to get their friends out to vote and the events themselves were successful uh but the getting people out to The vote was not successful. When
Zain
16:34
When you say, yeah, I mean, so yeah, go ahead, Corey. I've got clarifying questions for Carter, too. But the operation was
Corey
16:39
was a success, but the patient died kind of energy there, right? Like, I'm curious who
Corey
16:45
who showed up and
Corey
16:46
and were they already on your side? Were they undecided? Were they opposed? Like, I get why people would go to a meeting if the mayor is going to be there, too. I'll say that's that's
Zain
16:54
that's kind of why
Corey
16:55
why they showed up. I
Zain
16:56
I was wondering that. I think actually
Carter
16:57
actually that was the that was
Carter
16:59
was the flaw in the plan. I
Carter
17:01
think people went to go and see the mayor, and
Carter
17:03
and they didn't go to facilitate
Carter
17:05
facilitate any votes for us. They weren't motivated by
Carter
17:09
by the by-election. They were motivated by seeing and meeting the
Carter
17:15
And the mayor is a Chinese
Carter
17:17
Chinese mayor. He's very
Carter
17:19
very popular in the Chinese community. The
Carter
17:21
South Asian community is very popular in the South Asian community.
Carter
17:25
But we saw very low turnout from those two communities in the actual by-election. were
Zain
17:30
were either of your candidates from those communities neither
Carter
17:32
neither of the candidates we had three between me and the two candidates we were indistinguishable um absolutely
Carter
17:44
actually was mistaken for jamie stein one of our candidates two times uh it
Carter
17:51
was not good but
Carter
17:54
yeah that that was you know it was success it was a successful operation operation but it was not successful in the way that we'd want it to go yeah
Zain
18:03
yeah yeah and i'll get i'll let you explain to me in greater detail like where the biggest fail points were but i have a second part to this meeting question which is you talked about vancouver being inaccessible with half the half a million homes being in towers but
Zain
18:19
but was any part of this strategy for
Zain
18:23
for you carter the
Zain
18:26
coming from the place that you've maybe lost a bit of faith on door-to-door direct contact yeah
Carter
18:34
yeah i mean well first of all we just couldn't even begin to understand where we would go with the door-to-door direct contact we it was a by-election it was really short timelines we weren't going to be in a position where door-to-door was going to be able to work I'm not sure how Corey's finding door-to-door but you know in in the worst case scenario it's one in one in 20 houses that opens the door and you're getting maybe you know one in two of those to commit to you also there's a very real possibility of people just telling you that they're going to support you to your face and then not supporting you afterwards which is part of what i ran into in surrey right
Carter
19:17
right people i mean if everybody who told us they were going to vote for us voted for us we would have won in a landslide and the same with mike de young mike
Carter
19:24
mike de young in in the bc liberal race we had tons of identified vote and we got them out they just chose to vote for someone else so
Carter
19:33
so door knocking has its door knocking in direct contact has its pitfalls it
Corey
19:38
it does you know it's interesting i'm certainly getting more than one in 20 people at the doors but one of the things you um you notice is there
Corey
19:47
feel at least i'm curious your thoughts on this with so many people having even ring doorbells these days if if they see who's coming and they don't want to talk to you they just won't come to the door and and so it's the doors feel better than they would have felt in elections past simply because people select not to have the conversation at certain points right yeah
Corey
20:08
i still think there's a big place for them And, you know, there are ways to test that commitment, including asking them for things like taking a sign if that's the election you're doing. I think those are important things still. But there's
Corey
20:18
there's no question the nature of doors is changing. The nature of conversations is changing. And I think
Corey
20:24
think that's something that campaigns are going to have to grapple with for the next bit. In some ways, Vancouver might be a little bit ahead on that curve simply because of the nature of it being a lot of condo towers. Density and
Zain
20:34
and all that sort of stuff. stuff. Carter,
Zain
20:35
Carter, did this campaign
Zain
20:36
campaign introduce anything on the voter contact side for you that was either emulated or directly taken from some of those advances in what door knocking looked like or the change in philosophies? And I'm thinking of stuff like deep canvassing and other things where you do spend a long time chatting with people. Even in these meetings, would you classify them as being meetings of depth and kind of substance, or were they directly to the ask i'm kind of curious like if if one type of meeting despite the fail of the campaign one type of meeting unearthed a different type of result sort of thing um because i find that fascinating just as well
Carter
21:12
i'll tell you i mean i think the the meetings thing was a heck of a lot more deep canvas like yeah and it was uh uh just a simple turn and burn in a good way or not in
Zain
21:23
in not so productive way you think in
Carter
21:25
in a very productive way i mean most of the time we were leaving with people on side um but you
Carter
21:33
you know they weren't necessarily i mean they might have just been on side because the mayor was there they but at the end of the day um we weren't going to be deep canvassing the number of people that showed up to those meetings right those meetings were infinitely more productive than door knocking would have been um our opposition did some door knocking uh but most of the campaign was conducted with media relations social media and advertising
Corey
22:00
yeah well so that's i guess the obvious question what did the other guys do i i maybe they were always destined to win for other conditions but what kind of tactics did you see the winning campaigns use well
Carter
22:10
well and and let's be clear there were three campaigns that could have won right the greens could have won the uh one city could have won well did win and uh cope could have won and and did win sean two people
Zain
22:23
people got two people got seats and they were both progressive parties is that correct carter yeah
Carter
22:28
yeah like one is a declared communist so he won he's the guy with cope um he's uh an interesting cat um little little personality
Carter
22:45
that we're not going to get into or unless
Carter
22:47
i get sued um
Carter
22:48
um but the the uh
Carter
22:53
the greens didn't run a campaign at all like
Carter
22:55
like the greens didn't mount a campaign at all like we saw i believe one green sign uh throughout the the course of the election campaign um
Carter
23:04
one city uh did do some signage uh and they did do um some posters and things but cope actually put up the most you know they they plaster posters posters on these poles,
Carter
23:17
poles, telephone poles or lighting poles. They have these big round cylinders that they post posters on. Can I ask you before
Zain
23:26
before you go further? It's a citywide race for two seats, a list of like 15 people that were like on the ballot, am I right, like around that?
Corey
23:34
What's a spending limit for that? I'm
Zain
23:37
I'm curious if you're running a half a million persons, like what do you get to play with? you
Carter
23:43
get 120 415 dollars per candidate oh that's
Carter
23:48
no it's bullshit is what it is it's absolute fucking bullshit it makes me so angry why are we only getting 17 voter turnout well i'll tell you why because you won't let us fucking communicate with people you won't let us actually advertise to people i couldn't buy radio i couldn't buy television i couldn't buy um you Getting a brochure out was a fucking nightmare. And then
Carter
24:11
then they're shocked. Shocked, I tell you. We only got 17% of the population out to vote. Well, I can't believe 17% of it fucking knew that there was an actual by-election.
Carter
24:22
It is bullshit. They gave the electoral office $2 million to plan the by-election, and they give the candidates $120,000. And Cope and OneCity only ran one candidate. they can only spend 120 grand and
Carter
24:39
they kicked our ass we could spend 240 i'm
Corey
24:42
i'm not feeling a lot of accountability from you right now steven yeah
Carter
24:48
not gonna lie to you i think that it's i think that there's some campaigns that i've run that
Carter
24:55
that i could have run better right and we could have won i
Carter
24:58
i think that if the three of us were running this campaign together with um Um, with
Carter
25:04
with Jesus Christ himself, we wouldn't have been able to pull this campaign off.
Carter
25:10
It was a, it was not ours to win. It was just not ours to win. It's
Zain
25:14
It's a good rant. So
Corey
25:15
So what, what, what did we learn? What, what, what's your big takeaway from this campaign? Um,
Corey
25:21
how are you going to be a better you?
Zain
25:23
Before, before you jump in Carter, I just want to talk to Colin directly. Stephen Carter, uh, is a different person than Corey Hogan. Okay. Okay. Corey is a great candidate. Stephen is great at what he does. Okay. But I just want you to know, Colin, I know you're listening. I hope you're enjoying it. We should gift Colin a free Patreon. Do you think we could do that, Corey? We
Corey
25:44
We probably should. Yeah,
Zain
25:45
Yeah, we probably should. That's good. Absolutely.
Zain
25:47
Does that feel like you're
Carter
25:48
you're bribing the guy who greenlit you? Yeah, Corey, does that feel like... I
Corey
25:52
I don't know how the process works exactly. He interviewed me. Corey's greenlat.
Corey
25:57
greenlat. Greenlat. It's post-tense now. It's post-tense. It's
Zain
25:59
It's greenlat. that um yeah i just want to like call and know that because he's probably like well okay well what did i make a mistake no you didn't you're fine everything's good everything's good we could just chill we could totally chill everything is fine thanks
Zain
26:12
thanks yeah no problem appreciate that uh yeah we should also send him a free ticket to paint the town red uh paint paint
Corey
26:18
paint paint confed red thanks yeah hey
Zain
26:21
is paint the town red dot c available we should find out you should probably me get it too because i might name the
Corey
26:26
the fundraiser that oh
Corey
26:31
great thank you hey carter thank you you're really helpful okay
Zain
26:34
are predestined to lose i get that you
Zain
26:37
you did some interesting cool stuff um what
Zain
26:40
what i'm usually interested in in these campaigns is um
Zain
26:46
not not necessarily what the other side did to beat you but what you think your side could have done better to get the gains to maximize maximize the gains you could have had. Not to win, but to maximize. So optimization of certain things, where do you think that was at? You don't have to throw people under the bus, but you could also talk about yourself. But talk to me about optimization. I'm really curious about that.
Carter
27:07
I think our media relations was really poor. And I'll own that one. I didn't think that. In hindsight,
Zain
27:11
hindsight, was it just a pure media air war campaign? Could you have skipped out on most of the ground, do you think?
Carter
27:17
I think that we could have done... Well,
Carter
27:20
what was it, the opt-out clause, the negative billing option. I read about it in the
Carter
27:33
That worked out really well. We ran this more like an air war than it was a ground game.
Carter
27:44
But honestly, when you look at how the vote turned out and where the vote came from, the visible minority population was not engaged. I bought a lot of ethnic ads, but I think we could have done a lot more ethnic media, a lot more ethnic interviews. And, you know, that that was probably one of the areas that we that we dropped the ball as well as just general media interviews. Like, you
Carter
28:10
you know, we didn't go on CK&W, I don't think once, which is their big QR 770 style or, you know, talk radio station. um you know why
Carter
28:22
why well because we were avoiding talking about issues that may have been challenging to us and instead of going on and trying to control the narrative
Carter
28:35
you know so that avoidance um created real problems i think for us as a as a campaign but uh again i don't think it would have changed the outcome but it might have changed the way that we We are perceived within the market, and the market at this stage perceives ABC Vancouver as really the fourth place, almost fifth place party. Well, I guess it was the fifth place party.
Corey
29:00
Well, so that was one of my questions that was coming. What do you think are the long-term consequences of this by-election for ABC Vancouver? Well,
Carter
29:07
Well, I'll tell you what I was telling them at the beginning. This is the beginning of their election campaign in 2026. if you win both seats then you're well on track to winning and holding on to the city council if you lose um both seats then then you're you've
Carter
29:25
you've got a hill to climb and and not only did we lose the the seats we lost them badly
Carter
29:30
badly so you know we beat the independents uh that were in hundreds of vote category yeah we got 8 000 votes the winners got 31 000 votes 33 000 votes um like we weren't within striking distance so if you're you know did you know that did
Zain
29:48
did you know that though carter or was it was it kind of a surprise to you when you found out on election night i
Carter
29:54
i i don't believe the word surprised has left my mouth uh uh we we you know there's certain things that that uh uh but tell you where you are yeah
Zain
30:05
yeah yeah like what like what were the indicators indicators of, of the fact that this was not going to necessarily, like a miracle would have been required to, to get one of the top two spots?
Carter
30:14
Well, I think that we can relate it a little bit to Corey's campaign. When you get volunteer engagement and you get money coming in through the door, then you are running a good campaign. Um, you need both of those things to really say that the campaign is, is resonating with Gen Pop. Um, we
Carter
30:31
we didn't have volunteer engagement and we We had money. We had money, but
Carter
30:34
but we had money because we're the government, not because we were running a spectacular campaign. You couldn't do,
Zain
30:41
the 250, what were you going to do anyways, too, right? Well,
Carter
30:44
I mean, yeah, I mean, we raised as much as we spent. Yeah.
Carter
30:47
Good for us. Isn't that wonderful? But this really could have been a catalyst for starting to raise money for 2026. And some could argue should have been. um you know i don't think that cory's going to turn off the taps when he reaches his max spend in confederation you you raise money when you can raise money and elections are when you can raise money it enables the spending in your constituency or in your party for the next few because you need an executive director you need a comms person for your party you
Carter
31:18
you pay them out of the money that you have surplus because in your campaign you
Carter
31:23
you don't you can't raise money now right like it's it's super hard i mean it's super hard to raise money i don't know if you're aware zane but there's a federal election um and it's dragging money out of the municipal markets that's
Zain
31:37
that's why i'm getting my calgary party gear ready i'm ready i'll
Carter
31:40
i'll tell you calgary party's had a good week too i'm not going to talk about it calgary
Zain
31:44
calgary party given some of the separatist talk right on the money i like it i like it it's good well it's good i want calgary to separate from alberta when alberta separates from canada oh
Corey
31:55
oh my lord these
Zain
31:56
these are the things i believe and i'll be sharing and i'll be sharing with everyone on stage on stage okay yeah
Corey
32:01
yeah as a guest of the campaign that's wonderful and
Zain
32:04
and paint can fed red not see if you can hear more of my theories my
Zain
32:10
my theories will be available uh
Zain
32:13
oh look at the time why
Corey
32:16
why are you even here why
Zain
32:18
why are you i
Corey
32:19
know i got nowhere else do
Zain
32:21
do you feel like we held
Zain
32:23
carter where did you fuck up the most let's get back to it where did you let's get okay media relations is there any regret for taking the gig is there any regret for divine where do you kind of feel like fuck i i learned something you know i'm good at what i do but i learned something where did i fuck up the most well
Carter
32:40
well i think the biggest fuck up was not being able to come up with anything that would change
Carter
32:44
change the channel when we needed to change the channel and not being able to really
Carter
32:48
really jump uh you know jump start us into something spectacular you know i think that um you
Carter
32:55
you know we we weren't able to come up with a great slogan we weren't or or theme to the campaign because i don't like slogans but we didn't have a theme to the campaign we didn't have you know we were stuck in we've done you know these are all the great things we've done in the past um except no one believes them no one believes that all all these great things were done by abc and i wasn't able to come up with something that was better so we weren't able to communicate um
Carter
33:23
um the potential of abc and
Carter
33:26
and i think that that was really the biggest failing uh forget about what you've done in the past but what's the potential what are you going to get if you vote us back in what are you going to get then and that to me was was was a great failing because the i think that people are as you may be aware i think that people are relatively selfish and uh their vote needs to be about what's in the future so that to me is uh you know the the problem okay
Zain
33:57
okay cory i'll let you ask one more question to stephen carter and then i think i need you to leave uh
Zain
34:02
uh this is like the game quiz show
Zain
34:04
uh you put on your
Corey
34:04
your headphones and you get the fuck
Zain
34:05
fuck out and then we and
Zain
34:07
carter and i can can talk about what people actually want at the 34 you can actually
Corey
34:10
actually talk about federal politics
Zain
34:12
no no for sure yeah yeah
Carter
34:14
we're gonna let him go we're not gonna make his life miserable
Corey
34:18
no you're gonna do that later he came
Zain
34:19
came here to use the podcast to sell his fundraiser which he's roped us into basically
Corey
34:24
basically wanted to be fat formed oh
Zain
34:26
oh my god it
Corey
34:28
it was that's not let's not discount the fact i also got to hear steven talk about losing the camera oh that's true that was
Zain
34:34
was That was probably very joyful,
Zain
34:37
My new show is available at whateverthisis.ca. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt
Corey
34:41
get all the plugs out there. Any other plugs? Carter, you got anything you want to plug?
Carter
34:45
I'm a loser, baby.
Corey
34:49
That was a great song by Backpack. I
Corey
34:51
You can listen to it while
Corey
34:53
while you're paintconfedered.ca. I almost said painting confedered, but then I'll have to. You probably have to. I think you're going to have to. We can see. Fuck.
Corey
35:01
Paintconfedered. Okay, here's what we're going to do. turn confed red where did paint come from turn confed red is the domain shit i got a paint confed hey carter god
Zain
35:16
audio is going to be referred to if cory loses oh
Carter
35:20
when did this happen at 34 minutes mark on episode uh 1859 is when it all It all fell apart. Do
Corey
35:30
Do you know what, Zane? I have no more questions. Paint turn confedred.ca. Yeah. It's where you can find it. Okay, do you actually want
Zain
35:36
want to give people the real, because you actually made an earnest plea, and I don't want to undercut that, because you told me explicitly not to, but then you fucked up
Corey
35:42
up the domain name. And then I did. That's on you.
Corey
35:46
Again, I'll just say, if you do one thing, do this thing. We can do this thing. We can do this. We work together, we win.
Zain
35:57
Later, Hogan. Okay, Carter. he's gone so man
Zain
36:01
man so many things let's boil it down this way um two topics 15 minutes okay sure topic number one carny is coming to calgary uh pauliev is as we speak tonight um packing anywhere between 10 to 15 000 people in edmonton yeah
Zain
36:19
yeah let's start there um
Zain
36:24
events don't seem to be a rebuttal for the polls, but
Zain
36:27
but man, are they still fucking impressive and they're growing. So tell me what's happening. Like, is this entering a wave beyond politics that's not going to have a political impact that people are just going to go see the act like Pierre's in town and we got to go see the best of? Is this related to the politics and we're going to be surprised? Like, what is your years of experience strategist gut sense telling you that these two things are divorced that this guy's just
Zain
36:54
just happens to be running for prime minister while putting on rock concerts across the country and it's not going to have impact on his polling or that a and b definitely converge at some point and over i
Carter
37:04
i think that these events are not replacements for polling right i think that polling does something completely different but let's be very clear about the number of people who have a super high give a fuck factor um there is a huge group of people for whom the give a fuck factor is really high and they're going to those those rallies they're going to those events and they're hearing from
Carter
37:30
uh from pierre poliev because that's what they want to do that's what they find finding entertaining right now going
Carter
37:36
going to these events has now become um
Carter
37:39
um you know part of the conservative experience but
Carter
37:43
but i think that it's two
Carter
37:44
two percent of the population right
Carter
37:47
right they were going to vote conservative anyways it's not like it's changing anybody's mind because the event uh you know how many concerts are held in the city of calgary that you and i don't know anything about right that fills and they can bring 20 000 people
Carter
38:03
yeah and it's like 20 000 people and you're like what the fuck was that you
Carter
38:06
you know who the fuck is
Zain
38:07
is jelly roll that's still a question
Carter
38:09
question i have it's
Carter
38:10
it's still a question i didn't even know it was a a question uh
Carter
38:12
uh you know this
Carter
38:14
this this is um these events are drawing the the hardcore and the the heart there are a lot of hardcore but mark carney's event you know in one day um is going to draw you know 25 through to 2500 to 3000 people in a day yeah
Carter
38:33
yeah so you know how long has it been advertised how long you know how much effort are they putting into it um you know i i i never liked big events in in politics because i find that big events in politics don't actually generate new votes um they take a lot of time to implement and execute but they don't find any new votes they only find the old pre-existing 100 already with you voters and
Zain
38:59
and the dynamics of this race Could we look back and say Pierre was a genius to have these massive events to ensure his base remained as sticky as possible because that liberal vote didn't necessarily go to the conservatives, but it was just soft and didn't show up in the way that the polling indicated? Is there wisdom in the strategy to make your vote as hardened where Pierre might be reaching a
Zain
39:23
a new conservative ceiling in his vote? This is a pretty high number for Pierre in terms of where the CPC are currently polling, you know usually they hover around in the low to mid 30s he's hitting 38 39s on the national averages so could you just say well listen we may not be able to compete with the liberals right now but if we make sure our vote is super hard and bank on theirs being just a bit soft elections ours what do you think of that yeah
Carter
39:50
yeah i mean i think is that
Zain
39:52
thinking like i'm not i'm not hearing this from conservatives in my circles to be honest but i'm just kind of reacting to what what you're suggesting here, and saying, like, could this be a theory that might have some wisdom behind it?
Carter
40:07
How's that for a shitty answer?
Carter
40:09
I just don't know. I think that there's, I
Carter
40:15
think you're hardening the wrong group.
Carter
40:17
You know, I think if you're going to make something hard, you start at the base and you work your way all the way to the tip.
Carter
40:24
And if you can work from the base to the tip,
Zain
40:27
Okay, just okay. Thank you, Carter. Thank you. Thank you. But
Carter
40:30
But right now, Polyev's only working the bass, and you're just not going to get there, you know? You're not going to get to the end result if you just work the bass.
Zain
40:40
Does this count as the same podcast that Corey was on earlier?
Zain
40:45
Okay, good. Yeah, I just want this mention to be the same one where paint, is it turn or paint?
Carter
40:56
Turn can fed red.
Carter
40:59
it was paint and then it became turn
Carter
41:02
it's turn confed red okay
Carter
41:05
no i don't think it is paint confed red sounds better
Zain
41:11
agree and i don't know which one it is either it's fine it's fine uh just as long as your your phallic analogy you know if he doesn't win
Carter
41:18
win and he comes back to this podcast we're
Carter
41:21
we're gonna have some guilt issues i mean not a lot because we don't care that much i don't know he
Zain
41:26
he He can record a nice, solid, clean bumper. Let him do that.
Zain
41:31
Let him do that. Why
Carter
41:32
Why would we let him do that? He's probably in bed already.
Zain
41:35
Lazy, lazy candidate. Carter, I've
Zain
41:39
I've said this is the most important week for the conservatives. The stock market is, you know, tumbling like a motherfucker. Friday was worse than today. We record here today on a Monday.
Zain
41:48
There seems to be no shifting off of the Trump question, although they try to. They're trying. They're trying. They're putting out ads that. are going after the Trump question. They seem to have some targeted spots, including one where Pierre is driving this Corvette around a racetrack with his wife, which has its
Zain
42:07
its own vibe. And you could see the message in terms of who it's for.
Zain
42:13
What sort of shift, if you were in the conservative war room or if you were team Jenny Byrne, would you be looking for this week? Like we're all kind of talking about this is the make or break week, but I don't think people understand what are practitioners actually looking
Zain
42:27
looking for, right? What are practitioners actually looking for in momentum change and in a turnaround style week? Because it could be less or more than what Gen Pop thinks needs to happen in order for something to be a turnaround. So this is what I kind of wanted to spend the final few minutes here, which is if
Zain
42:48
if we're on this campaign, what are we looking for this week?
Carter
42:51
Well, you know what? But to be honest, I think that they might even be looking for something as simple as, did you see that shitty ad that, you know, that Pierre Polyev did? That at least would be a talking point that puts Pierre Polyev in the front of the front of people's minds right now. Like in 2010, when I've told the story so many times, but in 2010, it was always, have you heard of this Nenshi guy?
Carter
43:16
That's what we wanted to see. That's what we wanted to hear. what
Carter
43:19
Pierre Polyev needs is that someone at some point actually says what
Carter
43:23
what do you think of Pierre Polyev what
Carter
43:25
are you thinking about Pierre Polyev what
Carter
43:27
what the what he's getting so far is have
Carter
43:29
have you heard of that Mark Carney guy are
Carter
43:31
are you watching that Mark Carney campaign have
Carter
43:33
have you seen Mark how much Mark Carney's numbers have changed you
Carter
43:37
you know and Pierre Polyev is you know desperate with the events he's you know maybe he can get somewhere with this I think it's a tragic ad but i don't imagine that i'm part of the target audience um but you
Carter
43:49
know and everybody that seems to have seen it seems to be uh uh make it an issue right which
Carter
43:56
which one is this
Zain
43:57
this is this the change is coming uh down the track the speed down
Carter
44:00
down the track yeah yeah
Zain
44:01
yeah the corvette ad yeah yeah i
Carter
44:03
don't understand that ad at all do you get it um
Zain
44:07
yeah i do i think um
Zain
44:10
um he looks good he looks manly he looks like he's got a really cool wife um there's a level of um
Zain
44:23
30 40 50 year old dude being like that guy's kind of my vibe i'm not sure if it's purely like aspirational like like i wish he would he had what he had but it's
Zain
44:33
it's kind of i
Zain
44:34
i get it i get it it doesn't have and it's also like it's political
Carter
44:38
messages does he need to solidify men like the The gender gap is already massive.
Zain
44:45
Okay, so you know what? I think he might.
Carter
44:48
You're going to come back to hardening again.
Zain
44:51
I think he might. I think he's in the situation right now where there's
Zain
44:54
there's two ways. He can't win if he hardens. Okay, so then
Carter
44:59
win if he makes it so hard that no one else can join in, right?
Carter
45:04
It has to be hard enough.
Carter
45:06
I'm letting you go at this
Zain
45:07
this one alone, which you'd be very used to.
Carter
45:10
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if it's super hard and you're going at it alone, it's no problem. But he wants to have others join in.
Carter
45:17
And when you want to have others join in, sometimes having it super hard is a little intimidating.
Carter
45:24
I believe so, yeah.
Zain
45:27
Carter, keeping you on track. Here we go. By the way, change is coming down the track, I should mention. Listen, okay, this
Zain
45:34
this is similar, though. If you take that ad, though, and you don't understand it, and my theory to you is that this is to pretty much solidify the group of men, because I honestly, both on the surface and thinking it through a bit, do not see an audience beyond that, right? Dudes, like just dudes.
Zain
45:54
But then you also look at another act that they took today, which is Stephen Harper coming out of retirement, which might sound like a casual thing. It is not. He has not done anything for the past two candidates, recorded a video for one, showing up and introducing Pierre at a rally today. You could look at that as an offensive move or a defensive move. And my default is to look at that as a defensive move, which is they
Zain
46:16
they needed Harper, right? Every time you see a big name come out in campaign, and we're used to this in the American context, I always think of that as defensive posture, right?
Zain
46:26
right? Like you couldn't get the job done. The surrogate sort of intro or the surrogate sort of rally to me is always on a defensive posture.
Zain
46:35
me, I think this is a group that Pierre's strategy this next little while may have been, I'm going to pivot a little.
Zain
46:43
I'm going to harden my group and my base, make sure they're as engaged, that voting is something that they are looking forward to do and they do. and then maybe i rely upon the gods a bit alongside some of my negative uh that that carney's vote isn't as soft as the the mid 40s he's getting in certain polls and then
Zain
47:03
there's our race like i it's a it's a working theory i'm
Zain
47:07
i'm not sure it's a successful one no
Carter
47:08
no i mean if you're playing defense and you're behind you're really fucked right
Carter
47:14
right you need to be playing offense when you're behind and uh right
Carter
47:18
right now the only have you
Zain
47:20
you seen any new negative from him have you seen any new negative from him that that is maybe it's completely hidden from like the the youtube universe but at that being said youtube is taken away from these folks right like no partisan paid content on youtube because that would probably be the fastest quickest turnaround way to get stuff out is paying stuff on on youtube so they might be using meta
Zain
47:41
meta i can't find anything that's new that's attacking carny in a unique way beyond the the the list of things they've had going for the last number of weeks um
Zain
47:50
um so i'm not sure what their offensive game is right now
Carter
47:54
i don't think they have one and they can't
Zain
47:56
can't and they can't rely on the ndp the ndp are trying to go negative on carney to fight for their own survival but i don't think you can rely and boost the ndp content to be to kind of be the you
Zain
48:05
you know the marker that takes carney down what
Carter
48:07
what if they're just waiting for the debates what
Carter
48:10
what if you tell me
Zain
48:11
me you think that's a serviceable strategy right now like you think you'd tell Pierre being like do a bit of a pivot try a few things out we're gonna have to take him down with one viral moment at the debate that's
Carter
48:23
that's essentially what I would be doing it
Carter
48:26
doesn't have to be one viral moment I think that he can just dominate the debate you know I think that he can be a super strong uh candidate and and try and push it that way
Carter
48:37
Pierre Polyev has not been tested with a real debate at the federal
Carter
48:41
federal level even though we all quote
Carter
48:42
-unquote know him so well so
Zain
48:44
so carter the final thing i want to talk to you about um
Zain
48:47
and it's creeping up it's not like at like a a 10 on the volume scale because if it was its own crisis that i think the conservatives could take advantage of but it's liberal arrogance it's like liberals on panel shows measuring the drapes kind of like how polyev folks have been doing for the last 18 months it's
Zain
49:06
it's the the comments that this thing is over, etc, etc. Beyond the obvious, do you feel like that is a potential like strategic thing that could be hit upon right now that the liberals getting overconfident? Or is that like a meta inside the bubble inside an Ottawa sort of thing? Or do you think liberal arrogance in this moment in time has any play or mileage? And could you, as
Zain
49:28
as a strategist working for the conservatives mold something there from that or not so much in your mind?
Carter
49:34
Liberal arrogance is is the Achilles heel of the Liberal Party. And it is always there. It will always be there to be taken advantage of. And if Pierre Polyev wants to take advantage of it, he can. The problem is that Pierre Polyev comes across as such an arrogant ass that it's harder to make a case of, you know, liberal arrogance when he's coming across as an arrogant asshole.
Zain
50:02
He's not the right messenger.
Carter
50:04
He's the wrong messenger for that message. Could Jagmeet reasonably
Zain
50:07
take that line on? What's his, what's his, if there's a there there, why can't Jagmeet carry that particular argument?
Carter
50:16
argument? Because Jagmeet is also the wrong, he's also the wrong messenger, Zane. I mean, you're, you're looking at two, you're looking at two campaigns that have the wrong messenger at the wrong time. time
Carter
50:26
pierre you know pierre paliev is just the the wrong guy to be up against uh a trump wave and mark carney at this particular moment in time and jagmeet singh is probably three years past his best before date we're
Zain
50:42
we're gonna leave it there carter that's a wrap on episode 1859 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always stephen carter uh and the uh what do you call them sponsored content the
Zain
50:57
of cory hogan and
Zain
50:59
and we shall see you next time