Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is The Strategist, episode 576. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up?
Zain
0:10
Happy Monday. Oh, it is Monday. We are recording during the Western Conference Finals, Corey. I don't know why we're doing this. Oh, it hurts
Corey
0:17
only game one, though. What
Zain
0:21
Please go away. And if
Zain
0:23
if you think we're giving any love to the Raptors, no, we're not. No, absolutely not. They're a terrible team. It's in the East.
Zain
0:28
That conference is a joke.
Zain
0:30
I wanted to get that on the record. We don't care. Hold on.
Carter
0:33
on. Both of your teams have been eliminated, right? My
Zain
0:36
My team didn't even make the playoffs.
Zain
0:38
mine has been eliminated,
Carter
0:39
eliminated, unfortunately. So you guys are just throwing stones at a very popular Canadian brand because you want our podcast to not be loved.
Corey
0:47
loved. I don't know if you've ever met sports fans before, but we don't need to be reasonable when it comes
Corey
0:51
this. This is true.
Carter
0:53
Logic is thrown out the window. We should totally do a sports podcast then because we're not reasonable at all. Carter, do
Carter
0:57
do you want to
Zain
0:58
sports podcast? You guys
Carter
0:59
guys have a sports podcast? It's actually called
Zain
1:00
called a sport podcast for you. That's really
Carter
1:01
really good. You would call
Zain
1:04
How sporting of you. We should talk politics, shouldn't we? We probably should. Let's get into it. Our first segment, Oh Say Can You See the Finish Line. It is here. It is done. It is almost done. Corey Hogan, any thoughts so far
Zain
1:17
on how this thing has ended or is going to end in the United States?
Corey
1:23
Well, the end games are pretty fascinating, right? We have a conclusion.
Corey
1:29
Jeb Bush is now the candidate for the GOP, as Stephen Carter predicted, with a lot of assertion. We're not going
Zain
1:36
going back. We are going back there because
Zain
1:39
because I want to go back there. Well,
Corey
1:41
Well, so what if we've still got a field of 10? What if Trump is winning these primaries with 25% of the vote and getting all the delegates in? Oh, my God. That's a disaster. So they've really got to narrow their field pretty quickly once these primaries and caucuses start. Or
Corey
1:54
Or this could very easily be Trump. I'm actually not willing to discount Trump yet for that very reason. Things could happen.
Corey
2:02
I accidentally played the clip where I
Corey
2:03
I was right about
Zain
2:04
what was going to happen. Oh, is there more, though? Is there more to that? There may actually
Corey
2:08
actually be a clip that is
Zain
2:09
more relevant. So that's where Corey is. I don't know why I'm just jumping on board with you. I just like watching Carter's face.
Carter
2:14
Jeb Bush needs to survive this primary and compete in a general. Jeb
Corey
2:18
Jeb Bush is not surviving this
Carter
2:19
He's totally surviving this primary. Mark it down on your calendar, okay?
Carter
2:23
Stephen Carter said today Jeb Bush is the guy.
Zain
2:27
Now, what I love about that is I tried to give you an escape hatch when I said hold on. You did not want to hedge. No. Let
Zain
2:34
Let me just tell you something.
Carter
2:38
That may appear to the casual listener that I was incorrect. Corey,
Carter
2:43
me being right in theory and principle. principle and the republican voters all being wrong because
Carter
2:50
because that's all that's really happened
Corey
2:52
that was episode 558 it was from november um we were in washington dc it's really i love it that was us in the states so to be clear this was not even like a year ago this is when maybe people should have started figuring out trump might be a risk oh that's amazing that's
Zain
3:07
that's where we're at right now let's talk about let's talk about trump for a second okay we'll we'll we'll let it slide we We won't harp on you even more than that, Carter. Took a beating
Carter
3:15
I'm feeling a little beat
Zain
3:17
beat up here. It was kind of drive-by, too. We just went at it, slashed you, and then just moved on. To be honest,
Carter
3:22
honest, I think we had the production capacity to play clips. I had no idea.
Zain
3:29
We have. We've played
Carter
3:30
We've played a few. From previous
Zain
3:32
In the 200s, we used to do them all the time. Yeah,
Carter
3:35
we had to go. When Chester put that training
Zain
3:37
training order on. Carter, give me this. Let's start broadly. Is a Trump pivot actually possible in the general election?
Carter
3:43
He becomes palatable and pivots towards something that's legit? Well, he
Zain
3:47
he becomes palatable on the things he's already stood firmly on, which seem to be xenophobic, racist, discriminatory.
Zain
3:56
When that is your core, is a pivot actually possible?
Carter
4:01
History would prove that, yes, it is. People don't –
Carter
4:05
so there's two types of electors, right? Right. I mean, we pretend like the Republicans and the Democrats represent the full field of elect of American voters.
Carter
4:11
voters. And it's actually a very small percentage of the population that actually gets out and votes in a Democratic primary Republican
Carter
4:18
So the people that are left over, I
Carter
4:20
I wouldn't surprise me at all if they're not remembering all of Trump's incredibly stupid statements, which is one of the reasons I think that Hillary is running the the ads that she's running right now, pulling together clips so that people do not forget. debt. And these are
Zain
4:36
are the clips of other GOP members just talking down on Trump.
Carter
4:40
Oh, yeah. And every
Carter
4:43
left-leaning media organization is pulling them together as well. I mean, there's all kinds of places where people
Carter
4:49
people are going to be reminded of Trump. And the reason that they're being reminded of Trump is that organizations
Carter
4:54
organizations think that this is legitimately going to happen, that Trump could
Zain
5:00
Okay. So, Corey, I want to go back to my original question. I want to talk actually about Clinton's strategy there for a second as well. My original question, if your core is ultimately rooted in this xenophobia, this discrimination, this potentially this hatred, is a pivot possible in the general election? He can pivot on the small things like taxes and minimum wage, but can he actually pivot?
Corey
5:21
Well, it's pretty disappointing to me that taxes and minimum wage, also known as policy, are small things. But let's take your question. Let's take your question. And I think what you're about to say is exactly why the answer is yes, absolutely. He can. We started off pretty appropriately, I think, talking about sports fans not being reasonable. And what Donald Trump has managed to do is create a bit of a sports fan base. These people will stick with him through thick or thin, no matter what he says, they will take his hypocrisies, they will create justifications, they will dismiss all of the criticism of him as coming from an establishment that doesn't know what they're talking about, and has led them astray. and this is almost
Corey
5:57
almost uniquely something that the uh republican voters have these days not unique that's almost that's just too smug but the fact is you'll find this a lot more on the republican side these days than the democrats what i find i
Corey
6:12
don't know if trump did this on purpose or if he's backed into this but i'm increasingly concerned that donald trump is going to win this election and
Corey
6:19
and that's because i don't think he could do anything to
Corey
6:22
to get his voters not to vote vote for him. And he would have to do something pretty outrageous to get Republicans not to vote for him, as evidenced by all of the Republicans who once said he was essentially a tyrant and a fascist now willing to back him. That should scare people. But the
Corey
6:37
the Democrats that he is now making an appeal to with some of these left-wing policies may be a little bit more open to that. The independents, certainly, who went for Bernie Sanders, who showed a disdain for establishment establishment on the left, may actually think that the economic socialism, the economic left that Donald, there is a chance, let's just put it this way, that Donald Trump will be the economic left candidate in this election if he continues pulling the moves that he's pulling. And if he marries that with the fact that he's got a base that won't go anywhere, who knows what
Carter
7:06
what happens. Jack, Kikori's
Corey
7:07
Kikori's blowing my mind a little bit, Carter. Do you, what
Carter
7:08
what do you think, do you think that's possible? Jack Mintz, the former head of the School of Public Policy here at the University of of Calgary, took me aside and we were both on a TV show at one point and he, just
Carter
7:19
just kind of going in, he said casually, you know, you got to keep in mind that the people who are voting for Sanders are basically the people who are voting for Trump,
Carter
7:26
just two different types or two different spins on the same group of people.
Carter
7:30
It could be more reasonable for
Carter
7:32
for a Bernie Sanders voter to move to Trump than it is to expect him to move to the other side. But ultimately, my question is what the core of Trump represents. OK, but what the core of Trump represents isn't that racism piece that we think it is. It isn't the misogyny. It isn't. I mean, that's a lot of
Zain
7:48
of what he's talked about. It's
Carter
7:49
It's about he's a maverick.
Carter
7:51
He's a maverick. And there's a grand history of electing mavericks. Right. People from outside the establishment. Yeah.
Carter
7:57
You know, this is this is the way that it works sometimes is that, you know, you elect people that say outlandish things and do outlandish things. And you can look at the history of the United States, not necessarily the presidential level. but certainly at the statehood level and at the representative level, the state senator level. I mean, these people are oftentimes downright cuckoo, and they get elected not once but time after time. And it is not unreasonable to think that
Carter
8:25
that people who were voting for Bernie Sanders are going to be so disillusioned and pissed off with Hillary Clinton that
Carter
8:31
that they move to Trump. Corey,
Zain
8:32
Corey, how do you marry this new theory that you talk about with the mass negatives that donald trump brings in as baggage is that
Corey
8:42
i've said this if i've said this once i've said this a thousand times and that's that people get used to things and yeah and the norm and the status quo shifts and i actually believe it's it
Corey
8:52
it may be a mistake for clinton to be running these ads this i wanted to get into that so tell me it is not a mistake if it stops the republican party from coalescing around donald trump because that is game over donald trump cannot win if the republicans run a third party split that vote and
Corey
9:07
that could lead to some interesting things but i'm sure we'll get to that it is a huge mistake if they still coalesce around uh donald trump because then what you have is a situation where everybody has just heard for another six months these charges and they stop they
Corey
9:20
stop being shocking right
Corey
9:22
right they stop scaring
Corey
9:23
scaring the crap out of you because you've heard them so many times they no longer fascinate
Carter
9:28
yeah so case in point his his spokesperson thing yeah
Carter
9:31
yeah where trump served as his own spokesperson right
Zain
9:35
audio recording of him trying to serve as i mean
Carter
9:37
cnn put together a devastating clip clip uh of essentially taking voice analysis
Carter
9:43
yeah taking the same phrasings that he said back then and putting against phrasings that he's saying now right
Carter
9:50
and it was absolutely conclusive in my mind but i think that most people like that's now the price of doing business for trump This is what we expect of Trump. Of course he was his own publicist. Corey, I want to let
Zain
10:00
let you finish your point there as well. You said people get used to this and you were continuing on ultimately, right?
Corey
10:05
Well, I'm sure I was, but I can't remember where it was going now.
Corey
10:08
The problem I have with Donald Trump in general and our people's reaction to it is it would
Corey
10:13
would have been helpful yesterday, yesterday being broadly defined as the start of these primaries, and it would be helpful tomorrow. But it's not helpful right now unless it actually stops the Republicans from coalescing around him because all it's doing is dulling the charges that we're going to have to deal with going forward. Look, America at one point waterboarded
Corey
10:34
And I think if we take that fact in isolation, it's pretty scary. But we've just been talking about it for 10 years. It's no longer interesting. And the same thing will happen with Donald Trump. You
Corey
10:42
You think we'll get over it? Donald Trump is human waterboarded.
Carter
10:48
like it. They elected Bush twice.
Carter
10:49
This is true. George W. Bush twice. His father, I think, was qualified and had a lot of, you
Carter
10:54
you know, at least seemed
Carter
10:56
seemed normal. George W. Bush, you
Carter
10:59
you know, here's a guy who had drug problems, who was, you know, all kinds of issues, was
Carter
11:05
was not seen to be the sharpest tack in the drawer and suddenly comes out and he's the guy who's burned in the country not once but two times. This
Carter
11:14
This is not unheard of. Yeah.
Corey
11:16
You know, I think we're going to look back at George W. Bush and say those were the golden era of the GOP. He was
Corey
11:25
was the compassionate conservative people forget in 2000. John McCain was the maverick.
Corey
11:30
then John McCain became establishment in 08. Strangely enough, had to go even further, right? But I do want to say, I disagree somewhat with Stephen's assessment that the Sanders voters are so much more likely to go to Donald Trump. I didn't say
Carter
11:43
say so much more. I said they could very well go Donald Trump, in
Carter
11:47
because they're going to hate Hillary so much.
Corey
11:49
Well, look, and that I think is the next challenge that we should probably talk about, is the bringing together of the Democrats and how we think that is going. Because I would say not everything is swimming on that front right now. But I think the bigger risk is simply that the Sanders guys stay home, not that they vote for Trump. I
Zain
12:04
I want to get into that, Corey, but Carter, I want to give you the same opportunity to address the point Corey made about the Clinton ads. You brought it up. Corey said that this could or could not be a good strategy depending on the outcome and the result. What do you think of the ads that she's running right now? Ultimately, to give people context, this is everyone in the GOP establishment talking down on Trump in a one minute, one and a half minute ad. ad.
Carter
12:26
I see Corey's point. But I think that they had to run now.
Carter
12:30
And the reason they had to run now is because she knew and anticipated, perhaps more than we did, that
Carter
12:35
that the Republican establishment was going to go running back into Trump's arms. And they have gone one after the other after the other. And someone needed to stand up and say, just
Carter
12:45
just remember what they said a second ago.
Carter
12:47
And so that ad actually, in my mind, at the time, I thought, I like the ad, but I'm not sure why now. now and then now that i've seen them all run back into his arms now i get it okay
Zain
12:58
okay so you you bring me right to my next point which is ultimately cory the gop insiders right these are the people who for months were talking down on trump or trying to distance themselves if you're advising them on the inside today do
Zain
13:10
do you tell them to go give him a big hug and join the celebration what are you telling them to do today because there's this really distancing but also defending combination that many of them are trying to play well
Corey
13:22
that depends on my goals if my goals are the strength of the republican party i'd say yes if it's defense of the constitution and the united states of america i say no uh
Corey
13:32
some of trump's comments have been interesting when he said things like we're the republican party not the conservative party right he's trying to clearly define something other than what it has been right and he's really made it more a populist party in some very ugly senses i think we can agree oh yeah more than a conservative party And he seems to be willing to double down on that now that we're going into a general election.
Corey
13:54
if I am the Republican Party strategist who just cares about Republicans winning, I've
Corey
13:59
I've already said I think this guy can win. And I think step one on that is you've got to have the party united behind him.
Corey
14:05
That's step one. So yes, I would say if you want the Republicans to win, go for it. Now, I want to be very clear, as
Corey
14:11
as a human being, that would not be my advice to anybody. everybody.
Zain
14:15
Carter, you're advising the GOP right now. What do you tell the insiders? Are you telling them to go? Effectively, my question is, do they have any legacy concerns that they should be cognizant of by running to Trump, who might be a bad cause this year, while potentially damaging their legacy in years going forward?
Carter
14:34
don't think anybody can ever criticize you for running and supporting the guy who won.
Carter
14:37
In your party? Right. I mean, you're supporting the party, right?
Carter
14:40
right? And you're a good soldier when you stand up and you support the party.
Carter
14:43
So it's very difficult to be the
Carter
14:46
the bad person. I mean, when Peter McKay won the leadership in 2003, I was working for Jim Prentice, and I went and supported Peter McKay because Peter McKay won. Right. And that's the way it's done. You go to the person who wins the nomination, that's
Carter
15:01
that's party politics, and then you work for them.
Carter
15:03
But it's the second part that
Carter
15:05
matters in this particular example
Carter
15:09
how hard are you going to work for them, right?
Carter
15:10
right? Right. There is throwing your whole heart and soul and machine into making sure that he's going to help or
Carter
15:17
or he's going to get elected.
Carter
15:18
And then there's throwing your whole heart and machine, as
Carter
15:21
as Senator McCain has already indicated, into your own reelection. Senator
Carter
15:26
McCain has said this is going to be his hardest reelection ever.
Carter
15:30
And it's because Trump's at the top of the ticket and he's not going to be supporting Trump. He'll he'll, you know, carry
Zain
15:35
carry the banner. He'll say the words.
Carter
15:36
words. words. Actually, he probably won't say the words, but he, you know, he'll do what he needs to do to be loyal to the party, but he's going to be loyal to Senator McCain first. Corey,
Zain
15:46
Corey, what's the risk right now? If I'm in the GOP establishment, if I'm not, you know, if I'm hedging, if I'm someone like Paul Ryan, who's ultimately like, I can't do it yet, I can't do it yet. You know, I'm not there yet. There
Zain
15:57
There is political risk to that if Trump becomes president, right? Like these people who are not coming on board, you
Zain
16:03
you know, as great and bold as it may look today there's a political risk that they run is there not i'm
Corey
16:09
little disappointed paul ryan has shown such receptivity to donald trump i felt a lot better about him when i thought he was taking a principled stance but now i just feel like he's looking at which way the wind blows he's being a bit of a weather vane on this and he will get behind donald trump by the looks of things if everybody else does but he wants to be the guy who can say in 2020 with 2020 hindsight i suppose as you could say that he
Corey
16:34
he knew donald trump was bad and yeah look at him he was on the record saying this wasn't such a great guy i kind
Corey
16:40
kind of feel like he's trying to have his cake and eat it too at this point is there room for that for anyone to do on the geo yeah it's not like this is a new concept in
Corey
16:48
in politics i just think it's pretty
Corey
16:50
pretty disappointing when you talk about what a culture shock and how big donald trump could be yeah
Zain
16:55
yeah carter one more question on this on the establishment you are so you're telling people to go run right support donald trump if you're part of the party at the same time are you are you beginning even in this early stage right now to
Zain
17:09
to somehow prevent from a next donald trump happening is
Zain
17:13
is that something you're concerned about today or is that a post-election concern because you
Zain
17:18
you don't want this to take over your party do you cory
Carter
17:20
cory i ably in an earlier podcast pointed out that
Carter
17:25
rules were changed after the republican Republican National Convention four years ago to make it easier for a candidate like Mitt Romney the
Zain
17:32
the establishment candidate to sew
Carter
17:33
sew up the nomination right um they
Carter
17:37
they will rewrite the rules for four years from now yeah
Carter
17:40
sure that Donald Trump cannot win the nomination but
Carter
17:43
but they will be four years behind and they will be running the election that was
Carter
17:47
was held before not the election that's going to be held next so in my mind it won't matter particularly much because uh especially something like a populism movement is just so strong Yeah. That it's it just takes over and creates its own momentum. Right.
Corey
18:03
Right. As we saw with Trump. I look forward to seeing how badly the RNC fucks up these rule changes to create the
Zain
18:11
Corey, is there any chance of a shadow campaign within the GOP RNC right now of
Zain
18:16
of a potential third party? Anyone trying to potentially sabotage the top of the ticket so they can save the rest of the party? I know these are thoughts we've discussed previously.
Zain
18:24
Standing right now, what do you think of that notion? People are
Corey
18:27
are sure trying. I think it
Corey
18:29
it would be very tough. I think if I was going to be doing something like that, if I were them, I'd be looking at states that the Republicans run up massive margins in, but where a moderate might do okay. I mean, some states, there are a number of states, about 15, where the Republicans got about 20% margin or better, right? Right. In the general. Yeah. And here's what I think your strategy is in these situations. It's not to run somebody in the swing states, because all you're going to do is make sure Hillary Clinton definitely gets the electoral votes in the swing states. It's actually to run people in the third party in the strong Republican states and throw enough votes that it ends up in the House of Representatives. representatives uh because for those who don't know under the u.s constitution if you don't get an outright majority in the electoral college then it goes to a vote in the house of representatives which is still probably more likely than not to be republican controlled and hopefully their cooler heads could prevail could be the thinking if you're the republican trying to do right but i think the notion of just running a third party candidate across the board i
Corey
19:27
don't know how that helps you you're just going to be splitting votes everywhere yeah how
Corey
19:31
how how much would donald trump Like, let's just put it this way. If Donald Trump averages getting like 8%, 8%, okay, and
Corey
19:40
and the rest of the Republican vote all goes to this new third party candidate. Well,
Corey
19:45
Well, here's the states. Let me just read you a quick list of the states that all of a sudden are now in
Corey
19:52
in the Democratic category that wouldn't necessarily have been, right? right?
Corey
19:56
Virginia, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Nebraska, Georgia.
Corey
20:00
That's it. It's over. You have lost all of your swing states and they are all easily going to Hillary Clinton. So it doesn't really make a lot of sense to run a third party candidate if
Corey
20:13
you think that's going to get to that scenario of progressive representatives.
Corey
20:17
If everywhere, right? I mean, if you run everywhere, it's just a kamikaze mission. I applaud you for that, but it's not going to help the Republicans in any way, shape or form, keep the presidency or get the presidency, I should say. Carter,
Zain
20:28
Carter, what do you think of a shadow campaign third party candidate started from the inside of the GOP? You think that's a viable, useful strategy at this junction?
Carter
20:37
I think when Bloomberg
Carter
20:40
Bloomberg decided not to do it, that was it.
Carter
20:43
It was over. You think it
Zain
20:44
it ended with one guy in that sense? Well,
Carter
20:46
Well, anybody doing the math is going to come in. You know, Corey's a very limited strategist and was able to come up with it right there. and you know he didn't spend a lot of time on that i can assure you that anybody doing the math has to figure out how would you know how would we actually win this thing i mean sure is there a california republican that could step up and do this no there's not there's no one who can do this unless we came up with the what was the amendment that put there was a movie that uh sorts of the schwarzenegger amendment where foreigners could become president so that we could have president Oh,
Carter
21:18
Oh, that happened in Demolition
Carter
21:20
Man, yeah. But that's just not going to happen. There is no – you have to kind of launch from one of the states that would matter in this. Like that was Perot's thing. Perot ultimately
Carter
21:30
ultimately didn't care because he didn't give a shit about the Republicans nor did he give a shit about the Democrats.
Carter
21:38
Anybody who does care about the Democrats or the Republicans will not launch a campaign.
Zain
21:42
Corey, let's move it to the DNC. Let's go back to actually that notion that you brought up earlier. How is this
Zain
21:47
this patching of the Bernie Sanders camp and supporters and the inevitable Hillary Clinton victory going so far? If
Corey
21:55
If you were to rank it right now, how's that going? Yeah, not good. If I was going to give it a letter grade, probably a C minus or a D. Yeah. The problem is somebody
Corey
22:04
somebody has to tell the Bernie Sanders supporters it's over, right?
Zain
22:08
Sanders knows it's over. I think that's pretty
Corey
22:10
pretty clear. Yeah, but even he, he's doing the same speeches. He's riling up the same people. He's still making his stump speech attacks on Hillary Clinton. Are you surprised by that? Because we thought he'd stop. I thought he would dial it down. Yeah. I think that perhaps in an air war sense he has, but certainly on the ground he hasn't. And his supporters continue on abating. Right. The problem is they win a state and then they think they're still in it. They're not. That's the thing. He's still winning, right? That's really
Carter
22:33
really weird. He got West Virginia. He did.
Carter
22:36
Wow. I mean, he got seven more delegates than Hillary. That's
Zain
22:39
That's an interesting point Corey makes there, right? Because on the ground, it's like we won, right? We legitimately won a state. We're moving forward. I understand what you're trying to say.
Corey
22:47
say. It's like I remember I once walked into a campaign. I won't say what campaign it was. And they had this big map up on the wall of polls
Corey
22:55
polls in a riding. Sure. Right? And they were coloring them with polls they were winning. And they were sending – they
Corey
23:02
they were not sending door knockers to polls they were losing because this was a candidate who was an incumbent. So they're like, well, just go to the same polls we were winning. and i'm looking at it and they're sending people to a poll where turnout was 25 people just 25 people voted and yeah they won but they won it with like 13 votes yeah
Corey
23:18
right meanwhile they're ignoring a poll that they lost but it was a poll where over 200 people had voted right
Corey
23:23
right and so they weren't going and identifying those votes because frankly they
Corey
23:27
they were not thinking it beyond the level of like oh look we're winning these spots and we get more color but that's the thing about the the proportional race that the democrats have in the states is it doesn't matter bernie could win 49 of the states and clinton could you know totally clean his clock in the 50th and she could be the nominee right it's just how it works and frankly with all of the super delegates behind her she could lose all 50 states and be the nominee the problem that bernie sanders has right now is just one of like false hope and optimism it's like the stages of grief but they They can't get past denial.
Corey
24:00
Carter, if you're in the Hillary
Zain
24:00
Hillary Clinton camp, is there a olive branch of sorts you need to be putting out there at this junction? Or is this all on Bernie to effectively, you know, put his supporters in your camp? How does this work? That's ultimately my question. I
Carter
24:14
I mean, one could see Bernie sticking around until he was, you know, until the end of March, right? I thought that was kind of stupid, but you could see that there was a case
Carter
24:23
case where he could be heard. There were going to be some states that he could do really well in.
Carter
24:29
But then he stayed past the end of March.
Carter
24:31
And then he stayed past the end of April. And now he's going to stay past the end of May. There are no more olive branches to be handed out. Instead, we're just going to start beating him up with a stick. Because the guy isn't helping us. He's
Carter
24:44
He's not helping us. He's helping Donald Trump. And
Carter
24:46
And anybody that helps Donald Trump is a bad person in our minds. So we have to start beating on them with a stick. And the problem is, how do you beat on him with a stick? He's a gajillion-year-old man with his little following. So, I mean, I guess that Hillary's – if I was a Hillary campaigner, I'd be really pissed with the Bernie campaigners. And the problem that that creates is
Carter
25:09
how do you bring everybody back together? Well,
Corey
25:11
Well, yeah, I want to live off that. That is, in my opinion, the biggest problem right now. Look, I can understand why the Clinton people are pissed because they know math. I know math. I get it. You're going to win. And this guy's still in there kind of poking you. But the DNC is being pretty heavy handed. And I think that they're exact or they're exacerbating the situation at this point. They're doing things around the convention as to who's getting what and where. I don't want to get into the whole thing but the bottom line is Sanders
Corey
25:38
Sanders asks for X number
Corey
25:40
number of people and Clinton asks for X number of people and Sanders ends up getting zero and the DNC gives them all to Clinton people. Literally ignores Sanders' entire list and I get it. Clinton is going to be the nominee but you got to bring this party together and this is not how you bring a party together. As annoying as Sanders and his supporters are going to seem to you right now, you have to kill them with kindness, not bullets right now. Now, it's really important that you start thinking about how
Corey
26:07
how you're going to bring it all together. Because ultimately, unless your goal was just to win the Democratic nomination, do
Corey
26:13
better. Like Hillary Clinton, do better. You've won the Democratic nomination. Now you need to think about how to win the Democratic Party. And that is a different contest.
Zain
26:20
Well said. Carter, I want to go to you on this last question in this segment. The strategy of President Obama.
Zain
26:27
If you have the opportunity as a DNC right now to do anything with President Obama leading into this election, what
Zain
26:33
what are you doing with him? Because ultimately last week we saw him at a commencement speech really going after Trump in the very diplomatic way that Obama does. Is that the M.O. for Obama? How are you using him if you're thinking down the road of the strategy of Obama going forward? What sort of weapon is he for you?
Carter
26:54
Well, I really like the weapon that he's been playing. Yeah. I mean he didn't mention Trump by name in that commencement.
Zain
26:58
commencement. He did not, no, in the Rutgers commencement speech, right. And
Carter
27:03
I mean, anybody who, you know, who is
Carter
27:06
is on his side is more on his side now. And keep in mind that he has more people on his side than were on Hillary's side. I
Carter
27:13
I mean, this is kind of one of those really rare situations where you've got an incumbent president who's
Carter
27:19
who's finishing his second term, who is more popular than the nominee. Yeah.
Corey
27:23
Yeah. Right. Almost unheard. Well, I guess that was 2000 as well, but it is pretty much unheard of in a historical sense.
Carter
27:29
sense. Yeah. This is a big, this is a big switch so taking that guy and having him uh use some of that popularity to take down the the
Carter
27:38
the celebrity right is probably a pretty good thing obama has been incredibly successful over the years taking down donald trump um
Carter
27:46
um the press uh the
Carter
27:49
the press dinner yeah
Carter
27:50
do yeah i mean some of his funniest lines correspondence
Carter
27:54
yeah are attacking trump this commencement address Fantastic. I mean, there are so many great things that he can do if he chooses
Carter
28:03
chooses to do them. And he doesn't appear to be campaigning.
Carter
28:07
campaigning. That was the beautiful thing. He's not campaigning.
Carter
28:11
He's doing his job and pointing out all of the deficiencies of the other guy. I'm
Carter
28:16
I'm fine with it. I think that—
Zain
28:17
Do you think that's a correct use of the president in this regard? guard well
Carter
28:22
popularity is capital that is spent in politics right
Carter
28:25
right this is one of the things that that you have that that uh i
Carter
28:29
i try and explain to like to some of the candidates i've worked with if you're very very popular you
Carter
28:34
you have to spend some of that popularity to earn back your votes right you have to spend it to to get something to happen for you there is no sense in being unendingly popular and
Carter
28:45
and not doing anything right
Carter
28:46
right this is one of my great arguments about nenshi
Carter
28:49
He's at 95% popularity at one point. Then
Carter
28:53
Then he's at 80% popularity. And now he's at 60% popularity. And you say, okay, great. Good
Carter
28:58
Good job. You've spent 35% popularity. What did you get?
Carter
29:02
And the truth of the matter is he's got sweet fuck all, right?
Carter
29:05
right? You have to, if you're going to spend 35% of your capital or of your popularity, you better get something in return. And the reality is no
Carter
29:13
no one stays at the top level of their popularity. Everybody goes down. So you may as well spend it and get something for it. Corey,
Zain
29:20
Corey, the strategy of Obama, what do you think? Do you think the current use of him is how you would position if you're on the inside?
Corey
29:26
inside? He's being very measured. I think many of the assaults he's making on Trump, one of the reasons why the names are removed from them are that you could also take them as criticisms of the Sanders movement, right? You need to follow up rage with action, things like that. You need to actually step up. It can't just be about not liking the system that is, but having a practical, deliverable plan forward.
Corey
29:48
Yeah, that's something people have been saying about the Sanders camp too. I
Corey
29:52
I don't share the president's cynicism about Bernie Sanders on that front, but I think it's fascinating that in this kind of twilight period where Sanders
Corey
30:01
Sanders campaign is both dead and not dead, that he's managed to get into the fray without getting into the fray. Right. Right. And it's pretty clear to me that he wants Hillary Clinton just to wrap this up and to get on to the next thing.
Corey
30:14
He's doing fine. I actually think he's going to kick it up a notch. I think he'll be much more aggressive during the campaign. I think one of the reasons why he hasn't been as aggressive right now is because of that twilight I was talking about. Fair
Zain
30:25
Fair enough. We will leave it there. On to our next segment, Leaders Theater. Stephen Carter, let's talk about leaderships. And before we get into the specifics of the two leadership contests that we have on the go right now, the NDP and the Conservative Party, let's talk about the concepts between one member, one vote versus the hundred point system. Just lay it out on us because we've touched upon this multiple times, but we actually haven't gone in depth in explaining to people how we actually vote for our leaders. So let's start off there in the core. I'll jump it to you in a second.
Carter
30:57
Okay, so the one-member, one-vote is very simple. You own a membership card, you get to vote. And
Carter
31:01
And this is how
Zain
31:02
how we've done it classically, is it not? Not really, no.
Carter
31:04
no. Okay, explain that to us. It's a relatively new thing. It started in the 1980s, really. We started to see it. I think Klein was actually the first one-member, one-vote elected leader, and he became obviously premier and then ran again in 1993. In 1992, this
Carter
31:21
this was this kind of ideal, and
Carter
31:23
and it kind of started around the time of
Carter
31:25
of Preston Manning's whole grassroots reform movements. So Preston Manning has this idea about democracy and what democracy is going to look like, and
Carter
31:34
the way that we can can defeat the east is by you know being
Carter
31:37
being more democratic and more populist so uh we start adopting that for our leadership contests because there is nothing more democratic than one member one vote every person in the in the in the democracy gets a vote every person in the society or the political party gets a vote it's incredibly democratic except
Carter
31:59
except here's the but except it creates unbelievable power imbalances, right? So a rural riding where you
Carter
32:07
you may only have 65% of the number of people to begin with may have a very, very small number of members. So its voice is going to be harder to hear, right?
Carter
32:17
right? You're going to be dominated by enclaves of voters. If someone is very successful in selling 20,000 memberships to certain cliques or groups, right? So we've seen We've seen everyone from the Mormons to the Sikhs to any group that
Carter
32:35
can sell a gajillion memberships. All
Carter
32:37
All of a sudden, now they've got a disproportionate voice. And we really see that disproportionate voice when we look at these things geographically.
Carter
32:45
So suddenly Alberta can dominate Quebec in a national contest because the national conservative movement is headquartered in Alberta
Carter
32:55
Alberta And it's 26
Carter
32:57
26 or 34 or however many ridings at the time can
Carter
33:01
can dominate the 75 ridings in Quebec. Right.
Carter
33:05
Because we have more membership, ergo, we're going to have more voice. So
Zain
33:09
So Carter just talked to us about one member, one vote. Corey, is the advancement or the introduction of the point system to correct what Carter was just talking about ultimately, or was there a different rationale? chanel well
Corey
33:21
well the system steven described as actually the aberration back when we had delegates it was effectively a point system because he tried and we get to send x number of delegates delegates
Corey
33:32
we're getting there but my point is simply the point system is not as different as the one member one vote system but fundamentally this comes down to a question there's a tug in political parties about the nature of the leader right and it's is the leader a representative of the party or is the the leader a prospective leader of the country right and that is very different and one of the reasons why you generally have uh the hundred points or the delegates from each of the now 338 ridings is that when everybody congregates it is broadly representative of the whole country and so when you're putting policies together when you're choosing the leader you're choosing the leader with the broadest appeal to all walks of life of the country yeah
Carter
34:11
yeah and is that fair And potential members as well.
Corey
34:15
well. Potential, right. Not
Carter
34:16
Not just the reflection of the members that you have currently, but
Carter
34:19
but the potential opportunity that could be represented in the future. So the move to a pointed
Carter
34:25
pointed system, which is really, as Corey's alluded, a variant of the delegated system, is to give every region a
Carter
34:33
a voice that is proportionate to its say in a general election. So you have a total of 39,000 votes or whatever the number is now if you have 100 votes per riding or 100 points per riding. And that becomes just a different way of tallying it up because it's more, quote-unquote, fair because
Carter
34:56
now we're giving the same voice to every riding.
Zain
34:59
Corey, are we leaning one way or another in
Corey
35:01
in how we elect going forward? 100%. A point system or some version of that. Some of them have a floor. Some of them have a ceiling. And what by that I mean. Explain that, yeah. is that you may for example always get at least 100 votes right or 100 points in it but if you have more members maybe it goes up to you know say the first 100 members or less and there's 100 votes anything beyond that maybe it goes up for another point for every five members and whatnot a ceiling would be the opposite it's maybe one member is just one point and two is two points and so on and so forth to 100 but after that it's prorated and then you can only ever get 100 points so there are variations that have been tried in different situations but the basic the
Corey
35:46
basic struggle remains the same and you can make in a legitimate case that either system is fundamentally undemocratic depending on the lens you want to look through it because of course the counterpoint to what
Corey
35:57
what steve is exactly what steven was saying about like these areas that have less members Is it really great that in a political party with, say, 100,000 members, you can just cobble together all of these outline areas that have 10, 20 members and with a substantially smaller than majority number, so like a minority, a significant minority, like 15%, 20%, you manage to just carry
Corey
36:22
carry the entire party to your will? well. It's the nature of political parties. You're going to have to struggle it. The broad based thing is a pretty good system
Corey
36:30
system if you think that parties should all moderate towards the middle.
Corey
36:34
If you believe parties should be more philosophically grounded, there's a stronger case to be made that the members should be in the driver's seat.
Zain
36:40
That's fascinating. Carter, let's
Zain
36:42
let's talk more specifically then about the two leadership contests that we have in front of us, right? So on one side, we've got the conservative race.
Zain
36:50
You've got three declared candidates right now, Michael Chong stepping in most recently. recently and
Zain
36:54
and a $5 million spending limit. And then on the other side, you've got the NDP leadership race. No candidates declared, $1.5 million spending limit. And then the party charges you like a 25% admin fee. So that's just the baseline. I want to start with the money first because I find that interesting. And then we'll move on from there.
Zain
37:12
Big discrepancy in the money, no?
Zain
37:14
In both of them. Oh, big discrepancy
Zain
37:15
discrepancy in the money.
Carter
37:17
and I wonder just exactly who do they think is going to be able to raise and spend $5 million million at the uh conservative party level um
Carter
37:28
because keep in mind these candidates will not have access to the conservative party fundraising member the war chest yeah
Carter
37:34
or the more important the machine yeah
Carter
37:36
right so you don't get to send out a letter if you're jason kenny you don't get to send out a letter to everybody who's
Carter
37:40
who's ever donated to the conservative party and say you can give it to jason kenny right
Carter
37:45
so they're going to have to develop their own machines and
Carter
37:48
and they have to operate under the federal election uh giving
Carter
37:53
you've got a cap and
Zain
37:55
that that everyone regardless of your spending limit yeah what is it this
Carter
37:58
this time 1500 bucks or something like that like you know but it varies it goes up year over year but let's say it's 1500 i'm not really good at math uh so in my head i'm thinking what's that like 30
Carter
38:10
30 000 donations of 1500 or 3 000 30 000 anyways a lot of zeros there's a lot of donations at the maximum level and i can't see a single campaign having that capacity and i don't think they're going to get there on bernie sanders size 27 bucks average donations um that's not how you're going to do it and even though it's a long process uh
Carter
38:32
uh no one's going to get near this cap write
Carter
38:35
write that down play it back oh
Zain
38:37
oh my god no
Carter
38:39
going to probably sometime in november should
Zain
38:40
should we be paying attention to the differences in in the cap on spending between the two parties i know know they represent the two you
Zain
38:46
you know extremes in a sense on on the spectrum anything we should be paying attention to in that cory well steven's
Corey
38:52
steven's entirely right it is going to be very difficult for anybody to get near the five million dollar mark it's as much as anything they're making a philosophical statement one of the reasons why the ndps is where it is is because of this sense that it should be a more egalitarian contest and money shouldn't carry the day one of the reasons the conservatives limit is where it is is because of a sense that there should be no restrictions on unfree speech right so they become they become almost these concepts that have very little bearing in the real world right i would wager if you lined up all of the new democrat and conservative candidates together you would see more money in the conservative system but it wouldn't blow you away it wouldn't be as shocking as perhaps those two different limits so the
Carter
39:32
the way that i always do this is i look and say okay well what's the total money that's available available for me in the cycle and give how much money will be raised cumulatively
Carter
39:40
cumulatively right by all of the conservative party this
Zain
39:43
this is how you would do this if you were on the inside so so
Carter
39:47
don't know i mean what are
Carter
39:49
are the conservatives raising a quarter now i want to say 18 million dollars uh i
Corey
39:54
could be totally right but let's
Carter
39:56
let's let's say that you know like there's 30 million in a year i'm making this up i don't know we'll have to check the numbers but there's
Carter
40:03
there's no way that these These leadership candidates are going to be able to stop that flow
Carter
40:08
flow and direct it all to them.
Carter
40:11
they'd be really lucky if all of them cumulatively got to somewhere near
Carter
40:15
$10 to $12 million.
Carter
40:17
Collectively. So $10 to $12 million between, let's say, I think it's going to probably wind up at six or eight candidates. Six or eight candidates. Now, obviously, you're getting an average of about $1
Carter
40:30
right? Which is where the NDP is set. Will
Carter
40:32
Will there be some that can outperform? Can Jason Kenney raise more money than
Carter
40:38
Yes, they can. Michael Chong will need to be – if he's going to be successful, he needs to raise $750 to a million, right?
Carter
40:44
right? Like there's different levels of success even. It's going to cost more for some candidates to earn a vote than
Carter
40:50
than it will for others. Corey,
Zain
40:51
Corey, I want to go to you on this. Carter briefly answered the question. I want to get your thought on this. this. Do you feel or do you feel like there's a limitation within the Canadian leadership context or context of having a candidate secure that momentum of micro donations and getting that 25 bucks at a time and creating that grassroots movement? Is there something inherently limiting in our system? Or why haven't we seen it is my question is Carter, you've said outright, you don't think that's going to happen? Oh,
Corey
41:19
we have 30 million people of which a very small percent are members of political parties. that's the biggest one right so the math
Zain
41:25
math is the first one
Corey
41:26
yeah you're you're looking in a much smaller pond yeah and it's not just our population but then it's the population further who's involved in these party politics right and it just it's we don't have that history of those kind of donations yet the conservatives have done a pretty good job on it but it's not really built up to the same fashion that it is in the united states yet so that's the biggest one yeah i
Corey
41:48
i i think beyond that that there are questions of systems. And the fact of the matter is many of these systems
Corey
41:54
are only economical at large scale. So to the first point, right, if you want to build the massive Obama fundraising apparatus, you wouldn't do it for a local civic election. I think we all agree that. So let's take that as one extreme.
Corey
42:09
Would you do it for a leadership of a political party in Canada?
Corey
42:13
I'm not really convinced the economics are there. It's a pretty big investment It's an investment of time and effort when really all you need to be doing is picking up the phone and calling a smaller
Corey
42:21
smaller number of donors. Use the NDP one as an example. $1.5 million is a lot of money, right? And
Corey
42:28
And there are not a ton of $1,000 donors in the NDP relative to some of the other parties. But you're still just talking about 1
Corey
42:35
,500 max donations, less than that actually. So why
Corey
42:39
why would you put so much effort into building this micro donation system which may not even be cost effective in the long term?
Zain
42:46
Carter, is there any first mover advantage to kind of building a micro donation system where maybe not this round, next round it becomes popular, you become the party that's got the infrastructure? Is that not a
Zain
42:55
a thing? Not for our
Zain
42:56
You don't think so? Well,
Carter
42:57
Well, no, because you're going to hand it over to the party. They're giving for different reasons. The party already has the mechanisms, whether it's the NDP or the conservatives. Parties are so strong in their fundraising.
Carter
43:08
They're already doing this. They're just not going to share it with the leadership candidates. So the leadership candidates have to start from scratch. And it costs a lot of money. Anybody who's ever worked with a nonprofit who's tried to work on the annual campaign, right, the $100 donor campaign where
Zain
43:23
where you're trying to get people
Carter
43:25
to give $100 or $50 or $20 or whatever the numbers are, it
Carter
43:29
it is incredibly expensive to do.
Carter
43:31
To hook that first donation costs a lot of money. Our
Carter
43:35
Our candidates don't have the kind of money that
Carter
43:38
that it takes to make money, right?
Carter
43:40
right? So in the United States, you can put seed funding out to start your fundraising. To kickstart it.
Carter
43:46
And put your – to do your A-B testing and to find out what requests work and what the dollar values are. You can't do that in Canada. We don't have the
Carter
43:55
the money available to
Carter
43:57
to drive a huge fundraising campaign except at the party level.
Zain
44:00
Carter, last question on this segment. Put your ideology aside for a second, OK? I know it's not hard for you. Put it aside for a second. It's so easy for
Carter
44:07
for me to do.
Zain
44:07
You got both of these races in front of you. I've laid out the details for you. as a strategist which one do you want to play and which one do you think you can ultimately
Carter
44:19
can't put away the ideology 100
Carter
44:23
i can't because i just i know the conservative party structure more than i know the ndp structure i
Carter
44:28
i know where the votes lie i know where you remember we were talking about the earlier with the 100 point system where are the easy ridings right you need to go into certain places maxine bernier came through uh alberta last couple of days uh he's coming back again yeah
Carter
44:43
um michael chong was out here for the for the pc convention um
Carter
44:49
this is hard territory to win votes in right
Carter
44:51
right this is hard stuff uh i if i'm bernie i mean focus on quebec all
Carter
44:56
all those ridings out there get 100 points too and they don't have nearly the same infrastructure make sure you've got a board chair and and six board members and you can get all of of those votes cory
Zain
45:06
ideology side do you have do you have one that you'd play in right now in terms of just getting a leader elected which one do you think is the one that you'd want to play in yeah
Corey
45:13
yeah i think that the ndp one is more rife for getting a leader elected if you know what you're doing because they are one member one vote right
Corey
45:20
right and there is a bigger ability to kind of create the massive blocks of people that go forward they have this neat thing or they did last time i'll actually have to check the rules for 2017 because god knows maybe something's changed most of this i will concede right now is going off the 2012 leadership uh where there was the group at the convention floor who were also voting in real time but they were voting in real time while the rest of the votes had come in if you recall by uh by ranked ballot so there was this this interesting
Corey
45:49
interesting thing where nathan cullen seemed to have the momentum on the floor but the ballots were cast right so as much as that may appear to be the thing on the floor it was already it was over right but But any system that has rules like that with these weird idiosyncrasies are ones where, as a strategist, just ideology aside, those
Corey
46:09
those are more fun for strategists because you're able to sort of go through the system and look at it and see where there's a possibility to accrue huge benefits, right? Now, I
Corey
46:21
I think Stephen might disagree and say that point system is more fun in that sense. I
Carter
46:25
I like the point system because you can go into the point system, you can find free points.
Carter
46:29
So there's points in a point system that are high cost. You like the gamification of
Zain
46:32
of that, yeah. Yeah,
Carter
46:33
Yeah, there's high cost points and there's cheap points, right? So where do you want to go and find your cheap points? And everybody knows where the cheap points are. Everybody goes after the same subsets.
Carter
46:44
So you get this mid-zone of points that you can go and get that
Carter
46:48
that are in the middle.
Carter
46:51
That's fun to play with. I mean, it's the same thing with a delegated convention. You, you, you have the opportunity to find places where there's a low cost investment and there's places that are high cost investment. Right. Our
Zain
47:02
Our next segment, let's move it on here very quickly. Our next segment, helping the spouse get out of the house. Corey Hogan. Oh, I love the rhymes. Rhymes and puns. Sophie Trudeau in an interview saying ultimately she's got one staff. She's got a lot of requests on her time to ultimately do her job to her fullest extent. She needs some help.
Zain
47:20
Twitter and the partisans go crazy. Corey, first talk to us about the political history that we have with our spouse or the first spouse or the prime minister's – is
Zain
47:31
is that ultimately the right term?
Corey
47:33
Spouse? Spouses in political spouses? The
Corey
47:35
reason you're struggling is because it's not something we're as familiar with in this country. But let's
Corey
47:39
let's talk about that. Let's do that. Please. This is an evolving role. I think that's what I will say right off the top. And, you
Corey
47:46
you know, the United States does not have under Article 2 of the Constitution – By the way, the First Lady goes to all these events and has a staff. And has the chief of staff and et cetera, yeah. She does, right? And it's because of those kind of social pressures and beyond the different causes that the First Lady takes on. A couple of things I want to say about this, okay?
Corey
48:07
we are such assholes, right? Like as people, we sit there and we bitch and we moan about conflicts of interest that may or may not exist when the spouse of an elected official has a job, right? And I think here in our home province of Lou Arab, who's the husband of Premier Notley, and everyone's like, well, my God, how dare he have a job that could potentially then his wife will be thinking about the fact that he is employed as she's going through all of these other things. That is
Corey
48:35
is obnoxious, but let's say that's your philosophy. You then don't get to turn around and be mad when the spouse is involved in the nature of state and is sort of helping things out that way. Because what do you actually expect these people to do? Just sit in a room quietly for the tenure of their elected official? They want
Carter
48:55
want indentured servitude from
Carter
48:57
from the spouse of the person who was elected. The same way that they'd like servitude from the person that they ultimately elected. They want free
Carter
49:05
free service from the elected official and their spouse.
Corey
49:09
Okay, that's point one. Point two is this.
Corey
49:13
It's not just a nicety. It's not just, isn't that cute? Sophie's got something to do. and it's pretty offensive that anybody would sort of think that or allow that to drive their thinking the fact of the matter is we have a head of government who has a lot of demand on his time and sometimes he can't go to everything and if you're able to send the prime minister's spouse that is able to get 75 percent of the job done right it shows that it's high touch to the prime minister and the prime minister's family and it it moves the ship of state forward we've talked We talked on this show before about diplomacy being a soft game, right?
Corey
49:48
There's an awful lot involved in that. And maybe Justin Trudeau can't meet the ambassador from Uruguay. Maybe Sophie can't.
Corey
49:56
Maybe Justin Trudeau can't go to that charity, but that charity is still important to him. Maybe he sends Sophie. It's
Corey
50:01
It's a job, right? right? As little as you want to think about it. And unfortunately for Sophie, it's not a job that she really ever applied for, right? I'm sure there were a lot of discussions between her and Justin about whether or not it would be good for him to take on this role and what it might mean for her. But at the end of the day, she
Corey
50:20
she kind of got stuck in this situation because of the person she married and the man she supports and all that. And again, I'm not suggesting that she was just a passenger on here but
Corey
50:29
there is just an awful lot going on there that you can't really is
Corey
50:33
is it so wrong that somebody who does a job gets a staff yeah
Zain
50:37
yeah carter do you do you agree with the basic premise core he's putting out there that this
Zain
50:41
this is an evolving role especially in this country where we haven't defined it as as progressively let's say as the united states has i wouldn't call that progressive
Corey
50:50
progressive but we can talk
Corey
50:51
talk about the states and well
Carter
50:51
well there's a there's an expectation right
Carter
50:54
right There's an expectation that the prime minister or the
Carter
50:58
the premier or whomever show up with their spouse.
Carter
51:04
remember we had to do an awful lot of liaising in Allison's scheduled work just to make sure that her husband was able to show
Carter
51:10
show up at the events that he was expected to show up at. And it was a tremendous drain upon them and their family.
Carter
51:16
It took him away from parenting their daughter.
Carter
51:21
What should we do? Should we just ignore that? Well, that's tough luck. I mean, they wanted to be prime minister. They can suck it up and pay for the nannies. And this
Carter
51:30
this is the other thing I read. And gosh, I love the people on Facebook and Twitter. This is actually one of the best comments that I've seen. And
Carter
51:37
And that is, why did we say that Sophie's got two nannies?
Carter
51:41
Sophie doesn't have two nannies. The prime minister has two nannies because he's the frickin' prime minister. And the time draw is huge, both for him and his wife. Yeah.
Carter
51:51
And we can make this into something that it's not. And that is, you know, no one else has two nannies. Well, no one else is expected to be prime minister. These jobs
Carter
52:01
are unbelievably difficult. And I don't care if you're a conservative or if you're a liberal or if you're a new Democrat, when you get elected into one of these jobs, they eat you alive. And everything that we can do as the taxpayers and the voters that can support them, we should be doing it. and if you you know a great book people often ask us what we should tell people to you know what books should we get people to read yeah
Carter
52:23
and and one that i just love recommending to my clients is steve paken's the dark side uh
Carter
52:28
uh and it's such a great book because it outlines what happens to a person's relationship if
Carter
52:33
if you read that before you became a politician before you went into politics you wouldn't go into politics or if you were sane you wouldn't go into politics but
Carter
52:41
everybody i get to read that book because i always get the politician to read the dark side yeah and i always get the spouse to read the life both by steve bacon the life is all about the
Carter
52:50
the you know the glitz the glamour the upside and
Carter
52:53
and the dark side is all about the depression the marriage breakup the lack of employability afterwards this is what happens to people uh the general population is not a good judge of what is efficient and effective use of resources and we shouldn't be be asking them to. One of the worst decisions we made was to get rid of cabinet ministers' drivers
Carter
53:14
in the province of Florida. I'm not sure if they still have them at the federal level, but it was a terrible decision.
Carter
53:20
We need these people to be devoting their time to us. And it's not an eight-hour job.
Carter
53:25
It's an 80-hour workweek, minimum.
Carter
53:27
We need them to focus on us, not drive their car to and from their events. It's ridiculous.
Zain
53:33
Corey, so we talked about the state of political spouses, but there's also the politics here of this particular situation and and if you're the liberals or if you're the party here and she makes this innocuous statement how are you ultimately
Zain
53:45
ultimately trying to cover your tracks on this where do you go from here is ultimately my question yeah as a communication say i
Corey
53:51
i didn't i didn't love some of the tone that she put forward there and it's not because i think she was wrong but i think because it was politically wrong
Corey
53:59
wrong right and she wasn't wrong as a human being but as a political animal should have taken a different approach there and frankly i think she was almost too apologetic about it she said yeah i have a staff next question i mean you don't you don't really you just feed into it when you start talking about like why you need it and the help you need and all this yeah she
Carter
54:18
she should never have done that in public yeah
Corey
54:20
yeah i gotta tell you i i love your comment about it's not sophie who has two nannies it's the prime minister who has two nannies is a great great point and one that i can't be stressed enough but the other thing i'll say is yes
Corey
54:31
yes justin Trudeau is rich and it irks him or it irks people that Justin Trudeau the rich guy yeah gets two nannies but do we really want to set up a position where only rich dilettantes get to be prime minister not
Corey
54:43
not trying to knock Justin here although that is probably a knock I would give against Justin on on a mad day the fact
Corey
54:50
fact of the matter is we
Corey
54:53
we do these things so that absolutely anybody can take on the role that's why George Washington first president of the United States For those of you who have never seen a $1 U.S. bill, why George Washington took a salary. One of the richest men in the colonies, although he'd spent an awful lot on the Revolutionary War, as an aside. But he took this salary because
Corey
55:13
because otherwise the precedent is it's just for the rich to be president of the United States. And in the same sense, it's not just for the rich to have kids and be prime minister. Do we want to set up a situation where Michael Chong can't run for prime minister because he can't afford the nannies? do we have any can
Corey
55:30
we just acknowledge that's fucking nuts like this is an important job and we want the best person and the person we want most to have it regardless of the impediments in the way carter
Zain
55:39
carter what do you think of the political response for cory's a little bit critical of how she dealt with it as a political animal how should the how should she and more specifically the party her staff whatever deal with this going forward what would you suggest never
Carter
55:52
never ask for permission to do that what you have to do right
Carter
55:55
right so don't go out and ask you know know can i please have another staff member uh
Carter
55:59
uh go and get staff person then when someone foips you and finds out that you've got two
Carter
56:04
two schedulers and uh blah
Carter
56:06
blah blah blah invite the reporter in to become your scheduler for a day right
Carter
56:10
right show them what happens in the average moment of a you
Zain
56:14
you know that that is how busy her role is yeah get
Carter
56:17
get you know don't no
Carter
56:19
no one understands how busy their role is right now they don't we don't understand what they're even doing as prime minister and first First prime minister, first spouse, whatever the hell we're calling them.
Carter
56:27
This is a challenge
Carter
56:32
she created her own little bit of a firestorm.
Carter
56:35
And I think that it's good that it was over something this stupid because
Carter
56:38
because maybe they'll be better at avoiding creating their own firestorms in the future.
Zain
56:42
All righty. Let's move it on to our final segment. We're over under a lightning round. Corey Carter, are you ready? Oh, man. I can sense the energy. I'm so
Carter
56:50
so up right now. The words
Zain
56:51
words you've said, which are none.
Zain
56:55
Six out of ten. Sophie Trudeau on her, I guess, her response to the firestorm she created. Six out of ten. Over, under, Corey.
Corey
57:04
agree with every word you said, Sophie, but you shouldn't have said them at all. Carter,
Zain
57:08
under. What do you think?
Carter
57:09
I think it's under. I mean, this is just an unforced error.
Zain
57:12
Over, under on the number five. The number five, the number of candidates who run in the conservative leadership race. Stephen Carter, over, under on five. Over. Over, Corey.
Zain
57:21
Officially? Officially. Officially under. we've got three in the race already and you're still saying under well he's
Carter
57:25
he's just he's not counting some of them i think how
Zain
57:27
how is the gop doing on a scale of one to ten card i'll go to you how is the gop doing in defending or distancing themselves from donald trump right now what do you think of their current strategy as an institution one
Zain
57:38
one to ten four
Carter
57:40
i mean how do you deal with something that's on fire cory
Zain
57:43
cory what do you think well you don't try to eat the fire i'm
Zain
57:47
i'm gonna i'm gonna going to give him a two that's pretty funny listen carter cory had a chance to to make his own question give us a grade but i want to ask you it the dnc healing process as it stands right now he gave it a c minus or a d what would you give it the healing process between clinton and sanders what letter grade are you giving it right now i'm
Carter
58:03
i'm going to give it an f i mean it's a mess it is it could be the turning point in the election that they can't get these two these two together no i mean you got to give a curve grade
Corey
58:14
fact of the matter is the rnc provides a much worse example of people getting together.
Zain
58:18
Corey, 1 to 10, Obama and his usage as a DNC proxy right now. What do you think?
Corey
58:25
To be seen. I don't even know if you can grade it. He's been doing his best to stay out of it at this point.
Zain
58:30
Carter, do you want to give him a grade on a scale of 1 to 10 right now so
Zain
58:33
so far? You're going to pass on my question. Final question.
Zain
58:37
One week ago, we recorded our Fort McMurray crisis episode. Since then, Rachel
Zain
58:43
Rachel Notley and her response, she went down to Fort McMurray with Justin Trudeau. there's a few developments in between on a scale of one to ten carter you said the second phase is the toughest for her what grade do you give her or what rank doing a good
Carter
58:53
good job she's doing i'm gonna give her a great grade let's go with a can i
Carter
58:57
i give her an
Zain
58:57
an a i said one to ten he's giving her an a that's what i like to do i
Zain
59:01
like to do this
Corey
59:02
is funny to me because on cbc last week zane was asked to get a letter grade and i gave one to ten yeah so i zane
Carter
59:09
zane also i went
Zain
59:10
went off script i
Zain
59:11
went It went off script.
Zain
59:12
Here's the deal. Give us a quick deal before I go to Corey. She's
Carter
59:15
She's got another flare-up up there, but the grand people of Fort McMurray want to go home, and they don't understand why they can't go home, and
Carter
59:23
and she's going to take continued beatings. But she has done a great job. Even today's flare-up, she
Carter
59:27
she was right there talking about what happened and why it was a big deal. Corey?
Corey
59:32
We're not on phase two yet. This is still phase one, and I got to give her a nine.
Zain
59:38
There you are. that's a wrap on episode 576 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.