Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a strategist episode 579. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? Well,
Corey
0:10
Well, it's probably the last day of the NBA finals. And
Carter
0:13
And the Stanley Cup finished yesterday, so good news. Everyone is listening to this podcast. That's right. Everyone's now turning
Zain
0:19
turning to their political coverage.
Zain
0:21
are the real MVP. That's
Carter
0:23
That's true. And it's
Zain
0:23
it's finally going to be exposed. Come
Carter
0:25
Come on. Sidney Crosby? What a joke. I
Zain
0:27
I don't even know. I mean, sorry. one fact boys one fact about sports now sydney crosby is he the guy that distributes the ball or is he the big man because i don't know carter which one is he this
Carter
0:36
this is hockey it's a totally different idea okay okay what you need is someone to stop the puck someone to get the puck in the net okay
Zain
0:43
that's all you need this is okay yeah
Corey
0:45
yeah it's definitely uh definitely
Corey
0:47
definitely a strong start to the show it's
Corey
0:49
as strong as always i don't know why you're being so critical have
Zain
0:51
have you gone through the other episodes or as bad oh
Zain
0:56
oh yeah we also have a sponsor i mean i'm excited about that actually It is a good sponsor. Because Campaign Tech Chicago, August 4th, campaigntechchicago
Zain
1:02
campaigntechchicago.com. We'll talk about our story. This episode, Corey's got a story. Corey's story. Yeah. Corey's story of Campaign Tech Chicago. He'll share his experience from 2013 when it was in D.C. And we'll kind of go from there. We'll mention more on the show. But campaigntechchicago.com. Enter the code STRATEGIST. Save 5%. Still early bird.
Zain
1:23
We'll get into it later on. Cool? Yeah, sounds good. 5% is a big deal. You know, 5% is the difference between winning and losing. It's
Zain
1:29
It's true. In political terms, 5% is a lot. 5
Carter
1:32
5% is a landslide.
Zain
1:35
It's good. I like that we're really convincing people of the 5%. 5
Carter
1:39
% is a landslide.
Zain
1:40
landslide. I'm sure our sponsor is very happy with us. Right
Carter
1:42
Right now, he should be. 5% is a landslide.
Carter
1:47
And you can save it. You
Zain
1:49
save a landslide off your ticket price. We should start the show, shouldn't we? Yeah, I think so. Let's do it. Our first segment, make America greater than the people that represent America again. Oh, man, that's a mouthful. What was that?
Zain
2:02
that? That title was
Carter
2:03
was as bad as the American situation. No, that's exactly what
Zain
2:06
what I wanted to do.
Carter
2:07
do. Yeah, that is exactly. My transition material
Zain
2:10
material is amazing is what I know. And let's start with what recent events are in the United States. Corey, I'll go to you first. Very blunt question. Terrorism. Donald Trump.
Zain
2:20
Does it help him? Let's just start here. Yeah,
Corey
2:22
Yeah, it absolutely helps. i hate
Corey
2:24
hate to say it but it's true and it's it's absurd right let's talk about orlando in in
Corey
2:29
in the strokes that are important for the painting here today yes big
Corey
2:33
big issue multi-faceted huge tragedy but um even
Corey
2:39
even though this guy who committed this act was an american citizen donald
Corey
2:44
donald trump points at it and says see see i told you we've got to keep muslims out of this country that's nuts that's crazy and it's going to work to a certain extent because every time that fear gets ratcheted up a bit people start flailing about and when you start talking about donald trump's base in
Corey
3:01
in particular and i don't want to generalize but now it is by and large also the republican party's base yeah
Corey
3:08
you must have some really confused uh christians uh sitting in the middle of nowhere with their bigoted views right now where they're like well on the one hand i i hate the gays and on the other hand i hate the muslims and i do love my gun and i can only imagine that the easiest solution to this question is to shut the borders just blame other people and get out and frankly it is very scary the notion you could be at a club minding your own business and somebody comes in and it starts shooting and people died a lot of people died yeah of
Corey
3:42
course this is not exactly a uh you You know, if this was Hollywood, we'd say this is the 50th sequel and we should probably stop buying tickets to it. But I
Corey
3:52
I can't imagine any other country that would continue to sell guns to lunatics. But America's decided this is this is their God given right. Quite literally, they've decided the NRA has managed to convince people that they have a constitutional right to
Corey
4:05
to bear arms, not
Carter
4:06
not just to bear arms, to
Carter
4:08
to bear any type of arms. You can have an anti tank gun. You can have anything you want because that is what the founders framed it as. Of course, that's ridiculous. But this is all kind
Carter
4:21
kind of a psychological precept that we have to understand, right? When you present facts to certain people, right, we as Canadians try and present facts. We've talked about this a few times on the podcast where we say we have a hard time seeing Trump supporters' point of view. We aren't able to process the facts that they get and come to the same conclusion. Well, imagine this situation where you know that it's an American citizen who did this terrorist act. You know that many other Christians have carried out the same terrorist act. You see terrorist act after terrorist act. You see many, many different mass murders. But it doesn't matter because the facts that you're presented with all force you to the same conclusion that guns are good. And to protect your family, you must have a gun. And that's what the psychology of this is. Because everybody's trying to understand politically why is this not having an impact. Politically, why isn't this hurting Donald Trump?
Carter
5:20
Americans don't – and it's not just Americans. We come up with the same types of systems, right? Privatization of healthcare is all wrong.
Carter
5:27
Okay. Show me your work. All kinds of things where you can say these issues that are fundamental values questions, why don't we evaluate the facts and come up with a logical response? And it's because we are handicapped
Carter
5:39
handicapped and unable to come up with these logical responses. See,
Zain
5:43
See, I wasn't planning to go down this road, but I find it interesting. Corey, Carter's talking effectively about how we make these emotional decisions and then like rationalize the decision we've made. Do you feel like this
Zain
5:53
this situation in the United States kind of epitomizes that to the nth degree in a sense? well
Corey
5:59
think to an extent it epitomizes it if that makes sense i'm not sure it does from a grammatical standpoint but here
Corey
6:07
here's the thing at
Corey
6:10
at this point what
Corey
6:11
what you're going to say all those other times i said guns were the solution not the problem i
Corey
6:17
i was wrong i've now contributed to sandy hook to shootings in black churches now here at a nightclub where 50 people were murdered and another 50 are you know wounded it
Corey
6:28
it you almost get to a position where you've got to accept it or else you're going to have to accept your complacency in something horrific so i have a hard time imagining that americans are going to get off this at all now
Corey
6:41
is this an example of them finding facts after the you
Corey
6:44
you know afterwards to bolster their worldview i
Corey
6:48
don't i I don't know necessarily about that. I think it's more finding facts
Corey
6:52
facts afterwards to make sure that their worldview does not come tumbling down. And the distinction is slight but important. That is an interesting distinction.
Carter
7:01
But this is the challenge, right? When you want something to be true, when you want a position to be true, you will find almost anything in your power to make sure that it stays true. And so this is why ideologues have a really difficult time changing their position on a particular issue. Yeah.
Carter
7:16
Yeah. And why it's not worth our time as political strategists to try and get them to change their opinion. One of the fundamentals is when someone believes it, move past it. When you run into someone on the doors and you're knocking on the door and they say that homosexuality is wrong, you don't spend a half an hour having a discussion with them about why their point of view is incorrect. You move on. And that's just the way it works. Carter,
Zain
7:40
Carter, I'm going back to you. Does terrorism help Donald Trump? Same question I asked Corey off the top. I
Carter
7:45
I posted on Twitter yesterday, I mean, I asked anybody to tell me how this hurts him. I mean, even his ridiculous self-centered statements that should have been, and in fact were dismissed by every media outlet, that's going to come back and it will be positive, I think. he's not playing by the same set of rules that everybody else plays by so when he says something that's outlandish and maybe offensive you don't get any any negative from that you don't get the negative certainly that a normal politician would get or
Carter
8:18
or the hillary like for example hillary right
Carter
8:22
hillary clinton i mean in some respects at least it's better than like as anthony jeselnik would would say thoughts and prayers right on some levels it's better than thoughts and prayers carter
Zain
8:32
carter and i get that joke that's a great special
Zain
8:34
you and me if you haven't seen that netflix it cory i'm not this is going to be the the the round of objectionable strategy scenarios effectively i'm just going to give that that that caution would
Zain
8:45
would you advise donald trump to to effectively go hard as he is on on terrorism and
Corey
8:50
way he is i guess maybe that's also important His whole brand is supposed to be that straight shooter, and air quoting, if you were in this room, straight shooter, and saying the things that other people won't say. And so, of course, his
Corey
9:04
his most outrageous statement, in my opinion, to date, has been his suggestion to ban Muslims from the entry of the United States. and he had a very flimsy case it's no better today but circumstantially he gets to say muslim attack ergo no muslims right so
Corey
9:20
so yeah i mean he just continues on this he doubles down and he also puts uh
Corey
9:26
uh his opponents in a very awkward position um
Corey
9:31
i i guess from like a a communications standpoint what
Zain
9:35
what do you mean tease that out for for a second well
Corey
9:38
well they have to parse it a level further he doesn't need to parse anything he just needs to say top
Zain
9:43
top line is good
Corey
9:43
good muslim attack muslim bad out right and they have to say hold on this was an american citizen he obviously had a whole bunch of things going on in his head uh he was on gay dating apps he'd exchange communications with them uh he was certainly from a fundamentalist father right who uh who who was probably giving him some idea that what was going on in his head was evil and i'm sure that was messing up a great But there are so many things that go into this and almost more to the point, Donald Trump's quote unquote solution would not have negated this attack at all. If they had put in that policy a year ago, this attack still would have happened. He still would have been an American citizen here in the United States. We're sitting in Calgary. In the United States and able
Corey
10:32
able to take out this attack. And I won't belabor the point, but the reason he would be able to do that is
Corey
10:38
is because it is very easy for a mentally disturbed man to get a gun in the United States. Carter,
Zain
10:44
Carter, you would do the same. You're advising Donald Trump. would you tell him to go as hard on on this terrorism approach as he is yeah
Carter
10:51
yeah absolutely it's working you don't stop doing what's working and clearly he has no moral conscience there's no reason he doesn't have anything that is holding him back so why not just keep doing it double down and
Corey
11:05
and there is another problem here for him which is the republican party and donald trump himself have taken this stance that access to firearms is a social good right and if the focus is on that then
Corey
11:17
then you are on the defensive right and it is a bit of a winning issue for the democrats the american people are not nearly as obnoxious about this issue as the american politicians are there's support 80 90 percent for some of these actions and congress won't move because of the nra and the way that they've managed to wrap everybody up here right donald trump needs this this to be about islamic terrorism he does not need this to be about guns carter
Zain
11:43
carter cory made an interesting point a moment ago where he where he mentioned you know donald trump does not have to speak in nuance he does he can only speak top line and it works right muslim bad they're the issue i'm out effectively
Carter
11:57
paraphrase and i can save
Zain
12:01
is it a fool's errand if you're on the other side and maybe not too deep on on hillary but is it a fool's errand to try to get Donald Trump into nuance? If you're the media, if you're Hillary, what do you try to do as a retort to a guy that only needs to do top line? And like you've said, it's playing by very different rules. Well,
Carter
12:18
Well, I think there's a set percentage of the population that are going to find resonance with Trump.
Carter
12:24
Hillary needs to figure out who the other people are and make sure that every single one of them votes. And that means probably not engaging with Trump on his level, right
Carter
12:33
right so hillary hillary's
Carter
12:35
hillary's not gonna win out
Carter
12:37
out trumping trump right
Carter
12:39
right no one can out
Carter
12:41
out trump trump right so i mean
Carter
12:43
mean i'd run like i was being unopposed i
Carter
12:46
would run unopposed and i would run uh so in canada that's the leaders campaign that's where you're the front runners campaign where you run as
Carter
12:54
as though no one else exists and you just keep pushing it through now and
Zain
12:57
and for people who don't know what are the the particular differences of running unopposed as you do with the candidate i know there's practical ones but what are the particular sort of tonal cadence you know strategy differences when you are running the unopposed campaign just to fill people in i
Carter
13:13
i think the biggest one and so the biggest piece for me is that you're you you you
Carter
13:19
you offer more uh kind of
Carter
13:21
aspirational type stuff high level this is where we're going to go look at where we're going going, we can all get there together, kind of almost like Obama in 2008. I mean, yes, he was opposed, but he ran a very different type of campaign.
Carter
13:38
his opponent in a place where nothing could touch Obama, right?
Zain
13:43
inevitable at a certain
Carter
13:44
certain point. Yeah, you couldn't go after him. He was untouchable because he was in a different stratosphere. And that's what I mean when I say this. And that's where the front-runner campaign often tries to get. Now, I should tell you, I mean, not
Carter
13:58
not a word of surprise, front-runner campaigns are incredibly hard to do and often fail because
Carter
14:03
because you can't do
Carter
14:06
front-runner campaign and sustain it very long because oftentimes you fall in the mud. Oftentimes you make a mistake. It has to be error-free baseball. And that's really— Yet
Zain
14:17
Yet you think that's the best retort to something like this against Donald Trump. Yeah,
Carter
14:22
Yeah, I mean, because if you
Zain
14:23
you play his game, you're going to lose.
Zain
14:24
Corey, I know you in the past have agreed with that sentiment that you can't out-Trump Trump like you guys have both said. But as it relates to this particular issue, let's actually make it specific about Clinton. Let's just actually go there.
Zain
14:36
What does she need to do to battle him on this? And we'll get to the speeches, the dueling speeches they made today. Right. But ultimately, the
Zain
14:43
the long game as it relates to an issue like this, because this will replicate itself. He will do top line on something else.
Zain
14:49
Non-nuance sentiment. What are you doing if you're her? trump
Corey
14:52
trump is uh a rubber band at its tautest point he actually only knows how to act in response to an action right something happens he says an outrageous statement hillary clinton attacks him he says something more outrageous he is constantly on the offensive and he is constantly like counter punching counter punching that that is his move right that's pretty much all he knows how to do uh and i don't know if that's just from a life in reality tv and you know when you say enough stupid things it begets people criticizing your stupid things but uh
Corey
15:25
uh for example when hillary clinton did the whole delete your account tweet right
Zain
15:29
right right fill people in if they don't know so effectively on twitter right yeah
Corey
15:33
so uh on twitter donald
Corey
15:35
donald trump made another trumpian statement to which clinton uh you know did a quote retweet saying delete your account right Right. Right. Which is how the kids say, fuck off. Right.
Corey
15:47
Right. And he responds with, hey, how about those deleted emails? You know, I mean, like he's just that's that's who he is. Like in a matter of minutes, he was like, yeah, well,
Carter
15:58
And he'll run with those things and he will put forward 15 different things. Right.
Carter
16:02
That are his points of view. uh and he gets in that becomes in the absence of policy in the absence of ideas he his speeches don't
Carter
16:13
don't have policy they don't have ideas they have reaction overreaction um kind of attack but they don't have ideas and thought and
Carter
16:24
and so don't give him anything to react to well
Corey
16:27
well i don't think it has thought i think there's ideas they're just bad ideas right i don't think
Carter
16:31
think he has a thought in his freaking head i
Corey
16:33
i think if he googled crazy right wing policy for fill in the blank you would be able to fill in the trump sure
Zain
16:39
sure corey i don't want to lose your point there though right you were talking about clinton you're talking about that tweet we were saying that she should or should not she should not have engaged down that road or what were you trying to say i just want
Corey
16:49
want to make sure you're you're gonna get into a twitter fight with donald trump i can't imagine a more losing situation and not because i don't think she could make the more clever comment at and she probably could but
Corey
17:00
but does anybody think that's on brand for hillary clinton does anybody think that's off brand for donald trump no i mean his whole thing is getting into the mud and and being being the prick and and uh and doing whatever he wants to do her whole thing is supposed to be controlled adult ready to lead this country who you want when the phone rings in the middle of the night and it's a nuclear crisis right
Corey
17:23
that was not on brand that made her feel good and her Her supporters feel good, and God knows it was unlikely it was her who wrote the tweet, right? Oh, sure. But it was not on Brad. And if she wants to make this a contest of who is going to be on the top in the muck, why
Corey
17:41
why would you do that? I wouldn't even put money on Hillary Clinton in that sense.
Zain
17:45
Okay, so I told you this was going to be the segment of objectionable strategy scenarios. Carter, multiple bags of money show up to your doorstep, okay? Multiple bags. As
Carter
17:54
As they often happen. as they often do
Zain
17:57
right the nra this time calls you oh
Zain
18:00
god i know the glasses are off just so just to narrate i also narrate on the show the classes are off but
Zain
18:07
i think we need to kind of just discuss this for a second and their strategy because someone is doing that job and i
Zain
18:11
think i we need to give people the insight as to what that person is doing because every single time they come out on top oh
Carter
18:17
oh my god it is so unbelievable the the nra should be the case statement for the for the uh oil and gas industry associations and they need to look at what the nra is doing and try and figure out how to get into people's freaking heads because those guys are in people's heads i mean sandy hook you know they come back from sandy hook that's the one where they you know slaughtered uh elementary or kindergarten kids in
Carter
18:46
come back after that and say well we need armed guards in schools ghouls.
Carter
18:49
What rational human being thinks that that's the solution to that particular problem? Now we need armed guards in gay clubs. We all remember
Zain
19:00
the phrase, right? The bad guy with the gun, the only solution is the good guy with the gun, right? Like the talking point. They
Carter
19:05
They have that down. So, I mean, they
Carter
19:08
they show up with a bag full of money. It's the easiest money ever made. Do what you did last time.
Carter
19:12
They do what they did last time over and over and over again and they don't have to change because it always works. Let's
Zain
19:17
Let's go one layer deeper. So, Corey, I'll get to you for a second. But, Carter, I want to get your thought on this. Why does it work? Is it because of the particular issue that they just have leverage on? Why does it work for them as
Carter
19:30
I went to a campaigns and elections event in Washington.
Zain
19:36
of campaigns and elections.
Carter
19:39
So I'm going down as a Canadian, right? And something had just happened. I don't remember which one. I mean, I don't have this recollection of which thing had just happened. Who the hell cares? There's hundreds of these things a year.
Carter
19:50
And I'm like, I
Carter
19:52
talked to a Democrat. And I said to a Democrat, because you can tell. I mean, you know, the good-looking ones are Democrats. And I said, why
Carter
20:02
don't you guys just control guns? I mean, at least control something. well you'd
Carter
20:07
you'd have thought that i'd slap the person right like they just they out they they thought i was nuts this is our second amendment you don't understand our second amendment you don't understand why the second amendment is so important then i hit well can you explain well control you know a well-regulated militia to me and you know then they lost their shit uh because the militia is every american every american should be able to form this is a democrat saying right so my This is my point is that there
Carter
20:37
there isn't a side on this. There is only one place. And yes, there are some people who stand up after each one of these things and say we should control guns. No one is saying take away all the guns. No one is saying let's put in place a significant solution like Australia has put in place or that Canada has or that England has or any of the other civilized countries in the world. And they don't seem to recognize that their people behave a little differently than the people of Switzerland. who've also armed with the teeth, but for some reason don't go and shoot each other in gay and lesbian clubs and kindergarten.
Zain
21:14
same question to you. You're ultimately this organization, and maybe I think we would all agree on the fact that they just keep doing what they're doing, but why has it worked is ultimately what I want to get to you.
Corey
21:26
I think that the NRA discovered before most that you can pretty much articulate anything as a right, right?
Corey
21:33
right? If you want to you can you can repackage any prick move in your entire life as the right to do x so
Corey
21:41
they they rather wisely uh well i don't know wisely if that's their agenda uh found the second amendment latched onto it like grim death changed the nra from being about gun you know learning about guns and gun safety into a this radical agenda uh which found a fertile ground because americans at the the end of the day believe so strongly in
Corey
22:03
in this this uh it's not even a myth but their country was founded in rebellion right you
Corey
22:09
you had to keep the the simpsons have a great joke about that like without our guns how would we keep the king of england out of our face right like this is a great concern that they have today but uh as soon as something's defined as a right the onus is on the other person and broadly accepted as a right so now here we are and it is broadly accepted as a right the onus is now on the other side to say this is why your right should be revoked and that's very tough to do so here
Corey
22:35
here are the last three tweets on the nra account i looked this up while we were talking late
Corey
22:40
on i want to know the strategy i mean the strategy is so self-evident but here it is we must defeat radical terrorists but not resort to destroying the rights of law-abiding americans to defend themselves so hey what do we have packed in there defend yourself with guns radical Radical terrorists, right? Next. To suggest that all we need is a new ban on, quote, assault weapons, end quote, provides nothing but a dangerous sense of false security.
Corey
23:04
I don't know how, but that's fine.
Corey
23:07
And law-abiding gun owners are done with being blamed for the acts of madmen and terrorists.
Corey
23:13
That's a straw man if I've ever heard one. I've heard a lot in the past 48 hours. Do you know what I have not heard? That law-abiding gun men or gun owners are responsible for this act. That is absolute nonsense. Carter,
Zain
23:25
Carter, you want to make amends. Let's just do this one really quickly. You want to make amends. If you are, or maybe explain to me why the hundreds of organizations on the other side of this, on the other side of this issue, small nonprofits turning into large nonprofits who've also got their own funding to effectively get guns off the streets. Why is this not working every single time? And part of it, yes, is you've got gridlock in Congress, but even on the public debate side, what's
Carter
23:54
Why is gun control not happening in the public debate side?
Zain
23:57
Yeah, in terms of a strategy from the other side here.
Carter
24:04
people aren't looking for a reason to give up their guns.
Carter
24:09
In the United States, there's a culture of shooting guns. There's a whole thing where you go and you shoot your gun and you develop – have you shot a gun? I've never shot a gun. You've shot a gun. I've shot a gun. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. These are other clips that we could just take out
Corey
24:25
out of context. No,
Carter
24:26
No, this is a powerful thing to shoot a gun. You can
Carter
24:30
can do it right
Corey
24:30
right here in Calgary. I
Carter
24:31
I know, but we don't. We don't. They do. And they develop a relationship with guns that is akin to our relationship with hockey. And I dare you to try and go through Canada and tell people, you know what? I don't know if you know this, but hockey is really rough. and and sometimes people even get hurt and they get maybe yeah
Corey
24:50
yeah i don't know if that is even remotely similar on on point can you just find the time step
Zain
24:55
where steven carter equates that gun rights with hockey i just want to make sure we've archived that for here's
Zain
25:00
here's the question i'm actually trying to articulate it correctly it's
Carter
25:02
it's not a it's not equating it it's equating the relationship sure okay understand the relationship between an american and his gun is the same as a relationship between a canadian and hockey or a canadian and uh you know i was going to say beaver but i just get in trouble it's no it's it's the relationship people can hear
Corey
25:21
hear my cringe through the it's
Carter
25:23
it's a relationship between the gun and the individual you gotta understand that you
Zain
25:29
you know how we don't add edit episodes cory you know okay listen
Zain
25:32
listen the question here that i actually want to ask you guys can reject
Carter
25:34
reject it if you want you try and explain it to me if
Carter
25:37
don't if you you tell me why here's
Zain
25:39
thing cory just read three effective key messages in 140 characters that the nra put out my question ultimately is like what would you do as a strategist to try to battle that right you just you you effectively deconstructed them cory being like that's a straw man i don't understand how but like how do you inject that into the into the contemporary narrative i know it's a huge question well
Zain
26:00
just even the starting pieces would be interesting look
Corey
26:02
look i mean barack obama has attempted this i think at this point it's almost uh
Corey
26:08
laughable How many times he has had to stand
Corey
26:11
stand in the Rose Garden or in that hall or at his desk in the Oval Office and, you know, say
Corey
26:18
say how broken he is over all of this and how upset it is. Time
Carter
26:22
Time and time again. But,
Corey
26:23
But, you know, I honestly, when you look at the polling on this, you do not see this
Corey
26:29
this massive groundswell for guns. It's just not there the way the NRA has managed to convince all of the politicians it's there. Now, I do think there's something to it. And I said right off the top, it's part of that, like, founding notion of America as a rebellion, and your freedoms come from the barrel of a gun, right?
Corey
26:47
that's not really how the founding fathers saw it. You really need to take back the Second Amendment, and that is not a fight that you're going to win overnight or, frankly, in a generation. I'm
Carter
26:57
I'm not sure that it's taking back the Second Amendment. I think it's interpreting the Second Amendment differently.
Corey
27:02
Look, I think it's different than that. I think at this point, the Second Amendment carries along with it all of these skeletons in a quite literal sense. And it's going to stay there until somebody replaces it with something different. And that's frankly not going to happen until the
Corey
27:17
the absolute bottom falls out of this. Okay,
Zain
27:20
Okay, I want to make a slight pivot, okay? I want to talk about the strategy of the election speech, right? We've seen this happen in the past. Today, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton gave close to hour-long speeches about this situation that happened in Orlando, this unfortunate situation. situation but before we get into the specifics of their speech and the tones that they struck carter i'll go to you on this talk to me about the the strategy of making a speech on a particular issue that you're reacting to as a candidate during the the midst of an election what effectively are you trying to construct there who is your audience because it does effectively it the starting point is today's not a day for politics but i fucking hate that we'll get into it uh what
Zain
28:04
what is the politics of the speech then right because it is a day for politics everyone knows it what are you trying to do with the speech during the middle of an election cycle what
Carter
28:13
what we've been talking about from the beginning of this thing frame
Carter
28:15
frame any the particular issue in your on your terms right so um trump immediately framed the issue on the terms of uh you
Carter
28:27
you know a foreign muslim who comes over here and kills uh kills american citizens as radical islamic terrorists the
Zain
28:36
to be ingrained in our heads i'm sure that's
Carter
28:39
that's him framing the issue that's
Carter
28:41
that's his issue that's all he cares about hillary immediately tried to frame it as guns and there's a winning argument on both sides there's a group of people who believe both things i'm just interested to see which group's bigger
Carter
28:54
because i'd like to think that trump's group is smaller but they seem to be growing every every single time he opens his mouth.
Zain
29:00
Corey, what's the strategy of like a mid-cycle speech where you effectively have to halt the day, you have to get out your resources? You know Obama did this when he had to talk about his race speech in Philadelphia. There's been other instances as well, right? So what are you trying to do with that? In this
Corey
29:17
this case, what are they trying to do with this speech?
Corey
29:19
Well, what they're trying to do is different than what most politicians are trying to do. Most politicians are trying to survive. But if you are a candidate on a major ticket for the president of the United States of America, arguably the most powerful job in the world, you
Corey
29:33
you are trying to rise to the moment. You are trying to show that you are presidential in your actions and cadence and all of that most
Corey
29:40
most of the time. And then we have Donald Trump.
Corey
29:43
So, I don't know. But they
Corey
29:48
they most certainly were trying to project themselves into the job they want but do not yet have.
Corey
29:55
That is absolutely what they're trying to do in this role. now if you are hillary clinton that job's a little tougher because
Corey
30:01
because especially during the primaries you made a pretty big deal about your stance on gun control you're in that box it's
Corey
30:08
it's the right box to be in from my point of view right because it's going to be fundamentally on
Corey
30:13
on the right side of history but in an election you now have less options she did not have the option ever with this speech to say guns
Corey
30:22
guns are not the problem because uh zane the easiest thing hillary clinton could have done to defuse this is say like yes we agree it's this is about uh you know islamic extremism let's talk about that donald trump's answer is crazy and doesn't solve it and then you sort of narrowed it to a debate where trump looks very offside what
Corey
30:40
what she has to do however is balance her calls for gun control and
Corey
30:44
and her very strong calls with
Corey
30:46
with the observation that this is based in a fundamentalist worldview where that worldview came from how it was instilled in this young man is not something that's clear to me at this point um but
Corey
30:57
mean obviously there are some factors we know instantly but not everybody with a very religious outrageously radicalized father becomes insane
Corey
31:06
insane right but the point of the matter is for hillary she
Corey
31:11
she had to deal with a lot more nuance than donald trump had to and
Corey
31:14
and that's tough so
Corey
31:16
so when you're doing that you want to you want want to nail your example about Reverend Wright was perfect.
Corey
31:22
may recall when Obama gave that speech about race in America, he said he couldn't disavow Reverend Wright for
Corey
31:30
for his views about white America any more than he could disavow his grandmother, who was white, for her views about black America and how race in America is complicated and it's something they're just been struggling with now.
Corey
31:41
That was what Hillary Clinton was attempting to sort of match in tone yeah
Corey
31:45
today she knew she could not win it on uh on
Corey
31:49
on bromides that was that's the donald trump playbook her job had to be to show a certain level of nuance about this issue and book presidential quote unquote interesting
Corey
31:59
interesting thing again about that reverend right issue is
Corey
32:03
it didn't move the polls there was an awful lot of stuff going on between the talking heads but there is no reason to believe at any point during that debate the
Corey
32:11
the polls moved as a result of it it was almost entirely something something that was dissected by the chattering classes.
Corey
32:17
Probably a similar thing here.
Carter
32:19
So what we'll often see in something like this is we're trying to swing on these types of issues, and these types of issues are actually often just hardening issues. So the position that you have hardens. It's not something that you're ever going to move off of. This type of issue, you find the facts that are there, you find the way to get it to support your point of view, and then you harden in that point of view. Right. Right. And this
Carter
32:44
this hardened the issue. That's
Carter
32:47
That's all it did.
Zain
32:49
OK, I want to I want to move it on to to to one last segment on her. Actually, you know, before I go there, I've got one more follow up on you on here for you guys. What do you think ultimately, Corey, of Clinton not mentioning Trump by name going policy heavy? Was this just an extension or should she have gone a little bit? Was it was the box that strictly defined for her?
Zain
33:13
because you're ultimately what you're positioning to me is that as soon as she stepped on the podium this was a no-win situation for her it's
Corey
33:19
it's maybe a little more extreme but not a lot more extreme than what i'm saying here she
Corey
33:25
she has a challenge on this issue which is donald trump no matter what she says if she says if
Corey
33:32
if she says islamic
Corey
33:33
islamic fundamentalism and he goes oh there There you go, sugarcoating it, putting an asterisk on it. There we are, Hillary Clinton making excuses.
Corey
33:42
Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem, Hillary. She never said they were. But
Corey
33:46
But this is the challenge she has on this issue. This is not super firm ground for her in a broad America context. She needs to look like she understands the issue. She's presidential about the issue.
Corey
34:00
And there's something to be said for capitalizing on this moment, Zane, and that would probably be my advice. If I hadn't seen every politician who's attempted to do that fail for the last 20 years, Brady, you
Corey
34:12
you know, the press secretary to Ronald Reagan, a Republican, his
Corey
34:16
his gun control law was banished to get passed and has been gutted over the course of the year. It's ridiculous. This issue, America can just not get passed. So if I'm Hillary Clinton, I'm
Corey
34:25
I'm just trying to move on. That might not be the presidential answer, but that's the political reality. Carter,
Zain
34:30
Carter, I'm going to start this next part with you. Donald Trump and his media relations strategy.
Zain
34:38
call it that the media
Zain
34:40
On a lighter note. Right. At the end of the day, if you're on his campaign. So ultimately, to give people some context today, he asked for The Washington Post credentials to be removed because he found them to be a distasteful organization. He has said in the past
Carter
34:53
past that they've started a fact finder on him. Yes.
Carter
34:57
They are fact. They're checking everything. He says it in real time and
Carter
35:01
and he's starting to get a little grumpy. people like that in the past he
Zain
35:03
he said he's got an absolute low regard for the press writ large yeah who
Zain
35:08
who is going to come out on the right side of this steven carter
Carter
35:15
you pick a fight with the media and you lose right almost this is why i ask
Carter
35:21
don't get in a fight with those who buy ink by the barrel have you
Carter
35:25
uh have you experienced that in the past i believe personally i've been in a fight with a a few journalists i just wanted to ask i was curious to call themselves journalists i'm thinking of you chas um yeah i mean that
Carter
35:37
that there's but here's the here's here's your challenge right you've got uh
Carter
35:42
uh a guy who seems to exist in the media is different today we know that people are self-selecting their own media right i tell the story when i do my my public speeches right i mean when i was a paper boy i used to deliver all the newspapers to every house us on the blog except one and we all read the same newspaper at the same time and we all watched the same television news and we all saw the same stories and therefore we all had the same information same foundation
Carter
36:05
all of us had the same information we do not have that today you are a curator of your information for some reason you got basketball in your twitter feed it makes no sense to me i have other information you know like important stuff uh in my in my twitter feed uh and cory knows everything so he puts out his own twitter feed right but this is
Carter
36:27
everybody gets different information from different sources and does it hurt trump's chances when he says that he's he and he's he's really eliminated the left wing of the of the and i'm saying the left wing i don't think the washington post by any means his left wing i think it is one of the papers of record it's like it's like barring the the the new york times they They really, they have opinions, but they're on both sides. They can do, they're
Carter
36:54
they're bigger than one side of the battle.
Carter
36:58
And he's eliminating most of those sources. So will his followers lose one inch of coverage? No. Will the people who are against him not see less? Probably not. Washington Post is still going to cover him.
Carter
37:11
They're going to cover him and they're going to be as negative as they've ever been. in so he's not necessarily losing the way that i when i pick a fight with the media in alberta am going to lose because there's like 14 people who cover the legislature in alberta is
Zain
37:27
is is that you on the record saying you will never pick a fight again with the
Carter
37:30
the media i'd really
Carter
37:31
really like to apologize to
Carter
37:32
to the following journalists
Zain
37:35
now just to let you know was there was was there air quotes over journalists i just wanted to make sure cory if you are advising the trump campaign do you like what was your rationale here you're ultimately you know picking a fight with the media it's in line it's on brand it's
Corey
37:50
it's all of that
Corey
37:50
stuff it's yeah it's on brand i mean it's an outrageous move just try to imagine here in alberta if like a finance critic said they wouldn't take questions from the globe and mail how
Corey
37:59
how people would react to that yeah
Carter
38:01
yeah i mean you've got how many national papers do we have in canada like two at the best of times right and you say you know what i'm not gonna answer questions or the tour star comes to you and says you know what I'm not talking to the tourists. No, it's been tried. It's been tried. Politicians
Corey
38:14
Politicians have tried not to talk. So this happened in Alberta was the joke to anybody not from Alberta, and they had to retract almost instantly, right? The thing about Trump, though, and the thing about the Washington Post in particular is
Corey
38:30
even more so than the New York Times, especially given that this is Donald Trump, this is Washington's newspaper. You are running that Washington is broken. they epitomize it in their name right he's not going to lose a single vote amongst his supporters because of this move and in fact this is the classic trump firestorm if there's not enough conversation going on about you i you know we talked a lot during the federal election the dead cat on the table yeah sure linton crosby this is linton crosby's dead cat on the table right you just do something outrageous everyone's like that's fucking crazy he's banning the the washington folk we're talking about this and
Corey
39:06
and and what are we not talking about as a result of this right and there there is going to be a lot of that from donald trump in the coming days and weeks i think it's really funny that
Corey
39:18
that he's banned one outlet because it makes me think either he's going to unban them at a certain point or he's going to ban more and i don't know which option is more amusing to me i
Carter
39:28
i got money on more oh
Corey
39:30
oh this is but at a certain point you just look petulant right as much as we talk about the filters being down and your twitter feeds and whatnot donald trump has nine million twitter followers in a country of what all just about 300 million people and they're not all listening to every tweet all the time and they're not all americans there is still a filter he has to get through and the fact of the matter is he's only only where he is because he's been so adept at playing that media that he's now discounting the
Corey
39:58
media doesn't know what the hell to do the media it's like they're being thrown a bunch of balls and they're juggling and they don't really know how to juggle and they find themselves doing it right all right they're just like i don't if i try to stop at this point if i try to change what's going on everything could come falling down on me because they've set a precedent as to how they deal with him they
Corey
40:15
they print everything the best they can manage to muster most of the the time is here
Corey
40:20
here he is verbatim uh
Corey
40:23
have added america right uh
Corey
40:25
uh they don't know how to deal with him but
Corey
40:27
but they do know that they have to report him because that's why everybody's turning on cnn tonight
Zain
40:33
tonight carter last question for you on on this segment before we we end it here
Zain
40:37
what should the media do do you have a plan for them what like if you were the washington post right now what would you trying to be what
Zain
40:45
what would you be trying is there is there because this is unprecedented so you have to try something what are you trying well
Carter
40:51
well i'd probably just pick up from the wire services and then i would add comment to those wire service stories and do what i needed to do to get my story to still file and cover stories put
Carter
41:02
put people outside the building talk to people going in do
Carter
41:05
do what you need to do to cover uh and do what they had done to piss off donald trump which was fact
Carter
41:14
put forward the fact i mean we're seeing i think it was the washington to post it did 78 of his statements are out no falsehoods they're lies and that's why he's starting to get in trouble is that they're tracking it and they're saying you know hillary clinton ain't the best she's 28 lies donald trump is 78 lies one percent of what he's saying is actually wholesome truth like an actual
Corey
41:38
actual verifiable yeah fact
Carter
41:41
fact because he's not talking in facts so the stuff that he and it was something ridiculous like 28 or something like that that was just out and out falsehood so
Corey
41:51
so i i had this is a pet peeve of mine and i'm going to take a bit of an exception to the whole fact checking like percent of things said they only fact check the outrageous things right like so so it's not like every word out of his mouth is coming out and being measured and 78 of them are lies but 78 of the stuff that people are like whoa i don't know know about that's questionable is turning out to be lies okay also why i'm not so shocked that hillary clinton's at 28 because it's not like again it's every word out of her mouth but it's like i don't know about that it's actually quite impressive that such a high percent are truths or some level of truth in my opinion we
Zain
42:29
will leave it there and before we go to our next segment our sponsor campaign tech chicago august 4th in chicago and it's story time with cory yeah take
Corey
42:39
back to what? 2013, is it? 2013. Went to the Washington, D.C. one. It was very nice. Cherry blossoms were in bloom. I remember very well that it was April 20th because people were getting high on the North Lawn.
Corey
42:53
Just outside of the White House. You were there as well, right? Yeah. Carter and I went on a Segway tour together. It
Carter
42:58
It was very romantic. The cherry blossoms were out. The marijuana smoke was wafting through the air. It was nice. Was that like your
Zain
43:05
your guys' one-year election reunion? Was that almost it? It was almost it, yeah. Why
Corey
43:10
Why is it that I've just realized that both of our campaign tech stories to date have involved marijuana?
Corey
43:18
got to go past the War of American Aggression monument that's next to the Lincoln Memorial, right? Very nice. All of that good stuff. But more to the point, we also got to see a bunch of people. So this is my pitch about campaign tech. Now, we are not aberrations being Canadians who go to campaign tech. Yes. All of us have been there. We've all been there, yeah. You see an awful lot of other Canadians there. And one of the fun things about that is it's almost like that old 80s movie like Highlander, you know, the church was holy ground, you know, you go there and you can't fight there.
Corey
43:47
You get to sit on the same side of a table as some of these people who are your political opponents, you know, nationally, provincially, whatnot, take notes, exchange ideas, talk about these things, and really get to know them on a different level, but also get to hear a bit about their worlds in a way that perhaps you wouldn't hear if you'd run into them in a bar, say, in Toronto. Sure. Right. right and so in 2013 the uh conservatives the pcs in alberta were imploding alison redford had to step down i don't even i don't know if this is just before just after but i got to talk to a bunch of you know senior pc volunteers some staff people and whatnot about what was going on there and that was some of my first signs just about how well and truly fucked the pcs and
Corey
44:30
and it helped color the next few months and it let me know that maybe not all was good you know even Even with, you know, the absence of Redford, this would not be an easy rebound.
Corey
44:40
That's the kind of stuff you candidly don't get when
Corey
44:44
when you just run into these people back home. Campaign tech is a great way for us all to come together and all just be
Corey
44:50
be Canadian politicos, you know, hanging out with Americans, doing our thing. I strongly recommend it. It's also got an awful lot of content. I know
Corey
44:59
know I came back from that with quite a few ideas that I mostly applied to corporate clients because the Americans, of course, do everything much more expensive than Canadian campaigns. But
Corey
45:08
But it's really quite an idea incubator and it's probably worth going because Stephen Carter has promised he will go on a Segway tour with everybody who goes to Campaign Tech Chicago who wants. I
Carter
45:19
I will totally do that.
Zain
45:22
And there was one other special note you wanted to mention about Campaign Tech. Well, that's
Corey
45:25
that's right. And so, Zane, this is really important for you in particular. It is. I don't know why
Zain
45:29
why you're saying that. You told me to mention this,
Corey
45:31
this, so I bet you didn't get to hear it. It is in Chicago. Yes. You are a Muslim. This is
Corey
45:37
is your last opportunity before President Trump revokes
Corey
45:40
revokes your ability to visit the United States. I would encourage all of our Muslim listeners to come down.
Corey
45:47
It's a beautiful town. It's my dad and I. No,
Carter
45:50
No, no, we have a huge Muslim community. Do
Carter
45:52
we know that for a fact? No, I mean, I'm guessing.
Corey
45:56
And this is a great opportunity to see one of America's great cities before the wall goes up. Yeah. So get your proverbial wall for us. Get down there.
Corey
46:05
I strongly, strongly recommend you check out Chicago.
Zain
46:08
CampaignTechChicago.com, our code, our coupon code, strategist, saves you 5%. August 4th in Chicago. Okay, let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, drunk history. Stephen Carter, we're talking about revisionist history in politics. And we're doing it through the gateway of Wild Rose politics here in Alberta. Now, tight on time in a sense. So I want to go through this relatively quickly. But lay to us the foundation of what's going on here with Danielle Smith and the Wild Rose. And
Carter
46:36
And we'll kind of take it
Zain
46:36
it from there. So
Carter
46:37
So you're getting everybody posting what has happened and why. So Brian Jean is getting a lot of pressure, it would appear, to step down as the leader of the Wild Rose Party. Now, this is a guy who tragically
Carter
46:48
tragically lost his son when he was, you know, running for the leadership of the Wild Rose. He'd come from being an MP for the Conservative Party. He leaves that. He becomes, he wins the leadership first
Carter
47:03
first ballot so that he, you know, there's no question he's the most popular of the people who are running in that particular leadership. Then he's leading his Wild Rose to first place in the polls. and Fort
Carter
47:16
Fort McMurray fire comes the beast comes and he loses two homes in the beast so naturally the wild rose reaction is we've got to get a new leader so he's he's done everything right he's done everything he can do but the wild rose just simply can't follow so danielle smith
Carter
47:32
posts a blog post on her uh qr77 web page now danielle smith of course former pc leader uh former
Carter
47:40
former wild rose leader crosses to the pieces correct uh
Carter
47:44
uh in december just before the print the 2015 election so december of 2014 and
Carter
47:51
and now she's kind of posting how
Carter
47:53
this all happened to her and and what had happened at the wild rose agm where they tried to pass very um moderate i was going gonna say smaller liberal views towards um homosexuality climate
Carter
48:07
you know just really stuff that's already decided stuff that canadians have decided that we don't care about anymore just bring them
Zain
48:14
them up to speed effective
Carter
48:15
just come catch up the conservatives just did it in their convention where they said a marriage can be a marriage between two loving people they don't care if it's gay or straight or whatever only took them 10 15 years after everything had been decided the wild rose is going to do the same thing so danielle kind of of explains all of this and creates her her history for
Carter
48:35
for how that all unfolded and and i was just fascinated by it not because her history is wrong there's some other people who who took real exception to to danielle's sense of history and and uh posted their own blog posts or posted their retorts
Carter
48:50
retorts facebook tweets you know danielle's being um disingenuous
Carter
48:55
disingenuous and you know she's recreating and re
Carter
48:58
re-envisioning history. And I thought, no, this is not what this is about.
Carter
49:02
What this is about
Carter
49:04
that each of us has our own point of view on these historical moments. Each of us has our own point of view. I have a different point of
Zain
49:11
many Nahid Nenshi victory stories have I heard, Stephen? Oh,
Carter
49:14
Oh, my God. How many people looked at what happened with Nahid, right? And they got themselves into it.
Carter
49:19
They're the reason for it, or they saw what had happened, or they saw how it happened, or they saw how
Carter
49:26
how McIver screwed up, or they saw how Higgins gave it away. There's a, whatever point of view you bring to these historical moments, that is a unique point of view. And it's not untrue. It's
Carter
49:37
It's just the way that you particularly saw it. Corey, why,
Zain
49:40
why, why is the, you know, the,
Zain
49:42
the, the story of victory or the story of defeat so important? Is this like a strategist ego thing? Are we getting too meta or, or, you know, why is the, the after story and like the tight narratives everyone likes to tell about how linear shit was so important well there's
Corey
49:57
there's two big reasons in my books one is human nature as we've sort of talked about we all are heroes in our own novels right and sometimes you need to airbrush the past in order to make that the case uh this is the concept of cognitive dissonance i did x x was bad i'm not a bad person therefore y also occurred and that's how everything gets kind of squared as we move along right
Corey
50:20
that's part of it but there's another part of it that i think is kind of underplayed during these um these
Corey
50:27
these political conversations what happened in the back rooms how did a happen how did b happen who
Corey
50:32
who led a yeah and that is frankly official
Corey
50:36
official narratives are very confusing and there's a bit of a fog of war on all of this stuff so i think back on some of the pivotal moments that i've been involved in yeah uh
Corey
50:44
uh you know ndp liberal merger talks uh you know leaders being deposed things like that and to be honest every
Corey
50:51
every time i think about them they're a little different and it's because over time there's the blending of your
Corey
50:57
your own personal story uh the things you remember hearing other people say and and the official narrative that was out at the time and all of them start to conflate and confuse and while the main thrust may always be the same the details change and i have to say one of the way that like professional you know truth detectors
Corey
51:15
detectors sort of know whether or not something is actually the case is if the narrative stays too rigid right the
Corey
51:21
the fact of the matter is when we are actually moving through our lives and telling these stories natural
Corey
51:26
natural storytellers we are heroes in our own books as we are yeah
Corey
51:29
these details do kind of change and every time you remember something you're actually pulling it out of storage and putting it back into storage things
Corey
51:37
things change it actually gets very difficult to remember where things are i will say one of the things specific about daniel smith's story that I find fascinating is that
Corey
51:46
that as she tells it is pretty much how I remember too from a very different place yeah everybody was talking about this this was largely rumors now maybe we're hearing the same rumors maybe it was what actually happened there is an objective truth somewhere along the way there in the world right
Corey
52:02
or maybe uh it doesn't matter maybe fundamentally when we start debating the details about this but Danielle Smith felt one way and the other side felt another other way that's
Corey
52:13
that's telling us the real story to begin with it
Corey
52:16
is so fascinating to me though about how this history written by the victors thing comes
Corey
52:20
comes up history is not written by the victors history is written by the loudest person in the room well
Carter
52:26
well then we should have a really good chance it's gonna be great yeah and
Corey
52:29
and isn't that what you built your career on i just want to make sure okay it's the loudest in the
Corey
52:35
will be fascinated to see how
Corey
52:37
how daniel smith's tenure how she crossed uh the rising from the ashes story that came after it brian gene how that is going to fit into the narrative that they write for themselves and this is kind of a funny full circle from what we started talking about here is it right off the bat you know with guns and yeah you can't ban guns now because their their worldview is so tied up in it the
Corey
53:00
the wild rose base the core have convinced themselves convinced themselves that they are the only thing that stands between alberta and like some sort of crazy authoritarian state and
Corey
53:11
and they have to bring alberta back to the way it was in the good old days in the 90s which candidly were not that good and
Corey
53:17
and we're pretty old at this point and now
Corey
53:22
now we're gonna see we're really gonna see what's in the wild rose dna what kind of lies they're telling themselves and so on carter take me into your experience
Zain
53:29
experience okay you win let's go with let's go with 2012 right you susan
Zain
53:34
susan elliott effectively effectively one of the top two within the PC campaign. Yeah,
Zain
53:40
was running it, and I was War Room. War Room, right?
Zain
53:43
Do you guys sit down after the victory being like, first, holy shit, you know, how did the Wilderisks grow up so badly? We won, thank God, right? Do you guys actually parse out as to what the story is? Because I remember Susan wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail. You guys were, you know, speaking about what happened. Take me on the inside. Does that actually happen where it's like, we've won, now here's who gets credit for this Siler or this slice of
Carter
54:06
of the pie. It's
Zain
54:07
It's an immediate battle. It's an all-out war,
Carter
54:09
war, isn't it? It's an immediate battle because –
Carter
54:12
Was it that on the Nenshi campaign as well? Oh, my God. So the Nenshi campaign, we had pollsters becoming senior strategists. We had – I mean, all hell was breaking loose on the Nenshi campaign. People I'd never heard of were in charge. One time – I mean, I've met people who identified themselves as Joe Clark's speechwriter to
Carter
54:31
to me after – When
Zain
54:32
When you were working with Joe. When
Carter
54:33
When I was working with Joe. So in 2001, Calgary Center, and I meet Joe Clark's speechwriter at a Jim Prentiss meeting, and I'm like, I
Carter
54:43
know you. I was Joe Clark's – I did all of Joe Clark's communications. I've never seen you before in my life. I've never heard your name mentioned. Okay, you're his speechwriter. Whatever. You let it go. 2012 began the battle of essentially the Toronto people versus the Calgary people. Right, right. right uh susan and i were
Carter
55:05
were deemed by the the toronto assholes i mean the toronto strategists to be um
Carter
55:12
we screwed it up we did it all wrong they had
Zain
55:14
had to come in and doctor it
Carter
55:16
now they ran the 2015 campaign so
Carter
55:20
okay and and one part of the reason was that they'd said that we had exaggerated the polls we were not ever as down as we said we were when the pcs were in trouble See, because we won. We bounced back. The polls were all wrong. So when they're looking at the same data in 2015, they're saying the polls were wrong in 2012. They're wrong again now.
Carter
55:41
So their victory story colored their next election and they
Carter
55:46
they lost. So I don't
Zain
55:47
don't want to go too deep into this because I find this fascinating. I hope others do too. But you guys win an election, but the senior people on the campaign are looking at each other, ultimately being like, find me a mic because I want to figure out how to take credit. Oh,
Carter
56:00
Oh, yeah. I mean, and Susan. And
Zain
56:02
And that's a campaign. Yeah,
Carter
56:03
Yeah, I don't think I'm speaking out of school. I mean, Susan's company just went apart. She wasn't a part of it anymore. She was on her own again, and she's doing great. She's doing great work. work um but who
Carter
56:17
who won and who lost that campaign created major divisions that that we can still trace to this day in the in the very small world that is the political strategist world that
Zain
56:29
that is fascinating to me that is fascinating okay let's move it on to our final segment our final segment bold brilliant or boneheaded oh guys it's back it's been so many episodes plus brilliant plus Plus the lightning round. We'll throw it in all as one. Okay. For people that don't know, for people who haven't been listening since episode 108, this is an old segment. So what I do is I present a situation, a political situation that's happened in the last little bit, and I ask Stephen and Corey whether it was bold, brilliant, or boneheaded by the party I mentioned. Okay? Here
Corey
56:58
Here we go. This is
Corey
56:59
is actually truly one of my favorite segments.
Corey
57:01
I don't know why we don't do
Zain
57:02
do it. It's a long time. Okay?
Zain
57:03
The federal liberals. That's who you're talking about here. Okay? The liberals and how they're dealing with assisted dying legislation, C-14, so effectively they refuse to budge on the Senate's proposal to expand assisted dying to the non-terminally ill. That's where it stands right now.
Zain
57:18
The liberal strategy on this, bold, brilliant, or boneheaded? Carter, I'll start with you first.
Carter
57:25
Boneheaded. Boneheaded. I just think that they, you know,
Carter
57:31
know, today the Justice Minister said that the legislation does not have to conform to the Supreme Court ruling.
Carter
57:38
Okay, then it goes back to the Supreme Court. I'm told that they have the ability to look at these things and determine whether or not they meet the constitutional requirements. Have at her. That's how we wound up in this mess in the first place. They gave them a year. and the Liberals have not figured out what the Senate's role in this is and they haven't figured out what the court's role in this. Corey?
Corey
58:00
Well, that's why I think it – I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are attempting to – that this has nothing to do with assisted dying legislation. Let's put it this way. And if the role of it is to try to put the Senate in an ever smaller box, then I think it's brilliant because once again, we will have a situation where the senate will be holding up the will of the elected house and if you're trying to uh break that
Corey
58:28
that old partisan senate and make the case for your new non-partisan senate right
Corey
58:34
this isn't such a bad one and particularly while we're all talking about electoral reform maybe this just gives a bit of a halo on why electoral reform in general ain't such a bad idea now that
Corey
58:46
it kind of more leads to the ndp standard approach on the senate which is get rid of the fucking thing it's the worst thing ever and
Corey
58:55
and and i don't necessarily know if it's a wise idea for the liberals to totally undercut the logic of the senate okay
Zain
59:03
okay let's move it on next one and we'll cory we'll just jump off your point the liberals powering through on the tight deadline that is electoral reform powering through versus getting it right now powering through is their strategy right now they want to get it done versus getting it right
Zain
59:20
bold brilliant boneheaded what do you think i'm
Corey
59:22
i'm gonna give the opposite of my last answer i think it's boneheaded unless they have something up their sleeve and this is part of a broader plan to continue to look like they're willing to compromise on electoral reform so what we saw in act one or two whatever you want to say was uh hey look at our committee oh no ndp you want it to not be a majority liberal committee i guess we can do that right right starts to look reasonable now if that is part of a broader strategy and now they're going to give ground on the timeline as well i
Corey
59:53
think that that's a good thing but
Corey
59:56
but i don't think that they're in a particularly strong position if they say we are just going to ram through uh
Corey
1:00:02
uh you know conversations be damned no No matter how it unfolds, be damned, and it's going to be done by this day. Carter,
Zain
1:00:06
Carter, what do you think? Bold, brilliant, boneheaded. What do you think of the liberals? I'd love to
Carter
1:00:09
to believe that there is a brilliant strategy behind this. I can't see how. I can't see it at all. So I'm going to have to go with boneheaded. I'm back-to-back boneheaded.
Zain
1:00:20
Great. Okay. The Alberta NDP had their convention this weekend. Now, this is ultimately not what they have done, but if they do this, I want you to prescribe one of the three measures on them. If they are to effectively keep on doubling down on their platform and going down on it versus going to the center in some of their policy measures, Carter, would that be bold, brilliant, or boneheaded?
Zain
1:00:43
Appealing to their base versus starting to go to the middle for the next three years.
Carter
1:00:49
You're asking a hypothetical. I
Zain
1:00:51
I really am. But I'm curious to kind of hear your take. I
Carter
1:00:53
I think it would be bold, mostly
Carter
1:00:55
mostly because I don't want to do three back-to-back, boneheaded.
Carter
1:00:57
boneheaded. Great. consistency and
Zain
1:01:01
integrity the stephen carter story jesus yeah
Carter
1:01:04
yeah i'm really gonna really dig in on that one cory
Zain
1:01:07
cory i'm sure you have an opinion on this what if they were to appeal to their base for the next three years or go to the middle what do you think i i reject
Corey
1:01:13
reject the premise entirely i knew he'd see i knew he'd do this because at least carter's place you are saying you are presuming right off the bat that their platform is not the center but
Corey
1:01:22
but none of the polling that i have seen suggests that even remotely every single one of those policy planks on their platform polled after their election individually higher than 50 support so you want to talk about the center if
Corey
1:01:35
if you want to be in the center you tack to your platform there was a reason you were elected that is the center stick to it i'm
Zain
1:01:43
i'm gonna just deeply sigh but okay i
Corey
1:01:46
i like it hey on on message hard truths the fact of the matter is you've bought into the wild rose narrative so i heard
Carter
1:01:52
heard him say he was boneheaded.
Carter
1:01:55
That's what I heard. If you are
Corey
1:01:56
are suggesting to me for a second
Corey
1:01:58
that it is just a given that the NDP platform that they want on is left-wing, I challenge you to go read the NDP platform. It is a prairie populist platform. It
Corey
1:02:09
It is certainly not this radical document you're implying. You know what? We'll
Corey
1:02:13
We'll table this. I actually want to go into this next turn.
Carter
1:02:16
Guess who was at the NDP convention having sunshine blowing up his butt? Guess who was there? Was it the Orange apologist yes it was so steven carter bold
Zain
1:02:25
bold brilliant or boneheaded the conservatives and how they're dealing with the national anthem debate uh
Carter
1:02:32
uh i think it's probably boneheaded i mean you're gonna lose probably boneheaded i
Zain
1:02:37
expecting a quicker response but maybe i'm
Carter
1:02:41
conservatives by their nature don't like to change these things they don't like to change the tradition they don't like to change the um you
Carter
1:02:48
you know they don't like change. And they're also predisposed to oppose just to oppose. So that creates havoc. But I
Carter
1:02:58
this particular thing, they're going to lose and they're going to look bad in doing it. And I heard a lot of people tweet back at me, a lot of conservatives tweet back at me,
Carter
1:03:08
you have to ignore the fact that it's an MP's dying bill.
Carter
1:03:15
Yeah. No, you don't. Because Because this is politics, this is real life, and this is what, you know, we're
Carter
1:03:21
we're not going to play this stupid game where things like that don't matter. They do matter, and they're going to look like shit.
Corey
1:03:30
Corey, what do you give them? I think it's bold. Really? I think that it's actually not a bad move for them because there is the emotion of the moment that will dissipate to a certain extent.
Corey
1:03:40
guys, this is the national anthem. There's going to be people at sporting events for the rest of their life saying in all thy son's commands, realizing people around them are not saying that and having like a flash of anger and shame and be like, fuck, I can't believe they changed that. How ridiculous. The anthem I grew up with is no longer being the anthem that's being sung. I think that as
Corey
1:04:02
well, if you start thinking forward to 2019 and where the possible divisions between the Trudeau liberals and the
Corey
1:04:10
the Kenny conservatives or whoever the hell it might be are going to be, this
Corey
1:04:17
ultra-afiq Canada that just is no longer reasonable or practical is a potential narrative that the conservatives will grab. I obviously am not somebody who loves that narrative, but I think that that is not such a losing issue for them. I don't know that they're going to lose votes on that, but I think they could gain votes.
Zain
1:04:36
Stephen Carter, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 to 10, Tom Mulcair and what he did at the press gallery dinner where he effectively said, unlike everyone, I don't give a fuck, and then went on like a roast for 10 minutes. What does that do to the Tom Mulcair brand
Corey
1:04:50
brand on a scale of 1 to 10? He clearly doesn't give a fuck because he jumped right into straight plagiarism there of Obama's speech. Straight up. Speaking
Carter
1:04:56
Speaking of who didn't give a fuck, that was my question, Mr. Hogan. No,
Corey
1:05:00
No, I was just teeing it up for you. I
Carter
1:05:01
I mean, fuck it. It was bold. Have a great time. You're on your way out. You're off the ball,
Zain
1:05:10
I don't care. You liked it, though. I loved it. Why not? I'm giving you a nine. I'm just giving you numbers now. Sure. We're
Carter
1:05:15
We're doing numbers now?
Zain
1:05:16
I just asked you numbers. I missed that, too. Yeah, yeah. It's fine. You know what? I think this
Carter
1:05:19
this just proves. Agile minds. Neither one of us is listening to him at this point.
Zain
1:05:23
You guys just have answers for my questions, don't you? Regardless of what they are. Here's
Carter
1:05:30
gives zero fucks. He, you know, I mean, I'm hearing rumors. But what does it do to the... You
Carter
1:05:35
You know, it's fuck, he's done. He's fucking done.
Carter
1:05:40
Don't let the door hit you on the way out the door. And off he goes. Now, Corey is holding an orange. Well, we've got oranges here. We had a kid's fundraiser. Had to buy boxes of oranges. Holding an orange, talking
Zain
1:05:50
talking about Tom Mulcair right after just
Corey
1:05:52
just giving – yeah, go ahead.
Corey
1:05:54
I don't think he gives zero fucks. That's my problem. I think this was once again kind of a move that Tom Mulcair brought in to sort of try on a new persona. He's almost like Buffalo Bill wearing other people's skins for a day to see what the hell it feels like. Is he giving him a low mark here? Well, the rumor is right now that he may throw his hat in the ring for the NDP leadership again, again, having been deposed by the delegates, but previously elected by the members. So I don't
Corey
1:06:21
don't know if that's just window dressing. I would love somebody to pin him down and get him to say, without a doubt, he is not going to do that. So any reporters out there, hey, there's one for your Tuesday morning questions. But
Corey
1:06:36
if that's the case, it's just, I don't know. I think I think it's a really bad idea to just act in such a, I
Corey
1:06:44
don't know, I mean, so clearly transparent fashion. It's
Corey
1:06:47
It's fine. It's the press gallery. It's supposed to be fun. I guess it was fun. But it was not necessarily something that I take at face value. Stephen
Zain
1:06:54
Stephen Carter, over, under on seven, the DNC peace process. How's it going between Bernie and Hillary? Over, under on seven.
Zain
1:07:05
Yeah, it's under. This is not on time, not on schedule, hey? This is not on time, not on
Corey
1:07:10
on schedule. Not on budget. We've been waiting for this train to hit the platform for a while. Turns out there are not even railway tracks to the platform at this point. Stephen
Zain
1:07:19
Stephen Carter, between one and ten, how much does it hurt the NDP that Nathan Cullen has now officially said he's not going to run for them?
Carter
1:07:25
probably about a six or seven i mean everybody's falling in love with uh what's
Carter
1:07:30
what's his name jagmeet
Carter
1:07:36
ndp no one gives a shit i
Corey
1:07:38
think it's a bigger deal um but
Corey
1:07:40
but i also think
Corey
1:07:43
it's become increasingly clear to me that so far out from the election
Corey
1:07:48
they're going to have that challenge people are going to be saying no left right and center Well, left, left, and further left in the Andy Pease case. But because
Corey
1:07:56
because what the hell? You're going to campaign for two years for this job? I mean, I think that was the big mistake. And if anything, I think that that's what we learned with having everybody so quickly say they're out. You're asking to make them a commitment too far in advance. Stephen
Zain
1:08:11
Stephen Carter, last question. You're on a scale of 1 to 10.
Zain
1:08:14
What sort of effect do you think the incident in Orlando will have on the U.S. general election?
Carter
1:08:21
Oh, man, it's going to be a one because here's your reality. We are a society that remembers these things in three to five bits. And I know people are going to be pissed to hear that from me today because it's day three, two today, maybe day three when you're listening.
Carter
1:08:40
Sorry, guys. My history has been that people forget about these things way sooner than we think we will. Corey,
Zain
1:08:44
Corey, any solace to taking
Corey
1:08:46
taking that or what score are you signing? I mean, I think if it's not a one, it's a two. And that's only the faint hope that maybe it rattles coalitions in some unusual ways. You have the LGBTQ community who have obviously
Corey
1:08:59
obviously been incredibly stalwart to the Democratic Party, but that
Corey
1:09:04
that was a very real attack on their community. And there may be some scared people who are now more willing to listen to Trump, who, by the way, despite
Corey
1:09:11
despite denigrating pretty much every fucking group in America, has been fairly decent to the LGBTQ community.
Corey
1:09:22
think it's a one, maybe a two if you see some sort of rattling around there. Yeah,
Carter
1:09:25
Yeah, he's reminded us many, many times that the LGBTQ community has no better friend than Donald Trump.
Zain
1:09:31
We'll leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 579 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we will see you next time.
Corey
1:09:44
Hey, thanks for listening. Make sure you leave a review and subscribe on iTunes. Like it and share it on Facebook and Twitter, it being this episode. And follow us at StrategistPod or individually, Carter underscore AB, Corey Hogan, Zane Velji. See you next time.