Episode 542: That's debatable

SPEAKER_01 0:03

This is The Strategist, episode 542. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you?

Carter 0:10

Really good. I don't

Carter 0:11

don't feel like I'm with you, though. I feel like I'm, you know, in a different world.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Well, let's be clear. You've left us because you are now a professional vacationer, and it's frankly pissing me off.

Carter 0:21

Well, I mean, when

Carter 0:23

when you get this much vacation, no, that's Jim Rome's line. I take vacation. My wife wants to spend time with me. I don't even understand it myself.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

it's amazing. This is also, for our listeners, the earliest we've ever recorded a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Oh, yeah. It's 8 o'clock on a Sunday, a Saturday. I don't even know what day it is. Yeah, this

Carter 0:41

this is really early, really

SPEAKER_02 0:43

So you can expect

SPEAKER_02 0:44

even better insights than usual.

Carter 0:48

Because we're awake? Is this what it is? Look at us. We're awake.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Barely awake. Okay, let's move it on to our first segment because I do want to talk about this debate. Our first segment, the morning after the two nights before. Let's talk about the debate that we've been so tardy to comment on on this podcast. Guys, before I get into this debate, our episode about the Alberta debate was a popular one because of your guys' inside track into debate prep. prep. So looking at this debate that that's being held some seven or that was held 70 some odd days out, what would your preparation strategy have been for for the leaders at large? Corey, I'll go with you first. Was there anything that you'd keep in mind knowing how far this was from the actual election day?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

think it would have changed how we'd approached it for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

The debates aren't usually this early in the election kind of relative to the length of the election. And they're usually just not 70 days before the election. And the way we always do it in the Canadian system is we, well,

SPEAKER_02 1:58

well, there are exceptions. And in fact, the campaign I ran was one of them. But the platform's not usually out by this point. And that's true of all three of the parties who are on the stage on Thursday night.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

as a result, it became more about, more about, I think, the personalities and setting the stage and who are these guys. And I was looking at an interesting chart of Twitter,

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Twitter, like the searches of the different leaders, or Google, I suppose, the different leaders as, you know, over time. And it was great, because you could tell when one of them was doing well, they got a spike in Google searches, and Justin Trudeau did well. So we had big spikes in Trudeau, or, you know, searches like that. But there's

SPEAKER_02 2:41

a lot that goes into debate prep in

SPEAKER_02 2:44

in advance, and that's the other thing. Unless these guys had started debate prep before the election, I doubt any of the prep was as robust as that it would have been under normal cases. So

Carter 2:54

So I'm going to disagree with that because they knew when this debate was going to be held because it was going to be held regardless of an election call. all. So the McLean's debate was something that had been agreed to earlier by all of the different parties. So the prep had been on. But I think it's fascinating. I think two leaders did a great job on debate prep. And when I say that, I'm not just talking about lines. Elizabeth May and Stephen Harper looked great and they knew their stuff and they were really solid debate prep wise. And they they were also just solid in how they presented they looked good they sounded good and i thought that mulcair and trudeau were either over prepped on their uh on their speeches like i hated trudeau's closing which was so over prepped and so overwrought paul wells didn't know when he was finished he jumped in before trudeau was finished because the long dramatic david

Carter 3:52

david mammoth style pauses oh

SPEAKER_01 3:55

oh david man's reference that was great i love

Carter 3:59

it bad and so overacted this is the the constant for me it was fingernails on a chalkboard because it and then you contrast that to stephen harper who got his messages across every single time he opened his mouth and elizabeth may

Carter 4:16

honestly those two were the best prep in my mind and the best preparations well look not

SPEAKER_01 4:20

not just hold Well, hold on, hold

Carter 4:22

But an actual physical presentation.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

So what does prep look like when the subject matter, the platform is not out? And so that's my first question is what exactly does preparation look like? What are you prepping your leaders for? Is it simply lines? Is it a mixture of content? Is it an act in compounding content or distilling it down to its most simplest essence? There's

SPEAKER_02 4:45

There's about three million things Carter said that I disagree with on there. But the first is, let's not forget that the reason that those two looked so comfortable up there, Harper and May, is they're the only ones who have done it before, right? There was a lot of nerves going in, and I expect if Elizabeth May even gets invited to future debates, I'll be shocked. And Trudeau and Mallcare will get better and more comfortable in that format. And yeah, the debate was always on, but it wasn't expected to be a writ debate, and I think it was expected to be a very different animal. And then finally, like, Trudeau's closing.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

I don't know what closing you were watching, but it was a pretty solid closing. I usually agree with you on Trudeau. I can't agree with you on that one. I do agree with you that that pause at the end was a pretty hilarious fuck-up. Like, Paul Wales had no idea that he wasn't fit. I thought he was done. Everybody thought

Carter 5:36

thought he was done. Everyone did. It was totally Mammoth style, man. Like, it was terrible. We should get some Samuel Beckett into the next one.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I'm losing you guys. It's Saturday morning and I've lost you already. I've asked three questions that have gone unanswered.

Carter 5:51

Let me answer your question because I have a real world example of a long, long, long campaign where

Carter 5:58

where we had many, many, many debates. And that was the Alberta leadership for the PC party. Party. We had eight debates prior to the

Carter 6:08

the first vote. And then we had one debate after the first vote. And the first debate that Alison Redford was going to go into, we had very little in the way of policy. I mean, you can imagine that the policy at that point was we're running. And it was in the middle of summer, exactly the same time. And it was, I think it was, I want to say say in beggarville let's just say it was in beggarville uh because everybody's been and everybody knows that uh beggarville is a big hot spot uh in alberta politics oh yeah

Carter 6:38

so so what were we

Carter 6:39

we trying with the

SPEAKER_01 6:40

the giant toothbrush i

Carter 6:41

don't know there's a giant egg near there somewhere though okay it's really cool so for

SPEAKER_02 6:45

our for our non-alberta listeners every small town in alberta has a giant something it's

SPEAKER_01 6:50

it's true it is it's true giant deodorant stick uh very popular very popular You

Carter 6:55

You have to get your picture taken with that.

Carter 6:59

what do you do? You're in the middle of summer. And on some levels, it doesn't matter. But on the other hand, it is a tremendously good training ground. And our focus on Allison wasn't trying to give her the best possible lines. It was to give her the best possible positioning for later debates. We needed her to grow and

Carter 7:21

and to show that she was becoming a better debater and becoming a better leader. And her first debate performance, we focused principally on just being relaxed on the stage. Then after that, we started to layer in the

Carter 7:37

the lines and all the other stuff. And I think that that's where Mulcair in particular

Carter 7:43

He did not look relaxed at

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So that's a great segue. So I'm hearing Carter say that debates are an iterative game. You're not trying to effectively swing for the fences, especially if you're introducing yourself this early. But I do want to pick up on that point of Tom Mulcair as we get into the content of this debate. So Mulcair comes into this debate. Many would argue he looks sedated for the first 30 to 40 minutes of this debate. Corey, I know you've got opinions about this. I'll let you take this and then we'll go from there. Well,

SPEAKER_02 8:15

But Stephen, your point about best positioning for future debates, I want to pick up on. I think that's an

SPEAKER_02 8:22

interesting frame. And I've never had an 80-day campaign, certainly not on the candidate side. I've run leaderships that have run well longer than that. They are painful. And those first debates are the politics of small differences. You're all in one party to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

And so you don't have a lot of policy daylight between you to begin with. But if you talk about out the best possible positioning for better debates then i think you've got a you've got to be a little less hard on tom mulcair and i you know i certainly actually probably oh

Carter 8:50

oh my god here comes captain orange apology again well

SPEAKER_02 8:55

they they undoubtedly were were well aware of the whole angry thomas thing and zane you and i've been on a few panels the past couple of days where i think i've been pretty hard on mulcair and and i think his debate performance left a lot to be desired hired but there is no question they knew that angry tom was a problem that he's got a little more comfort now they seriously over corrected with quaaludes thomas right this quaaludes

Carter 9:21

quaaludes thomas i think is the way you go with that quaaludes

SPEAKER_01 9:23

quaaludes tommy would make a great like so he's like the front man from a rock rock group that left but

SPEAKER_01 9:31

but quaaludes tommy tom

SPEAKER_02 9:33

tom tom mulcair he uh he was He was aiming for the equivalent of a verbal sweater vest, right? Like, I'm Tom, I'm your dad or your granddad. And he ended up with the verbal equivalent, or actually not even verbal, it was more his eyes. His eyes were like the equivalent of the Joker smile. Like he was smilzing the Joker smile, right? It was too

SPEAKER_01 9:53

too much. Corey, would you agree that this was almost a situation where the NDP were experimenting with two versions of Tom And this was one extreme, and the other extreme is the Tom Mulcair we see in question period. No,

SPEAKER_02 10:06

No, I believe firmly

SPEAKER_02 10:07

they were saying, we do not want to see Tom Mulcair from question period. But

SPEAKER_01 10:09

But why? I'm going to push on that. Carter, do you feel like there could be a place in this election for that fiery Tom Mulcair? Or does he have to reintroduce himself as this charming, nice, middle-class, smiley dude? Fear

Carter 10:24

Fear and anger work in elections. I don't understand why they're walking away from it. I mean, Stephen Harper is someone that you can be made to fear. I would totally have jumped onto that as angry Tom. And I think that this inside baseball that everybody knows that, you know, Thomas Mulcair is angry Tom, that, sure, we do. The people in the media know that. And maybe the media is the target audience that they were targeting this new Quaaludes Tommy towards. But at the end of the day, general Canadians don't know who this guy is. And this is his first election. I would go with angry Tom. That's who he is. And I would just refine it. There's a great opportunity to take it at hacks at Stephen Harper, who needs to be hacked at. I mean, his willing disregard for the truth is exactly where Thomas Munk, angry Tom, could have had a great day and so could Justin Trudeau. Everybody whiffed on the prime minister's blatant misrepresentation of reality. How's that for

Carter 11:32

for not saying that he lied?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

was pretty good. That's

Carter 11:35

That's good. That's what I was aiming for. You've

SPEAKER_02 11:36

You've been working with a coach or a lawyer,

Carter 11:39

lawyer, I guess. A lawyer or – after

Carter 11:41

after some of your outbursts, the strategist lawyer is up to speed. At some point in your career,

SPEAKER_01 11:46

career, you know it's gone wrong when your coach is your lawyer.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

So listen, the NDP don't want to show you the opposition leader, Tom. They want to show you the prime minister, Tom. Well,

Carter 11:57

Well, if that's the prime minister, Tom, they've got a long, long way to go. I'm

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I'm almost – I'm with Carter on this one, Corey. I mean, the thing is, if he leaves this angry, competent version of himself behind, what does he replace it with? Is he just an empty vessel that smiles and wears the verbal equivalent of a sweater vest, like you said? What does he replace it with? What fills that void? Well,

SPEAKER_02 12:21

he didn't look inept. He had some bad delivery. Trudeau also, I thought, raced through it and had not great delivery at the start. He had a bad night because Trudeau and May had a good night. And because Trudeau and May had a good night and then Mulcair, as a result, had a bad night, Harper had a great night because all he needs is those other guys to kind of beat each other down and stay in equilibrium so he can win with 35 percent of the vote.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Right. They say that incumbents don't win debates. They survive them. Carter, do you think that was true for Stephen Harper here? Did he more than survive or survive? Well,

Carter 12:54

I think he did more than survive. I thought he did. I thought he thrived. I thought that he was the one on the stage who looked the best. I thought his closing was wicked. I mean, just brutally on point.

Carter 13:09

Right. But, you know, he he has this willing disregard for the truth and he's going to paint his reality. And there are a ton of voters who are going to buy his reality. And that's where he's going to get his votes and win this election. If if they

Carter 13:27

they don't start, they all

Carter 13:29

all the opposition parties, if they don't start saying to him, Mr. Prime Minister, you're wrong.

Carter 13:35

That's not true. Well,

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Trudeau could have said that more. Yeah, he sure couldn't

Carter 13:42

couldn't have because what he did is he meekly would say, and his first one was I think my favorite. I took a note on it. Hang on a second.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Well, he took a note.

Carter 13:51

That's not true, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

exactly did you take a note on? That's

Carter 13:56

That's what he said in the energy section, and Harper was implying, I think, that they were just going to increase tens of billions of dollars in permanent spending. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Yeah, that was clearly a true message of the conservatives.

Carter 14:11

Yeah, tens of billions of dollars of permanent spending, and Trudeau comes in with, that's

SPEAKER_01 14:18

that's not true, Mr. Harper. So Carter brings up an interesting point. There's a balance between pitching your own message versus punching the other guy. What does that balance look like for the opposition parties, Corey? I guess what I'm trying to tease out there is how did Justin Trudeau do in making that balance? You said he said that phrase multiple times trying to go after the prime minister, but did he do okay in pitching where he was coming from and what his party was standing for? I thought he showed

SPEAKER_02 14:44

showed a real strong command of the facts. But the problem continues to be, and in that closing, Stephen, it was more of the same of, I'll take this charge and I'll repeat it and I'll address it.

Carter 14:58

just don't know. repeated when he repeated he is you know i'm not ready you know the conservatives have been saying i'm not ready i wanted to throw myself off of something very high uh which given my mountain biking experience later today i'll have the opportunity to do it's it's ridiculous to me that they have not learned not to repeat the charge it is it's beyond asinine i do not understand understand why he needs to keep saying i'm not ready i'm not ready i i i mean someone some strategist somewhere needs to explain that to me because i thought the best way to prove that you are ready is just to never repeat it again just to do it just to be the guy who's actually doing it you

SPEAKER_01 15:42

you know carter corey's tipped his hand as to who he think won this debate do you have any say or are you going to give me as convoluted of an answer as he did as well

Carter 15:49

his answer was ridiculous Ridiculous. This person won by not losing, blah, blah, blah. Here's who won the debate. Harper. Bang.

Carter 15:59

And the reason he won the debate is he has his messages, they appeal to his core, and he was actually able and successful to get them out.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Do you guys both? Yeah, so you somehow managed to agree with me and still insult me. I think that's the best part. Well,

Carter 16:13

Well, your reasoning was wrong, Corey. I mean, that's not anything I can help you with.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

to go on that, I'm sure. Absolutely. OK, let's move it on to our next segment. Hot tub time machine. OK, guys, what

Carter 16:29

you do that? Why do you do this to us?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I just say words and you laugh. I don't know. It's a skill. It's a skill.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

One question that you had wished Justin Trudeau had answered differently. Let's go back. Take it back. If you had a time machine and you were advising Justin Trudeau, what would one question or one narrative be that he that he should have answered differently? Corey, I'll go with you first.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Well, I think none

SPEAKER_02 16:54

none of the answers were particularly bad. C51 was strong on the whole, what he was saying about it. He made some good points there, and he certainly managed to be the moderate middle. These guys want one extreme, these guys want the other. But the maybe I was naive was something that he should not have said.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Well, I mean, that was almost part of what Carter was saying, was that when he answered the C51 question, he asked people, or he mentioned that maybe I was naive in believing this, repeating the charge that was laid against him. Yet you still think that was a strong answer on whole when there's a very good chance that those four seconds when he mentions he's naive end up in an attack ad. Yeah, I do, because they

SPEAKER_02 17:34

they actually were pretty persuasive to me personally. So I'm taking my focus group of one, but I'm like, yeah, you know, that's as good of an explanation as I've ever seen. it's bullshit probably but it's as good as an explanation as i've ever seen for the liberals and why they voted the way they did yeah

Carter 17:50

yeah i think anytime you make a negative comment about yourself you're kind of destroying yourself because it's two things that are going to happen number one it it makes you look weak in that moment and this isn't a a conversation with voters everybody always talks about how we're going to have a conversation with voters it's not a conversation with voters um it is a monologue to voters and you have to present the best you uh by saying he was naive basically uh trudeau is is admitting that is admitting the charge that he's not ready yeah

SPEAKER_02 18:21

yeah and i'll tell you people make this mistake in their professional lives all the time but you you can't go in and sort of diminish yourself before you make your next statement people think it's a way to reduce expectations but like the worst thing you can do is about to make a presentation and be like, look, this presentation's not great. I didn't have a lot of time, but let me run you through it. Because what's in everybody's head after that is, well, this isn't a great presentation I'm seeing. They didn't have a lot of time putting it together, and so that's going to be reflected in the content. Here's my tip to listeners out there. Here's career advice for people out there. You go up, and even if you've just managed to slap down a few words on a pile of shit, you say, this is the best presentation you're ever going to see. because the way the way we work psychologically is is you've set the stage you've now framed this as the best presentation they're ever going to see and and um in the same way trudeau can't go around being like not ready maybe a little naive you know we we just latch on to things like that too quickly uh and politicians

SPEAKER_02 19:23

know much better than to make those mistakes

Carter 19:24

mistakes i mean and now that's and the second point zane is that that's going to show you were exactly right that thing is going to show up in an attack ad and that is going to be played it's going to be played back to back with budgets balance themselves budgets balance themselves perhaps i was naive budgets balance themselves perhaps i was naive budgets balance themselves perhaps i was naive we're going to hear that for the next you know 70 days and if the conservatives don't

SPEAKER_01 19:49

don't produce it seems like you're going to be doing it yourself i

Carter 19:51

i think we should do it i think you do a mashup what's

SPEAKER_02 19:55

what's going to happen is the conservatives are going to release this ad with trudeau saying budgets don't balance themselves talk about and now we're back in deficit and then say maybe i was naive and yeah

SPEAKER_02 20:05

and like any these guys they have no compunction that like they're totally fine taking things out of context oh they'll

SPEAKER_01 20:11

they'll take it all out of context they would never do that they would never take things out of context guys listen so so i'm hearing from you cory that the one thing that you would you would prep trudeau for would not be repeating the charge just want to be clear here. Is that what it is? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Carter, what would you have done differently if you were prepping Justin Trudeau?

Carter 20:30

I'm going to piggyback on that one, but I also probably would have demanded a much stronger economic answer. I mean, the idea, I

Carter 20:38

I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of the middle class answer. Maybe I'm just, you know, fatigued on it. But I think that he

Carter 20:46

needs to actually say something specific periodically instead of these generalizations that we're going to make things is better for the middle class. I just, how, I mean, how, how are you going to make my life easier? Mulcair's, uh, 16 or $17 a day, uh, for childcare was very specific and very easy to grab onto.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Carter. I think it's adorable. You think you're middle class. That's listen,

Carter 21:09

listen, buddy. We all think we're middle class. The beauty of Trudeau's, the beauty of Trudeau's piece, you know, is that everybody's middle class. And it depends on which province I'm in as to whether they're not a middle class so

SPEAKER_01 21:19

so so stephen harper did not escape i'm gonna just power through that you guys in your economic discussions of how much money you think you do or do not have compared to the rest i

Carter 21:29

i have no money because we spend on vacation even

SPEAKER_01 21:30

even we agree we both have more money than zane right oh

Carter 21:33

oh way more uh

SPEAKER_01 21:35

uh listen that's just that's just the white man trying to push me down and now i'll persevere i'll

SPEAKER_01 21:43

is that is that uh is that uh slanderous i don't even know Why don't you

Carter 21:46

you just go to race again?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Hey, listen, I'm the only guy here advocating for a minority government. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah, I'm just going to power through. I should

SPEAKER_02 22:00

should have done that when I said that.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Stephen Harper did not leave this debate unscathed himself. There was a few issues, the energy sector versus the environment, environment, most specifically the economy, when Tom Mulcair got a zinger in to mention that we are in a recession. Stephen Harper did not go unscathed. If there was one element of his debate prep that you would have done differently or what he did on stage that you would have done differently, what would you have advised him? Stephen, I'll start with you.

Carter 22:32

Man, it's really hard. I really thought that Harper had a really good debate prep or a good debate prep and really good debate performance. I'm not sure there's much

SPEAKER_01 22:42

I would change. I know you liked his debate prep. I think you said he won this debate. What, if anything, I guess is the question, can you do to defend yourself as the incumbent from getting all these attacks constantly? You've been in that position. You can't, okay. You can't.

Carter 22:58

can't. You're going to get crucified. You must, all you can do is, and so prep for For the 2012 election for Alison Redford, focused on we are going to get absolutely attacked. What does a victory look like for us? And it was, as Corey said earlier, simply surviving and coming out looking like you held your own. We thought we had a tremendous success in 2012. The media and the pundits said that we'd lost. But the people, when we got back into the polling, the people saw that she'd survived or that, you know, we were getting almost an equal number of victory perceptions as anybody else. And we thought, you know, that's as good as you can hope for. Stephen Harper did better than that. Stephen Harper did better than Alison Redford did in 2012. Stephen Harper has done better than I think most incumbents do when all the guns are aimed at them. And it's because Stephen Harper has done this time and time again, and I don't think that Justin Trudeau is a better debate performer than Michael Ignatieff, and I don't think that Thomas Mulcair is a better debate performer than Jack Layton. So he did better.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

That's interesting. Corey, so I'm hearing Stephen say that the guns are going to face you if you are the incumbent, but I want to push back a little bit to his point. point. Stephen Harper, the day after the debate yesterday, was on TV constantly explaining what he meant by the recession answer that he gave. Was that anything that, is there anything he could have done in terms of PrEP and how he navigated that question differently in your mind? Or do you think that was just a road he had to go down?

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Well, I think it was a road he goes down Thursday night or he goes down in a couple of weeks when the economic data for the next month is out. And don't know if that was such a big deal uh but there were things harper could have improved on and maybe we're just trying to gild the lily now because we agree harper won but let me be clear

SPEAKER_02 24:59

there were some words he overused right and those were the words he overused let me be clear and obviously and those phrases he risks looking a little smug um and and he looked at certain points with his harper lean you know what i'm talking about when he leaned against the podium him and almost smirked at his opponents. He was getting pretty close to the line. He looked comfortable. It was a little much at times, though, I think. And I think he's just got to watch his natural hatred for those guys.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

You're prepping Tom Mulcair.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Do you do something differently? Do you try to tone down the happy Tom? What do you do differently if you're prepping Tom Mulcair for this debate?

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Well, yeah, I tone it down. There's probably a middle ground between that and uh and his normal personality um i get him to stop whatever he was doing with his eyes because like that that like wide-eyed thing was scaring the crap out of me i should say i watched the debate twice i watched the debate once in a bar and

Carter 25:58

this is what people do yeah exactly watch it twice and we

SPEAKER_02 26:01

we found the one bar in the city and i couldn't really hear what was being said but i I could see it. And I'm like, wow, what's going on there? And the second time, I was in

SPEAKER_02 26:12

in transit for part of it. And so I wasn't really watching it. I could just hear it. And I had a totally different feeling. It was like that whole Kennedy-Nixon thing about the two times. But

SPEAKER_02 26:22

that's the tone. I think his biggest problem by far, though, was on the Clarity Act question and the way he went after Trudeau and how badly he did in that situation and how he kept digging Digging himself deeper into the hole.

Carter 26:44

don't know. I think that his attacks on Mulcair actually were pretty good, especially the clarity attack.

Carter 26:53

if I'm Mulcair's team, I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out how

Carter 26:58

how to deal with Trudeau because I think that my votes come from there, not from the conservatives now. I think that Mulcair has got every vote that he's going to get from the Conservatives. So the rest have to come from the Liberals. And that means that you have to prep him for Trudeau. And Trudeau did better than I think people were expecting, which is why so many people have said that Trudeau won the debate. It's only because, you know, as Corey Tanik said, you

Carter 27:24

know, if Trudeau shows up with pants, he's going to, you know, he'll win the debate with his pants on. And he did show up with his pants on. So, things seem to be working out for Trudeau. So, Mulcair has to do, Mulcair, I think, has to focus his prep now on Justin Trudeau and stop worrying about the prime minister.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

How important is the post-debate, the days after spin that each of the parties put out there? What do you guys make of the narratives that they all try to tease out from this debate and push forward on the campaign trail? And more specifically, who do you think has the best chance of getting their message out post-debate? I

SPEAKER_02 28:04

I think it's pretty important because more people hear debate commentary than watch the debates. And, I mean, it's funny sometimes. All of the parties claim that they won. The best was Harper's first graphic that claimed he won. Oh, yeah. Minister. That was fantastic. Minister. Minister. Minister. but some moments that seem like no big deals in the moment are the ones that come and blow up and expand like i during the alberta debate you know math is difficult you saw spike on twitter people were like did he really just say that but i sure i mean you could go back roll the tapes on our last debate episode when we did the alberta debate but i don't think really any of us mentioned that i think it got mentioned once but it certainly wasn't the big focus of ours but as the days rolled out and people started talking more about it and it became clear that comment really pissed people off uh more came and you're seeing the same with this recession comment you know and that was rooted

SPEAKER_01 29:01

rooted in in part in the way it became so viral was because it was rooted into a larger narrative of who jim prentice was right math is difficult look in the mirror do you did you feel like there was any comments made that were uh potentially damaging maybe not in the moment but but could start setting up a larger narrative for one of these leaders. I

Carter 29:25

the nine comment. I like Justin Trudeau's nine is my number, and then the explanation that nine Supreme Court justices. I like that, and it actually plays to what Corey has been harping on, which is one of the things that Trudeau can play that he hasn't played yet, which is the National Unity Card. I wouldn't play it, but if they're going to play it, you've got yourself a backdrop right now where you can start to say, you know, he's the only one who looks at the Supreme Court. He's the only one who's understanding this. He's the only one who's talking about it. And I think he could turn it into not necessarily a math is difficult level of thing, but something that's pretty big.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

You've enticed me enough. Why would you not play it? Is it just simply because you don't think Canadians have the appetite for it right now?

Carter 30:09

I think it's the same thing as with the Senate reform, the constitutional Senate reform. Trudeau's answer on that was really good. I mean, are you going to go to the premiers years and instead of talking about jobs you're going to start talking about a constitutional amendment to abandon abolish the senate and it's not going to happen on any level so uh yeah i i kind of liked i

Carter 30:29

liked you know i think that the the

Carter 30:32

national unity discussion isn't something that's going to move votes but i think it is there i think uh you could take it and run with it and see what happens but so can you turn it into an issue it's the difference between taking taking an issue and making it yours, or taking something that's not an issue and making it an issue.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

I think that that's what they would have to do in terms of their strategy. Well, I see now I disagree about only the end of that, about it's not really an issue. I think that's a very Western Canadian view of things. I'm the only one on this podcast who's had the benefit of not being from Alberta originally. I'll tell you, the unity debate feels very different, very different in central Canada. When you're in Ontario and it's right next door you're talking about, when Quebec is right there across the river to the good people of Ottawa. The whole notion of Quebec's place in Confederation takes up a ton more mindshare on a daily basis than it ever will out here on the prairies, or wherever the hell you are right now, Carter. I don't even know where you are. But I

SPEAKER_02 31:31

do think that was Trudeau's strongest moment and Mulcair's weakest moment. I couldn't understand why Mulcair kept going after him to try to, you know, where's, what do you keep saying? What's your number, Justin? What's your number? didn't understand yeah

SPEAKER_01 31:44

yeah almost asking him as if like his report card was out and asking him what his grades were like an angry father we've

SPEAKER_02 31:50

we've had some good metaphors the past few days on that zane what that looked like um but

SPEAKER_02 31:56

trudeau just killed him with the soundbite the nine nine supreme court justices is my number i thought that was great and i actually thought i really

Carter 32:03

really like that it

SPEAKER_02 32:04

it didn't come out after the first or second what's your number justin but like the The third, it sounded in the moment. It sounded, I don't know that it was, but it just sounded so good. And then he kept going on it and he gave Justin the opportunity to explain the Supreme Court's position and how they've said, you need to consider the threshold in context of the question. So a total loss for Mulcair and a total win for Trudeau. I think we're going to be seeing more of that. That

SPEAKER_01 32:31

That debate or that exchange was between Mulcair and Trudeau. And the person standing completely silent until he chimed in at the last second was Stephen Harper when he chimed in and he said, kids, why are you arguing about breaking up the country? And what that makes me realize, and it's probably not an insight to any degree, is that there is only one guy in this election that is prime minister and that can have that 10 years of statesman baggage and take it with him everywhere he goes and make comments like that with that gravitas. How important is that when it comes to issues like this, that Stephen Harper has the ability to kind of elevate the debate and stay above the fray? And is that something he will do as we have more debates and as the issues of these debates are put back onto the campaign trail?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

yeah, it's a huge advantage. And you're right. As much as I say that was a great moment for Trudeau, it might have been an even better one for Harper. You're pouring gas on a fire that's burned down or isn't even out or something

Carter 33:35

something like that. And this is my point about that, right? Like, it's about, you

Carter 33:38

you know, it's not really anybody's burning issue right now. Well,

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Well, but... I know,

Carter 33:44

know, you're going to tell me that I'm wrong,

Carter 33:45

wrong, but, you know... This

SPEAKER_02 33:47

This is not an election, really, between Harper

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Harper and either of those guys individually. Harper is trying to triangulate keeping those guys at the same level. So, Trudeau and Mulcair are really... You know, the funny thing about this election is, in my opinion, the big fight is really Trudeau versus Mulcair. Yeah. And the outcome of that fight determines the prime minister, and it could be any one of three people as a result of the outcome of that fight.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Carter, do you agree? Do you think that – and we are taking a little bit of a detour, but do you think that it is in Harper's best interest to keep this a three-way race through and through?

Carter 34:21

Absolutely. I mean, when you're a guy who's going to top-end max out at 38% or 40% of the vote – 38, I think, is his top-end max out. I mean, we'll see, maybe I'll be wrong, but he doesn't have a lot of vote left to go get.

Carter 34:37

If he's going to hold a majority government, he's going to need to have that vote spread into key regions, and he's going to need to have the opposition party split the rest. So he needs both a strong Liberal Party and a strong NDP. And in some regards, he might even require the Bloc Québécois to pop back up onto the scene every once in a while. I don't think he's going to be unhappy with a minority. A strong minority will suit him just fine.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Okay, so I have two quick questions and I want to move it on here. Number one, who takes away the greatest sort of ceiling or leverage from this debate going forward? Quick answer, Corey.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

I think Trudeau because now he can screw up a debate and people won't say he's out. If he'd blown this first one, I really think the campaign may have been over for the liberals in a hurry. Carter? I

Carter 35:28

I think Trudeau as well. I mean, this is a – he

Carter 35:32

he did better than expected and now he's got – and on top of that, he's still got room where he can grow and become a better performer.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

In quantifiable terms or maybe not even as such, how important was this debate? I mean, early August, is there – should this really matter? Should we dedicate a whole episode to it? I mean, how much does this matter, Carter? I

Carter 35:51

I don't think it matters at all. I mean, I was watching different newscasts and different man-on-the-street interviews, and I think we were the only ones who watched.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Yeah, I did a couple of different interviews on it yesterday. The first ones, you know, we'd start recording, and I'd realize, oh, shit, I can't really think of anything I think interesting happened last night. Yeah. And as it went on, more of it kind of crystallized for me. But I do think it matters, but it matters because it didn't matter, if that works for you. If this debate had become a big moment, it would have changed the tenor of the campaign early on. But no outcome was an outcome, and it meant the status quo was going to continue for at least the next couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

That was like six riddles in one sentence.

Carter 36:33

Yeah, that was totally.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I'm moving it on. Our final segment, the over, under, and the lightning round. Guys, let's go with it. Justin Trudeau, score of 75 out of 100, over or under?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

have Tom Mulcair score of

SPEAKER_01 36:51

of 50 out of 100 over under over

SPEAKER_01 36:56

you give him over 50 yeah

SPEAKER_01 36:58

who won bigger in this debate Twitter or BuzzFeed oh BuzzFeed that was BuzzFeed

Carter 37:03

BuzzFeed nailed it man that was great I

SPEAKER_02 37:05

I can't believe they got that like gestures thing up so quickly that was that

Carter 37:08

that and it was so good too it was very funny it

SPEAKER_01 37:11

it was and I know it's the lightning red but impact of social going forward, an impact of shareable social going forward. Important, not so important, what do you think?

Carter 37:21

Massively important if it jumps to Facebook, not so important if it stays on Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

I continue to think Twitter's the incubator. Very important.

Carter 37:28

But if it stays in the incubator, it doesn't have any impact.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

which party is doing the most pondering this weekend in their war room about their candidates' debate? The

Carter 37:41

I think the NDP.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Should Elizabeth May be invited to more debates? No.

Carter 37:47

Yes. I mean, first of all, she's the only female voice, and yes, that matters as much as I hate to make it about gender. And number two, she was really good, and having her there has changed the tone and tenor of the debate.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Having her there works wonders for Stephen Harper because it means that the left gets split even a little bit more. But the reality

Carter 38:05

is I want to see a debate. Elizabeth May wins is going to be a big deal in the overall thing. Well,

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Well, I want to see a debate between three potential prime

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Who had the best tone and delivery on debate night?

SPEAKER_01 38:23

And finally, I think you've answered this, but the big mo going forward, the big momentum going forward out of this debate into this weekend and next week goes to? The

Carter 38:30

The big momentum. It's a little itty bitty bit of momentum. The big summer momentum. It's

Carter 38:35

little itty bitty bit goes

SPEAKER_01 38:35

goes to Stephen Harper

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Harper in my mind. Who takes away the big mo? Stephen Harper.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yeah, I guess Trudeau would be my answer.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Oh, so I was expecting both of you to say Trudeau on that.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Nonetheless, that is our Saturday morning edition of The Strategist. We will be back very soon. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we will see you next time.

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