Episode 581: Yes We Kenney

SPEAKER_01 0:03

This is the Strategist episode 581. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? It's a great day, Zain. Every day is a great day. A great Canadian, a great Albertan has

SPEAKER_01 0:16

The homecoming. We're talking about Kevin Durant.

Carter 0:25

What are we talking about? Jason Kenney. The Jason Kenney. The big guy. The big guy. The

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Oh, my God. There is so much to talk about. It's been a while since our last episode. We had our midnight Brexit episode. A lot has happened. And then everything that we wanted to talk about around Brexit is going to be pushed second to talk about this. Because Jason Kenney has come out today and he has announced that he is running under a Unite the Right movement to make Alberta great again. Again, Corey.

Corey 0:53

Yeah, and I can only imagine the rest of Canada rejoices as one of the Conservatives' most obnoxious MPs retreats to his home province. But as an Albertan, I'm decidedly less enthusiastic. So let's

SPEAKER_01 1:05

let's just start there. Let's get into it. And this is our first segment.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Jason, can he actually do this?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

See, the pun is in his last name. It's really good. It's can he. Can he. Yeah, can he. And the answer, Stephen Carter, give it to me. Don't bury the lead like Jason Kenney. um

Carter 1:20

anybody who chooses to run the leadership can win that leadership depending on who comes out to vote yeah i don't believe that running on a party a platform of i'm going to take your party and fold it into some other party is the way that people get elected people tend to misremember how peter mckay for example uh got the mandate to fold the progressive conservative party federally into the conservative party if

Corey 1:44

if i recall correctly he didn't he didn't

Carter 1:46

didn't in fact he promised the exact exact opposite what he said was i will never fold this party this proud party into the the reform party it was these two cultures will not happen it will not happen we will not mix them and

Carter 2:01

and he did that and uh well

Carter 2:03

well i mean i guess you know from some points of view it was successful but he did not run on it now jason kenney is running on it with this party and he's saying right up front i will take this party and move it to the right i will unite the right yeah

Carter 2:17

and that to me is uh i

Carter 2:19

i mean kudos to him for at least being honest and saying this is his agenda there's

SPEAKER_01 2:23

there's no surprise with what you get with him no

Carter 2:25

no he's being honest and and in this day and age when we see so many politicians campaign for something they don't believe in or campaign on something that they don't fully you know or they they hide their true agenda behind false words yeah

Carter 2:38

and niceties these jason kenney is the very least putting straight forward up front i am going to take the progressive conservative party in the wild rose and create a conservative party of alberta

Carter 2:49

good for him cory

SPEAKER_01 2:50

cory i want to get your opinion on that carter we'll go back to the fact of the event today because you and i were both there we want to talk about the staging and how he announced it we'll get into that in a second cory top line jason kenney what are your thoughts do

Corey 3:03

do i think do you think he can do it do you think he can do it honestly can

SPEAKER_01 3:06

he do it yeah

Corey 3:07

yeah you can absolutely do it uh the audacity of it is is pretty remarkable but it really depends on how much interest is in this campaign and the thing about delegated conventions that people often forget is it's as much as it does put power more in the hands of the quote-unquote party elite you still have a fundamentally uh that same process running and what's going to come down to is intensity and the reason why the party elite usually carry the day in a delegated at a convention is because they have intensity on their side they care about the party that's why they show up to vote that's why they go to convention maybe

Corey 3:39

maybe jason kenney has the intensity on his side maybe the people who are most passionate are the ones who feel most robbed the ones who think if only we united the right we wouldn't have the new democrats so can he do it he can absolutely do it uh but make no bones about it this is not a precedented situation this is weird right this is a guy who has campaigned for the wild rose for the past several elections now running for the leadership of another party right

SPEAKER_01 4:06

the mandate to effectively merge those two parties well he's

Corey 4:10

he's asking well okay and let's let's the audacity of it doesn't just end at the pcs it's not like

SPEAKER_01 4:15

like audacity actually well

Corey 4:16

well he he's running now to be leader of a party that he ran against and that but forcefully saying now i want to unite the right with a party that has has actually not shown that they want to unite with him so there's quite a few hurdles he's got to overcome here uh you know he may end up leader of the pcs and find himself without a dance partner on the other side of all of this absolutely

Corey 4:35

uh but the boldness again i think the swing for the fences i do wonder if jason kenney's not being kind of allured by the legend of it like what his status would be in the if he could do it yeah yeah if he could do it because what he's doing is is pretty wild if he manages to pull it off now

Corey 4:53

could he do it is not the same as will he do it i still think he's got to overcome a lot of institutional hostility i also think the more candidates are in this pc race the worse it is for him because he is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and delegated conventions uh involve an intensity of feelings as we've already talked about and in In 2006, when Stéphane Dion became the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, that didn't happen because he was considered the best by most people. He was considered the best alternative that wasn't the guy they hated by most people. Right, right. It became a war between Ignatiev and Bob Ray, and ultimately everything else was just battle damage that led to people going to Dion. And that will happen as well in this race. It's going to be all about Kenny, and everybody else will be the also-rans and the not-Kenny's, and the strongest of that pack, in my estimation today, probably has the best opportunity to win.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Okay, I want to run almost two parallel sort of streams within this segment. The first is, let's talk about Kenny. You guys have both given me your top-line thoughts. But, Carter, let's get back and let's start with, on our second sort of stream here, which is, how do you stage a launch? Because we just came back from the Jason Kenny launch right now. now, the announcement that he made at noon here in Calgary. And I want to talk first, generally, what are the elements that go into a very successful launch, and then Judge Kenny on that, and then we'll get back to how he does this. So talk to me about what's needed in a successful political launch. First, you have

Carter 6:20

have to understand that there's a degree of theater, right?

Carter 6:22

right? This is about theater, and there has to be some sort of an emotional connection between what happens in the actual

Carter 6:30

actual production of that theater and the outcome, right?

Carter 6:33

right? Right. So first

Carter 6:36

first thing, you need a bunch of people to record it. So Jason Kenney succeeded beyond anybody's wildest dreams and that he had everybody there to record it. Every

Carter 6:43

Every media outlet in Calgary or in Alberta was there to cover his launch. Success number one. Success number two, you have to have a full room that adores you. So it was a smallish room. It wasn't the smallest room I've ever seen a launch in. Yeah.

Carter 6:57

But it was a smallish room.

Carter 6:59

300, 300 ish. Sure.

Carter 7:01

sure let's give them that yeah uh whether it's 200 or 400 it doesn't matter the

Carter 7:05

was full it was packed there were people standing down the aisles um success number two right that's part of the theater right and then his entrance was well staged uh playing paul brant's alberta bound um really well kind of choreographed he comes in it's a bit cheesy but you know what we're gonna take the cheese it worked really well he came in he shook everybody's hands everybody's on their feet it's kind of going wild uh and then he goes up to the to the microphone even the way that he was introduced um was was visually very

SPEAKER_01 7:35

very interesting talk to me about that and and is is that a key component of he's

Carter 7:40

he's introduced by the enormous

Carter 7:43

it was it tim i

SPEAKER_01 7:43

i think it might have been tim i i don't think it was tim but it was it was an enormous seek they're

Carter 7:47

they're all why are they all so big they

Carter 7:51

crush me with one thing no they're not and i mean tall come on he's like six foot it's something anyways

Carter 7:57

anyways i don't think you're gonna get support on this anyways he he he's up there and he introduced him they sang oh canada uh they used in all our sons command not in all of us command i sang the all of us command cory you'll be happy to know i was the only one um

Carter 8:12

um but it was a it was a it was well staged from that from all of those standpoints but then he gets up on stage and he proceeds to bury the lead before

SPEAKER_01 8:21

before we before we do that human backdrop how important i don't like the human back you don't like it there was one here today yeah the

Carter 8:28

the human backdrop to me is always uh someone's you

Carter 8:30

you know moving around i mean it's the latest thing in politics and when i say the latest thing it's been around since what 1992 1996 well

Corey 8:37

well there's always the video of the board person yeah

Carter 8:39

yeah picking his nose picking their nose

SPEAKER_01 8:42

couple yawns for sure not a

Carter 8:43

a big fan of the human backdrop but he does the human backdrop thing there will alberta flag behind them

Carter 8:48

no mention of the pc party brand no no recognition of the pc party brand didn't use the the PC party colors at all just went with the colors of the flag uh interesting choices um went more with the blue the conservative blue as opposed to going with the the orange and blue of the conservative progressive conservative party so very visually

Carter 9:07

visually his message was this isn't about the progressive conservative party and then he started to talk you know so the like

SPEAKER_01 9:13

like 25 minutes into his speech and this is what you're talking about burying the lead right if I'm not mistaken he he

Carter 9:18

he spoke for a good 25 minutes before he said he was going to go before

SPEAKER_01 9:22

before he was running oh

Carter 9:23

oh Oh, yeah. And he set it up within the history.

Carter 9:26

He set up all the history. He did history after history after history lesson. Didn't tell anybody what he stood for. Didn't say. And I guess that'll come. But he's not he's not in a place where he's saying this is what I'm all about.

Carter 9:40

One thing about the attendance. I'm interested in how many people attended, given that he seemed to robocall like

Carter 9:46

like every progressive conservative since like at least 2011. 2011 he had access to the 2011 leadership list he had access to wild rose lists and he was robocalling them all last night so on that front i mean you robocall tens

Carter 10:02

tens of thousands of people on some level maybe you should have gotten more than 300 people but yeah

Carter 10:08

i still think it was pretty so

SPEAKER_01 10:09

so yeah so so give me one second carter give me your overall analysis you talked about you talked about staging you talked about entrance you talked about the room overall what did you you think in this case until

Carter 10:20

until he started speaking it was fantastic and when he started speaking my reptilian brain could not wrap myself around the words that he was using cory

SPEAKER_01 10:28

cory let's let's go back to that that generic question around what is necessary in order to kind of stage a very successful campaign or political launch in your mind i

Corey 10:38

mean fundamentally at the end of the day what you need is people to be aware that a launch occurred and and to propel you into the race so So I've had to do this on Leadership Contest before.

Corey 10:49

And, you know, I mean, he got 300 people-ish there. You're telling me in the middle of the day in northeast Calgary. I don't think that's bad at all. I mean, I think it was downtown Calgary at lunch hour and he only got 300. And it was an empty room. That would be a problem. But it sounds like he hit his marks on that front.

Corey 11:06

It's really not an event for the people in the room. They're already with you. It's an event for the people outside of the room. And you just need to create as compelling a vision as possible on that. Now, what he wanted to do was create a vision of two parties coming together, conservatives from all walks of life coming together. That's why he needed so many people. In other instances, well, I mean, Bernie Sanders, you want to talk about a campaign launch, literally just put a podium outside the Capitol and was like, I'm running for president. And then he walked back to work, right? Very Bernie, by the way. But, I mean, that was almost the point of that, even if it was accidental. It really was on brand with him. him it's

Corey 11:41

it's just got to start right laying out that campaign narrative and all the visuals and all the words you say and everything needs to flow towards that ultimate message and ballot box question you're trying to convey so kenny i saw i wasn't there i saw a couple of i think i would have lit on fire just if i went in that room but

Corey 11:58

but i i saw a few pictures online the giant alberta i've never seen so many alberta flags in one place by the way giant alberta flag little alberta flags for waving the logos with the alberta flag on it it was just it was it first of all it did sort of remind me of that old adage that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel right but

Corey 12:18

it's it's it was really trying to be about this is our province conservatives and we need to take it back it was the start of an insurrection against the ndp and you can see pretty consistent messaging that will carry him through to a general election so props on him he's doing what you're supposed to to do on a launch here's

SPEAKER_01 12:35

here's here's what i find interesting in one of the comments you made cory and i think that let's dig up upon this a little bit more you were saying the audience for this is less about the 300 or so people in the room but more about creating compelling narrative for people that are not in that room right

Corey 12:48

right i mean yeah what did he do he physically brought people together he's bringing people together that's his message right i i've seen campaign launches with far less people i've seen campaign launches where they don't even bother with people they just want want the press there yeah

Corey 13:02

the he had a very different uh requirement his requirement had to have those people in the wild rose t-shirt there and the former pc ministers he needed to create a sense that people from all sides and walks of life could come together and he did that and he did it under the aegis of alberta itself and that this was a pan alberta movement what

Corey 13:21

what i think will be fascinating is how many albertans agree with him because i suspect at the end of of the day, Jason

Corey 13:27

Jason Kenney being elected in the 90s as a reformer doesn't really have a clear sense anymore of what Alberta is all about. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Okay, that's a great segue to getting into our strategy. Because the first thing I want to hit on, and Corey, you've touched on this, and so have you, Stephen, is math. This is a very, and there's two elements to this math question. This is a very different election than the last PC leadership, is it not, Stephen? We are now looking at a delegated race where now not jason kenney for example cannot step up in calgary sell 50 000 memberships and feel like this is a done date that's not how it works anymore no

Carter 14:01

no and this is and there's two very different leaderships that happened in the last two two leaders the jim prentice leadership right where he was anointed by the press and anointed by the members and he was going to win come hell or high water and then there was the leadership of 2011 which allison redford wound up winning again Again, the press picked Gary Maher. Gary Maher was going to win.

Carter 14:20

The media is not picking Jason

Carter 14:22

Jason Kenney to win this race. You think that's important this time around? It's massively important. Jason Kenney is going to get a hard ride from the media because the media don't particularly care for Jason Kenney and they don't trust what he says.

Carter 14:34

The fact there was no Q&A today is going

Carter 14:37

going to sting and Jason Kenney will pay for that. He

Carter 14:41

He will do one-on-ones tomorrow where he can control his agenda. It makes sense to me. He knows he's up against the press that doesn't like him.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

So you would have advised

Carter 14:49

advised him of that no Q&A strategy? No, I would have advised that he surprise them. If I was there working with him, I'd

Carter 14:56

you've got to surprise them. You've got to show that you're not going to be Harper-esque in your approach to the media.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

media. That legacy is one he's trying to continue. You

Carter 15:03

You are going to stand up in front of the media, and you're going to Arnold Vinnick it. You're going to take every question until they're done asking questions because you know more about the subjects than anybody else. The problem with that is he doesn't. So he knows he can't take a question because he cannot answer, what do you plan to do with health care?

Carter 15:20

I mean, he alluded to it in his speech. He's going to decentralize control and give nurses more power. Very interesting. Is that in the operating room? Where are you giving, you know, like, what exactly are you going to do when you say that you're going to decentralize power? Are you firing all the administrators? Is that your plan? How much are you cutting out of health care and how is it going to impact my grandma from From getting the attention

SPEAKER_01 15:45

So let's talk about, Carter, back to you, though. I don't think you've answered my question. Around the 87 riding associations that exist, this is not one member, one vote. How does he do this in a delegated way? Like, what is the game plan for Jason Kenney going forward after

Carter 16:00

after today? There will be a few constituency associations that he's going to have success with right off the bat. Right. They'll

SPEAKER_01 16:06

They'll fold for him. Right.

Carter 16:07

Right. And they'll come in and they'll be, you know, like, I don't think it'd be more than four or five. I got a phone call yesterday from a former MLA who's in a very right-wing part of the province who

Carter 16:17

said, how do we stop Jason Kenney? PCMLA.

Carter 16:19

PCMLA. How do I stop Jason Kenney? Because I don't want Jason Kenney to take over. He organized a Wild Rose constituency association against me. He's been campaigning against these people. These people take it personally, and they're still in charge of their constituency associations. They're not going to hand over the keys to the castle to someone who wants to shut down the party.

Carter 16:39

And that's where Jason needs to bring in new people. Yeah. So

Carter 16:43

there's a rabid right wing in Alberta. There are lots of right wingers out there. But where are they? Are they with the Wild Rose? Do they want to leave the Wild Rose and join a new party? Do they want to go to the organizing committees? 87 different delegate selection meetings. 87 different times a ballot's going to be cast. They're going to be on different nights. They're going to be in different locations. There's 87 different communication structures that need to be put in place. and it's hard enough to do with members, people who are interested, people who have attended the meetings in the past. Already

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Already high engagement, yeah. It's

Carter 17:14

It's going to be, I

Carter 17:15

I don't want to say impossible, it's going to be much harder to do with people who haven't been members of the PC before. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Corey, do you disagree with the framework that Carter's kind of put together with the uphill battle that Jason Kenney has? Well, I don't know

Corey 17:28

know how I could disagree. Everything he said is absolutely factually correct. I do think that maybe I would put the emphasis on different things And I'm not sure that new people, quote unquote new people, is going to be as big of a problem. Because, like, you can be a member of the Wild Rose and join the PCs. Nobody confirms against some central database of political memberships

Corey 17:48

memberships that you're not one member in one and another member in another, right? But

Corey 17:53

But there is no question that you have an awful lot of power of the chair, soft power. You may only get one vote as the president of a writing association, but you pick when the forums are. You pick how to introduce things. things you pick the meetings around it you pick the tone and tenor of the race in your local constituency again i'm going to lean on 06 which was the last delegated convention i was part of yeah um and you had some delegated conventions looking like incredibly slick operations that were designed to funnel people through and be efficient and get those votes done as fast as possible because you knew you had the numbers and you had others that ground almost to a fucking halt because you didn't want the voting process to be so easy for the people who were just coming in as the five-minute party members. And as the president and likely chair of your meeting, you're going to have an awful lot of authority in that. You can put your foot on the gas or brake as you see fit, and it will put the Kennedy people into fits. Expect everybody to lawyer up in all sorts of different ways. Now, I don't want to take us off the topic too strongly, but the

Corey 18:57

other guys are really going to have to think about where they want to be putting their efforts If they want to, quote unquote, stop Jason Kenney, they're going to need to decide whether it makes sense to try to get one delegate in Drumheller when they can get two delegates in

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Carter, I want to go to you on this. You have successfully run a PC leadership campaign. Now, it hasn't been in this style and format, but if Jason Kenney was your cup of tea and if the problem you have identified for him, let's say four easy or five easy writing associations that come along, you're having a meeting after this launch today. You say, Jason, that went largely well. I wish you hadn't buried the lead. Here's our strategy. What's that? What's like the first two pages of that game book that you hand to him? What does he need to do today to move this forward based on the problem you've identified? Find the orphan constituencies. OK, explain that to people that may not know what an orphan constituency is. So

Carter 19:50

So in any political party, I don't care if it's federal liberals, even the federal liberals in government, there are constituency associations that are being run by one guy out of his house. Right. They are small. They do not have a lot of members. They have not had an active board meeting. They're a little bit behind in their AGM. Maybe their filings are a little bit late. PC's got lots. Maybe their filings aren't late. Maybe they're up to date on all of that. Bare minimum.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

minimum. They're like bare minimum survival. And

Carter 20:17

And those ones are the easiest ones to, quote, unquote, take over because

Carter 20:21

because there is no functioning executive. There's no one to protect the bank account, right? I mean, there are PC associations right now that are sitting on $100,000 in cash.

Carter 20:31

Those ones are going to fight you to the death. They're not going to let that money go to the wild rose. Yeah.

Carter 20:36

But there are some that are, like, nearly broke. They've got $500 in the bank account. They haven't run a fundraiser for three years. They don't

Carter 20:45

don't have anyone. Kenny's got to put together teams over the summer to take over those riding associations. But that's where it gets tricky, because those riding associations are managed

Carter 20:54

managed and championed by the party's head office. Corey used to be executive director of

SPEAKER_01 21:01

of the Alberta Liberal

Carter 21:02

Liberal Party. He had a few riding associations that weren't functioning properly. Just a couple. And probably signed their year-end financial statements for all of the filings.

Corey 21:11

filings. I got hand craps, the number of associations not working.

Carter 21:15

working. So Troy Wason, who's the executive director of the PC party in Alberta, becomes an incredibly important force in marshalling and determining whether or not Jason Kenney is able to take advantage of those rioting associations. He'll know what's happening. He'll know when the memberships are being sold. He's impartial to the process, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't play a huge role in how this all implements. The amount of information that he chooses to share with all the campaigns will determine the outcome of this campaign. pay that's

SPEAKER_01 21:44

that's that's very very interesting cory orphan writing strategy is that is that your lowest hanging fruit if you're jason kenney today no absolutely not why

Corey 21:52

am i not surprised what is

Corey 21:54

is it then there's a couple of things you got to keep in mind you do not need to charm the existing associations this contest the delegate selection meetings won't be until i think february of next year march is either a long ways

Corey 22:05

off yeah they're a long ways off and there will be a lot of annual general meetings between now and then where you can bring your new people in if you front load your effort and right now he's got the most enthusiasm he's going to be able to get if he's smart he's trying to look at the rules see who's a little uh derelict on their agms who's supposed to have one how they can kind of force that thing through the other thing is it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to to hold hands with somebody who is just keeping the lights on in an association because those people are just like well the last one who's in the room when they leave turn out the delights people when shit gets real you need a wartime conciliary the association comes back together and you have new presidents okay so don't waste time with people who are about to become old presidents the last dying breed there are not the people who ever take the party forward in these contests it's the people who are now energized and enthused about the contest see what they need to do is look at these strong associations i suggest the exact opposite you don't go after the weak and orphaned look kenny is a big deal he is a former cabinet minister he's a national personality people will meet with him and don't you know they'll be charmed don't buy into that caricature of him being a sweaty obnoxious mess the fact of the matter is he has immense political talents and his opponent's a workhorse

SPEAKER_01 23:17

workhorse as well i'll

Corey 23:18

i'll tell you his opponents underestimate his appeal one-on-one at their peril people do not survive in this game that long without some base skill sets in there carter any any

Carter 23:28

any response one-on-one is where he's got his strengths i mean he is an imposing Posing character who is larger than life, who has been around politics forever, who knows how to suck the life out of you when you're talking to him. Strong

Corey 23:40

Strong associations, they don't turn over in leadership contests. A strong association will have new people in, but likely the same president will be elected because you've got a critical mass of people.

Corey 23:51

And the ship has its own, like it takes too much to turn the ship, right?

Corey 23:56

Get those guys, lock those guys up. For starters, those are the institutions that are functioning and usually can be moved wholesale, right? Yes. And secondly, they're going to be the ones that you're still dealing with come early next year. Those small guys, they're gone. They're not going to be here. The AGMs are going to eliminate 90% of them.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Carter, an opposing strategy by Corey. What do you make of it? Do you feel like he's got some merit in his point? No.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

This is actually a lot more back and forth than we do, but I'm very interested in this.

Carter 24:29

why he's not wrong if a liberal was running for a liberal riding association you've got someone who is not a progressive conservative running for a progressive conservative leadership position this is not going to be done in any fashion other than a hostile takeover it is a hostile takeover by someone who does not share the values of the progressive you think there's no element of charm offensive you

SPEAKER_01 24:48

you can try you just said

SPEAKER_01 24:50

said he's great one

Carter 24:51

one-on-one but i think he'd be better on one-on-one with people who agree with him he is not going to walk in to a riding association that's been functioning in Calgary Fort and sit down with them and say, you know how you've been fighting those wild rosers now for the better part of 15 years? It's time to get together, right? It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

Corey 25:13

no. His opponents, including Sandra Janssen, have done him a great, great service, which is they've already held him up into this villainous caricature. And the minute they meet with him and he's like, hey, look, I'm reasonable. You've got to keep his mind. Reasonable. I'm from the PCs in the 90s. We used to all be the same party. We got to get back there. Those were our glory days. There is going to be resonance for that message. He was never

Carter 25:35

never a part of the PCs. Hold on,

Corey 25:36

hold on. I want to hear Corey out here. There's going to be resonance for that message. And Stephen, I know what you're saying. He was actually a right-wing critic of Ralph Klein, right? Just

Carter 25:44

Just by praising him multiple times

Carter 25:46

Yeah, he was right-wing of Ralph Klein. And

Carter 25:48

And people seem to forget that the reason the Progressive Conservative Party was formed in Alberta was not to unite the right. The Progressive Conservative Party was formed to stop the right. Well,

Corey 26:00

Well, but welcome to the legend of now. And the thing is, Klein, he can say, look, I was just the conscience of that party. You know how that party lost its way. I was trying to keep it on the straight and narrow. He can take that legacy of the 90s if he wants. It actually won't be very hard because I suspect his opponents will be much more likely to distance themselves from client policies than he would. Corey's

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Corey's brought up opponents. Stephen Carter, give me the take on if you're opposing Jason Kenney right now. Corey mentioned the concept of the 800 pound gorilla in the room and how Sandra Jansen may have done him a huge service by making him this villainous character. How do opposing contenders in this race respond?

Carter 26:39

I think that Jason Kenney is a polarizing figure. I mean, you've got now a very clear election ballot question. do you want to unite the right yes or no and

Carter 26:48

there will be people in the progressive conservative party i've seen it on my facebook today there are some people in the progressive conservative party who say yes it is time to unite the right um

Carter 26:56

um because that's how we win but

Carter 26:59

but then there's an awful lot of other people i've seen them on my facebook page today who say are you kidding me jason kenney represents everything that is wrong about politics he is he is pushing forward the the wrong message, the Unite the Right message is incorrect. It does not follow logic. And he opposed Ralph Klein and he opposed any conservative leader because they weren't right-wing enough. How far right-wing is Jason Kenney? And they will not follow him. And it gives us a ballot box question that Sandra Janssen or Michael Oshry or... Starkey. Starkey, Diana McQueen. Yeah. All these people can run against him and say, this

Carter 27:39

this is who – I have a clear ballot box question, and I think that the majority of people will disagree with it. Corey?

Corey 27:47

again? Yeah, this is great. This is the most disagreement we've had in episodes. If that's the ballot box question, he will win. He will lose. If it's unite the right, he will

Corey 27:55

will win. Stephen, the ballot box question you want was in your answer, but you got lost because you're looking at unite the right. That is not what it's going to be about. What is it about? what is it

Corey 28:05

yeah it's is it too far right wing i mean it's ultimately got to be about is this the values that i put my faith in like brands aside parties aside let's look at jason kenney's record on women's rights let's look at jason kenney's comments on abortion let's look at jason kenney's comments on the environment let's look at jason's kenney jason kenney's comments on minorities and muslims in particular he was in like a a verbal fist fight with our mayor yeah like people like nature remember that yeah these are the things you need to keep focused on because ultimately these are the things that matter you are taking what is somebody whose biggest drawback is his kind of bad

Corey 28:43

bad views and ugly public persona and you're putting that in the background and you're making it about a question that fundamentally a lot of conservatives struggle with which is are we better off together or apart i think it's like you've got a pinata calling them conservatives you've got a pinata you've

Carter 28:58

you've got the same thing you've got you're You're looking at things from the left, and you're saying—

SPEAKER_01 29:01

saying— You've got a piñata. Everybody to the right. I

Corey 29:03

I want to hear to

SPEAKER_01 29:03

to the right. Listen, I love piñata stories. Go ahead. Let him finish. You've

Corey 29:06

You've got a piñata. Hey, do we have a piñata? Piñata is a pile of candy and a pile of shit.

Corey 29:12

And his entry into it is knocking that piñata open. And you're like, I'm going to go play in this shit over here instead of taking out that candy that's right there ready for you to have. This guy is just reprehensible to Alberta values. You know what? And this is not just me as a left winger. Like, when you start polling on these issues specifically— Oh, I know. He's offside. You and I agree on that We absolutely do That's got to be the focus That absolutely 100% has to be the focus Never

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Never let Corey own a party store Is my conclusion there I do not want to buy a pinata for anyone's birthday from Corey

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Carter What do the Wild Rose do right now? Do they just sit on their hands and wait for this to happen? Is there anything proactive Brian Jean needs to be doing right now? Because I don't want to talk about step two here today Which is how Jason Kenney unites the right But you see this announcement today what

SPEAKER_01 29:58

do you do if you're in the wild rose well

Carter 30:00

well if you're in the wild rose i mean you've you've been asked to a dance that at a barn that isn't built yet right so you're good you're gonna wait until the barn is built before you do a damn thing if jason kenney wins the the the leadership of the pcs he's going to invite you to a dance uh is

SPEAKER_01 30:19

is he going to invite you to a dance or is this going to be another hostile takeover for him i

Carter 30:22

i think he's true to his word you

Carter 30:24

you do honestly believe believe that when jason kenney stands up and praises brian gene as he did in his speech today he did

Carter 30:30

that he is true to his word i don't believe that jason kenney uttered a false word today you

SPEAKER_01 30:36

he you think he foundationally believes this foundationally believed everything that he said okay so this goes back to my second math question i said there was two of them right the first one was how do we get through the 87 riding associations the second one carter we've talked about this before but remind our listeners jason kenney today one of his key tenets of how to do this was he pulled out the wild rose vote last election and the pc vote last election and compared it to the federal conservative vote last election and said look at the delta if we create a coalition very similar to the federal conservative vote we've we've got this we're making this happen what did he say it's a cakewalk or walk in the park i think it was something walk in the park okay explain to me you guys are both killing yourself oh my god we want to die right now That's just the

SPEAKER_01 31:20

worst kind of— Explain to the comment person, and I'm not saying our listener, is that why that doesn't make sense?

Carter 31:27

You don't vote for each level of government for the same thing, okay? Bottom line, when you vote for municipal government, you're voting for something that you see every day. You're getting on the roads, your water comes or it does not come clean out of your faucet. You choose your municipal government for a group of people who are going to provide a certain set of services. services your provincial government is represented to you on a daily basis especially if you have kids cory's got you know new baby ben health

Carter 31:55

health care important to you right now cory hey

Corey 31:58

hey real important and i was pretty happy to not get a bill or even have to sign something on my way out of the nicu after two weeks i hear you how

Carter 32:04

how do you feel about education looking forward to having a public education system for you i

Corey 32:08

i feel pretty strongly that i do not want to teach those little bastards exactly so

Corey 32:13

so here you just teach our listeners but provincial

Carter 32:15

provincial politics is is something that you you encounter also on a daily basis right it is it is something that you are are touching every single day the frame is different very much so cory how

Carter 32:31

how much has federal politics impacted you in the last three or four weeks well

Corey 32:35

well there's going to be a postage strike at the end of this week or lockout i want to be clear lockout but uh taking that into consideration absolutely none how

Carter 32:44

how much piece how many pieces of mail you got the last week i

Corey 32:46

i don't know i'd have to check my mail more than once every two weeks to find exactly this

Carter 32:49

this is my point federal

Carter 32:51

federal government does not provide services in the same fashion we do not have that same type of direct contact it is so much easier to vote right wing federally than it is especially when we have a culture of of it in calgary or in alberta we we are shifted we have shifted from right wing we do not have those same values cory and i the reason we're flinching the reason we cannot believe when this simplistic math is going out there cory and i have done research on this for how many years have we done this years

Carter 33:22

years and years and years and we look at the differences of how people vote provincially versus federally and

Carter 33:27

and we looked at it and it is just fundamentally different and trying to take basic

Carter 33:34

and saying this is the equivalent of saying

Carter 33:37

now I had Nenshi won because Barb Higgins and Rick McIver split the right wing vote. There's no evidence of that. Not at all. But you say it because you want to believe it.

Carter 33:47

You know, Nenshi won because he got more votes. Period. End of sentence. There is no right. Corey is,

SPEAKER_01 33:53

is, you know, Carter, you're the guy who rails who rails on people's lack of sophistication. However, the analysis you just provided requires a certain lack of sophistication on the voter's part to know, oh, this is every day versus this is once every six months type of government. What do you make

Corey 34:08

make of that, Corey? Well, it's not like they're sitting there at a computer processing that information. No. The fact of the matter is they just have different priorities and they express themselves in different ways. You could go province by province and you could say, how did the conservative government do federally? How did they do provincially? And there would be almost no alignment at the end of that exercise. sides the fact of the matter is people are not so so base and so simple as to not understand that they can elect different governments at different levels okay but beyond that the problem for me is you took a federal election where we had a prime minister from calgary and you're trying to interpret that as the situation when you have a much more uh practical not even practical you have a much more relevant example in an election that happened just a few months or we're not even talking years earlier on the provincial level right

Corey 35:00

in that provincial election the ndp got over 40 of the vote if you look at the liberals plus ndp plus alberta party the quote unquote center left and left that

Corey 35:10

that is 50 of the vote the conservatives uh the progressive conservatives and wild rose combined 50 of the vote and that's before you even consider the fact that the pcs were considered by kenny and his ilk to be too left wing so let's just say even a bit of that pc vote was trying to straddle the center there is not a lot of evidence that that people in this province vote for conservative governments anymore redford the

Corey 35:33

the more progressive the two options in the election before yeah

Corey 35:36

ed stellmack more progressive than ed or ted morton i mean i mean the fact of the matter is you can start piling up these elections and you can throw in nancy and you can throw in don ivison the mayor of edmonton and you start to see a picture of a increasingly progressive province. And what Jason Kenney is ultimately trying to sell is something that seems really out of touch with where we've ended up. Carter,

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Carter, you've laid down the facts of why it isn't true and why it isn't congruent. Talk to me about the strategy. Was it a good idea for him to do that today? Because it's a compelling narrative. We're creating this type of coalition. It lets them transition into high crescendo about what it is just on strategy alone in terms of throwing that red meat to the people in that room and listening. In

Carter 36:14

In party politics, In politics, there will always be a group of people who are looking for the simplest solution possible. And Jason Kenney outlined the simplest solution possible. If we're just more right-wing, we will win. If we are more right-wing, we will win. That's this argument.

Carter 36:28

I heard that when I worked for Daniel Smith, I was working with, quote-unquote, working with a strategist named Vitor Marciano, who used the exact same argument as Jason Kenney. It's a simple argument, and that's why Vitor was able to articulate it. And

Carter 36:42

And what we have is this. God, Carter, what a

Carter 36:47

was trying to argue that Albertans aren't right-wing or left-wing. Albertans are pragmatic.

Carter 36:54

Here's the pragmatic choice that they made. They didn't vote for the NDP because they were left-wing. They voted for the NDP because they didn't want the PCs anymore. They just as easily could have chosen to vote for Brian Jean. They did not vote for Brian Jean because they didn't like Brian Jean. They liked Rachel Notley. They liked her because she was promising more of what they wanted. They wanted a more left government. And she has delivered a more left government. Sure, some people are unhappy.

Carter 37:20

Some people who even voted for her are unhappy. But

Carter 37:23

But that's not to

Carter 37:24

say that we would be happy moving to the right wing and that far right wing that Jason Kenney is actually talking about. Corey, do

SPEAKER_01 37:31

do you want to add anything to there? Because I've got one last question on this. Well,

Corey 37:33

Well, look, when the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers, right? I think the conservatives should be very careful about what they wish for, the ones who want to unite the right. And if they ultimately do become one party and that party is personified by Jason Kenney, and I've already sort of gone through the litany of social issues that he'd be grappling with, those attack ads write themselves. And that vacates an awful lot of the center to the New Democrats, an awful lot of the center. Now, when I think about this in a broad sense, and part of what makes me so uncomfortable about Kenney is, like

Corey 38:04

like i'm not sure that i fear kenny and maybe i should because i do believe he's so out of step but

Corey 38:09

but i guess like when i look back on alberta and being an albertan since the 90s i've seen this province increasingly get more progressive and open and multicultural and kenny kenny

Corey 38:20

kenny would be mortifying to me not because the government changed because governments change but because it would be such uh like a reactionary move and it would become such a right-wing government if he became it that like i would be mortified it would feel it would it would feel like it's i would not understand who we are anymore and where i have concern is

Corey 38:40

is that he could do it right and and maybe it's not because of who we are but because of how we feel in the moment i think jason kenney is a threat everybody

Corey 38:48

everybody both in the pcs who's running against him and the new democrats should consider him a threat and not dismiss him as a childish oaf but

Corey 38:56

but i also think I think he's a threat to his own cause, and it will be interesting to see which

Corey 39:01

which brand of Jason Kenny carries forward, how his opponents do at color in him.

Corey 39:05

This is going to be a very interesting couple of months. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Corey, back to you. One last question on this. Your friends at the NDP right now, what should they be doing? What are they doing? Are they celebrating this? I mean, what is their stance, and is there any strategy they need to implement today? Yeah,

Corey 39:21

Yeah, I mean, I don't know who you think I'm spokespersoning for here.

Carter 39:25

here. No, I'm just saying, your friends. You're an apologist. I'll tell you the orange apologist there

Corey 39:29

there are mixed opinions there is certainly an appreciation that Jason Kenney is a pro and that things could get interesting but I'll tell you a lot of the people I've talked to have said look it's

Corey 39:39

it's probably best if the right doesn't unite right and so you kind of want to not not punch anybody too hard at any given time but that said if the right is going to unite the

Corey 39:49

the right uniting under such a right-wing leader is probably the best case scenario there or I guess the second best after not uniting at all. But everybody's

Corey 39:57

everybody's going to have to manage this situation very carefully. I would expect that if there's this sense that Kenny is running away with it, you're going to start seeing the punches, because they want him to be hobbled going into those negotiations with Brian Jane. You certainly do not want to get some sort of runaway Kenny train. Carter,

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Carter, Corey says if Kenny starts getting away with it, you may land a few punches. Is there any proactive strategy that the NDP need to instill?

Carter 40:21

I generally would recommend that another party stay out of any single party's leadership. You don't want to accidentally fuel something that ultimately will turn into a bonfire that just kind of burns down your own house. Yeah.

Carter 40:35

Let them do what they're going to do, and it

Carter 40:38

it may turn out well for you. It may turn out poorly for you. Well,

Corey 40:41

Well, the reality is it's a poor strategy that relies on what happens in somebody else's house. you just need to be if you're the new democrats a competent government move forward build those pieces get those rebate checks coming get those solar panels on all the buildings around town let's just start seeing that new democrat vision pay dividends and not worry so much about who your opponent is and don't try to pick your opponent we'll

SPEAKER_01 41:03

we'll leave it there on that segment which moves us to our next segment guys it's story time and it's sponsor time excited

SPEAKER_01 41:10

this is exciting this is exciting so listen campaign tech chicago this is a sponsor of ours for the last couple of episodes, at least. And we've been talking about them, campaigntechchicago.com. And we've been talking about how the three of us have all enjoyed going to campaign

SPEAKER_01 41:25

and elections events across the years. Corey, you were in Washington, D.C. Carter, you were in D.C. a couple of times. And you guys have both shared your story. And today it's my turn, because I've also been to campaign and elections and the art of political campaigning in D.C. And so, Carter, what was your benefit? You ultimately said that your benefit was was you got the Nenshi platform from there, and you ran that thing to a T. Yeah, the Nenshi campaign

Carter 41:49

campaign came to me in

Carter 41:51

in campaigns and elections. And,

SPEAKER_01 41:54

And, Corey, for you, it was really about the people, right? You could really meet in non-hostile territory south of the border with your fellow strategists. Well,

Corey 42:03

Well, good strategy comes from good analysis, and good analysis is only possible with good data. And the amount of intelligence and insight you get into your opponents, the way they think, what's on their minds, tells you everything you need to know going forward. And

SPEAKER_01 42:16

And I think my story is very similar because I went to the Art of Political Campaigning 2013, me and a friend of the show, Justin Bumstead. We all know Justin. Oh, Justin Bumstead. I think

Corey 42:26

think he's on the Kenny campaign.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

I think we'll, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Idiot. Anyway, so Justin and I were there and we're in DC and this is a two-day conference, Art of Political Campaigning. And surprisingly enough, he introduced me to a few conservative friends. And at this time, I'm running a PC

SPEAKER_01 42:42

PC campaign for donna kennedy glanz a progressive uh conservative and emphasis on the progressive and lo and behold i'm sitting beside a guy at one of our sessions and i say hey where you from and he's like i'm from from uh from edmonton you probably haven't heard of it i'm like oh no no way i'm from calgary so i've definitely heard of it and he's like yeah that's cool whatever kind of kind of cold to me and uh and then at a certain point he gives me his card and i say oh cool very nice to meet you lou and he's like yeah that's that's great and so the The campaign and elections event has multiple streams, which is the beauty of it, right? You can go to a

SPEAKER_01 43:17

a different event at a certain period of time if you don't want to. So I go to one on building databases, packed room, and I come back from that event and I see Lou and I'm like, of course, here's my Alberta friend. So, hey, Lou, how's it going? How was your session? And I was like, yeah, so did you get anything exciting from it? He's like, well, listen, I was in the one on how to create grassroots strategies for cheap and how to win an election on cheap. And I'm like, that's great. We should share notes. notes and he's like no we're

SPEAKER_01 43:42

we're not sharing notes and

SPEAKER_01 43:44

and the reason i tell this story is and i know he's a friend of the show lou arab the husband to the premier of alberta was in a session taking notes on grassroots strategies listen causation correlation i don't know what you call it congratulations lou you probably don't remember that moment if you'd shared those notes who knows what would have happened who knows what would have happened but that's the fun that's That's really honestly the fun, right? Like, we had a Canadian contingent. And credit to Lou, he's a great guy, a really nice guy. I liked meeting him, chatting with him afterwards. He wasn't a prick to me the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

No, no, he was nice. And so there's a great contingent of people you get to meet. And we're going to be at the one in Chicago. We are going to be at the

Carter 44:25

the one in Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

They can meet us. CampaignTechChicago.com. Use the sponsor code STRATEGIST to get 5% off. I think we're still in the early bird phase, if I'm not mistaken. Use that code. Come join us. It's going to be a great conference. and you should attend yeah

Carter 44:39

yeah it's time to make up your minds yeah

SPEAKER_01 44:41

yeah seriously people come come and

Carter 44:43

and see us in chicago here's

SPEAKER_01 44:43

here's hard sell carter right here hard sell carter you know

Carter 44:45

know what maybe we'll do a podcast from down there we'll take some questions from the audience we won't but we'll pretend to and uh we can uh we'll

Carter 44:53

we'll see you down there it'll be fun in chicago chicago in august campaign

SPEAKER_01 44:56

campaign tech chicago.com offer code strategist okay on to our next segment our next segment guys just picking up the goddamn pieces from brexit i don't even fucking know like i seriously who don't even fucking know. Let's just say between the time we recorded our last episode to now, let's just say about a decade's worth of political activity has happened. I don't have questions for you. It's just blank. I'm just like, talk about Brexit. Corbyn on the ropes. Nigel Farage has left. David Cameron is old. Who?

Corey 45:25

Right? Well, it was funny because I saw a journalist mention right after all of that went down that, you know, it's a weird day in British politics when the Prime Minister resigns and that's your third biggest story. like

SPEAKER_01 45:36

like what the hell is going on and and more specifically carter you and i were talking about this as we as we drove to do this how are these people all leaving and boris johnson forgot to mention sorry how are these people all leaving thinking their job is done cory is there any sort of explanation and just just want to get your thoughts on this honestly oh

Corey 45:53

oh yeah i mean this i gave up on the most recent season of house of cards because it became too unrealistic i there was a episode i won't say which one in case people are still watching no no This is

SPEAKER_01 46:06

them if they haven't

Corey 46:07

haven't seen it. Well,

Corey 46:09

end of the episode where Claire is saying, like, I want to be your vice president. I'm like, this is fucking stupid. This is the most unrealistic. This is now the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard. Right? You have this referendum that the guy didn't even want who called it. He lost. He resigned. The guy who won resigns. The other guy who won decides not to run for the leadership. And the guy who was just sort of there and could have potentially been one of the benefactors, I'm talking now about the leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn. Yeah. He's being mutinied by his party. Now, admittedly, there's a lot going on in the background there that there's reasons, but it's just like, what the

Corey 46:41

is this, Britain? The Nigel

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Nigel Farage one's the best one in my mind because the guy goes back and he rubs it in everyone's face. He's been like, six years ago, I told you I was going to get Britain independent, and you laughed at me. Look who's laughing now. And literally in 16 hours, he's like, I have done my job. I am leaving. But

Corey 46:59

But to be fair, didn't he? Isn't this actually what we want politicians to do? Is this not like the George Washington, I'm resigning my commission, it's going back to the Constitution?

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Constitution? So maybe that's – this is my question thread. Carter, is this the new way of politics where you do your job and you don't get to reap the fruits of what you've done? I mean it's a stupid question, but what's going on? I

Carter 47:18

I don't understand. I do not understand. I mean you've won and you leave. Boris Johnson and then even the way that he was taken out. Was it Gov or – Yeah,

Carter 47:34

this even happen in politics? This is pretty scattered.

Corey 47:37

scattered. I think we almost need to take it bit by bit. It is scattered. This is on me. Things that have happened, right?

Corey 47:41

right? Let's just talk about them right off the bat. Cameron resigned right after it all went down. We said that would. Which kicks off in the UK the leadership race for the conservatives. Now, their rules are different than ours, and they're kind of cool. Basically, it comes to the caucus to settle on a final field of two, ensuring that the final person has the support of the caucus So you don't get situations like, well, I would say like Allison Redford here in Alberta or or even like, you know, more more apropos to them, German Corbyn in the Labour Party was not he barely got the signatures needed to go forward. And they were like pity signatures from his caucus. Right. You need the support of your caucus. And the idea is it's the final two who go on and they hold multiple ballots until it's down to two. What's kind of neat about it is it's like even if one of them gets over 50%, they just keep moving because the second position is important as well, right? And everybody expected Boris Johnson to

Corey 48:37

Yeah, and his opponent would be a woman named May. And

SPEAKER_01 48:39

And now Boris Johnson,

Corey 48:41

the figurehead of the Leave campaign. Yeah.

Corey 48:47

gets stabbed in the back by a colleague of his who decides to run for the leadership himself. himself and johnson like on the spot with people behind him thinking they're standing behind him to support him in his announcement for leader says yeah it's i'm not the guy i'm not the guy this is not happening looks totally dejected god so boom all of a sudden the guy everybody expected would be the next prime minister and there's

SPEAKER_01 49:07

there's this window this window is like 24 hours to decide or something

Corey 49:10

something right like nominations are open for like literally 24 literally 24 hours so gov the guy who uh knifed him doesn't

Corey 49:16

doesn't even look like he's going to be in the final two at this point they had They had their first round of voting yesterday, and it looked like May is just running away with it. It's ridiculous. And it's

Corey 49:26

it's just nothing but drama and intrigue right now. So the Conservatives, a mess. Yeah. So that's one thread, right? Let's just put that aside. Labor? Want to talk labor? Labor now. There was this suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn wasn't properly

Corey 49:40

properly supportive of the notion that Britain should stay in the European Union. and honestly they'd had problems with him since day one he was accused of anti-semitism he was accused of being out of touch to being far too left wing the party elite

Corey 49:56

elite were never comfortable with him but he rode this massive groundswell of support from the party rank and file who elected him so he's had people with knives in his back since day one i

Corey 50:06

think that's just got to be put out there as a foundation now their main opponents are in total disarray the conservatives you

Corey 50:14

you would would think this would be an opportunity for labor to say like you drop the ball david cameron it's

Corey 50:18

it's time for us to pick it up it's time to go but in fact what's happened is he's gotten as much of the blame from his party as as cameron has been gotten from his party and and

Corey 50:28

most of his shadow cabinets so the people who are his critics resigned forcing him to fill a new one uh which he managed to do yesterday he's really kind of scraping the bottom of the labor barrel at this point too to do it he's in he's facing total revolt from his party when i last checked in on the specifics of this he was just refusing to step down and under labor bylaws somebody has to literally say i'm running for leader but nobody had done that they just all said we have no confidence in you uh so that is a total shit show and nobody knows what's going on here so who do you think should be left standing and looking pretty well ukip right the uk independence nigel farage party

Corey 51:05

party that was created specifically for this moment and their leader nigel farage who looked like the happiest man in the world when this happened. Now, you've got to keep this in mind.

Corey 51:14

UKIP does have representation in Parliament, but it's one person, I believe. It is not Nigel Farage. UKIP has much better representation in the European Parliament. There's a couple of reasons for that. For starters, a certain amount of proportionality is required for European Union elections. First past the post is the system that gets you elected as an MP. So he's the leader of the party, but he doesn't sit in the parliament that he believes should be sovereign over the European Union. So, you know, he essentially got rid of his own job. I think we have to keep that in mind.

Corey 51:46

he was originally a conservative. He could have conceivably gone back, although I think there's a lot of animosity and acrimony there.

Corey 51:53

But he's gone now.

Corey 51:55

So all of these major players are

Corey 51:58

gone. on like the the most prominent britain right now with a stable job is a canadian named mark carney who's

Corey 52:05

who's trying to keep the british economy afloat and the british pound right now is a buck 29 as of today down

Corey 52:10

a dollar 46 in

Carter 52:12

in fairness they still have the queen oh

SPEAKER_01 52:14

oh yeah that's steven carter maybe this is a line of questioning here what this is chaos agreed is

SPEAKER_01 52:21

is there is there a room or is there a spot is there any room for strategy in times of chaos in times where everyone's just just watching the drama with intrigue. What is the role, just speak to me broadly, of political strategy at this moment in time when you can't predict even the next move ahead?

Carter 52:40

Chaos is opportunity, right? But the difficult point is you need to be able to predict the chaos. Did anybody predict this? Did anybody predict that mere days after Brexit, vote occurs? Suddenly you're going to have every major political figure gone?

Carter 53:00

may i guess is taking advantage of it yeah

Carter 53:03

so you got one person um

Carter 53:06

but where's everybody else she was prepared because she knew she was going to be going against boris johnson regardless yeah uh or

Carter 53:12

or not necessarily regardless but if he won and so this is this is something that um

Carter 53:18

you can take advantage of this chaos but you have to be in a position where you can predict the chaos so you have your your

Carter 53:24

your team and your mechanisms ready if

Carter 53:26

if you're just someone standing standing on the side of the road when a car crash happens you

Carter 53:30

don't get to take advantage if you're if you're four cars back and you can go shooting through the debris then you got to take

SPEAKER_01 53:36

take what's chaos planning is that just like lining up multiple scenarios and saying i've got i've got tactics for each single one like is it as simple as that yeah

Carter 53:43

yeah i mean you sit down and we did uh we did some of this you know when when uh in

Carter 53:48

in by elections right if this happens and this happens and this happens like even three

Carter 53:53

can get these people to move. I can get this all to come together.

Carter 53:57

That only works when all of those things happen together.

Carter 54:00

I'm not sure that anybody was sitting there saying, well, when he leaves and he leaves and he leaves, I'll be able to step forward and make this happen.

Carter 54:09

Maybe there was someone there who

Carter 54:11

who was thinking that way. We don't know. We're in Canada. But it

Carter 54:16

it doesn't appear to be like that. It doesn't appear, especially on the labor side, that there's a lot of people who who were expecting – I

Carter 54:24

I mean, Corbyn was not loved by his caucus, I don't think, anyways.

Corey 54:27

I mean, you may have thought Remain was going to win, right? But if the polls were close enough, you should have planned for the possibility of Leave winning. I think the amount of denial that was coursing through the political elite was dangerous, right? And I think if you can't envision an outcome that's only trailing by two points happening, that's on you. And there's a lot of egg on a lot of face in the UK right now. Now, and you can say that is Monday morning quarterbacking, and maybe it is, but when you talk about strategy, and if there's a broad strategic lesson here, Zane, it's that hope

Corey 54:58

hope is not a strategy. Wishful thinking is not a strategy. In fact, the best strategists I know tend to have a strong pessimist vein in them, and they're ready to deal with the sky falling, and they've considered the contingency planning around that.

Corey 55:13

I think it's going to be fascinating to see how everything picks up and where it goes. There will almost certainly be early parliamentary elections. Who knows what that has impact as far as the negotiations on leaving. Everybody seems to be resigned to the fact they're leaving. It's kind of a kind of

Corey 55:30

of a funny fatalism where it's like, oh, this is this. We fucked up. This is bad. Well, off the cliff we go step by step. Right. But everybody is saying this is going to happen, except for, I believe, the Lib Dems who are saying, I mean, by

Corey 55:43

by the way, who were a much bigger force before they partnered with Cameron earlier. We didn't talk about the Liberal Democrats. They're right now saying, no, we would rerun the referendum or we'd have a second referendum. So a lot

SPEAKER_01 55:54

lot to talk about, lots to pick up on there. OK, let's move it to our final segment, our final segment. Stephen Carter, over under lightning rod. I look at you because you didn't look engaged, but you're excited about this. Every

Carter 56:03

Every time I hear last segment, I get excited. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Oh, man, you want this thing to be over with. Well, let's let's make this quick. Quick, scale of 1 to 10, how much is the FBI probe and result on Hillary Clinton going to affect her?

Corey 56:16

Corey? Out of 10? Out of 10. Because if it was out of two, I would have understood Stephen's answer.

Corey 56:24

This is a really big deal. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

Despite them coming out and saying, listen,

Carter 56:28

listen, we're not going to— No charges, exactly what was expected. I'll give you 45 seconds to elaborate. Right between the convention.

Corey 56:35

the realm of possible outcomes, I think we all agree indictment was remote. This is as bad as it gets without indictment. Literally, it came down to she lied, she lied, she covered up, she lied, she lied, she was irresponsible. But unfortunately, no prosecutor would take these charges. We can't find any example of this ever happening before. That is hardly ringing endorsement. And frankly, if it wasn't the middle of a presidential election, I believe she would have been indicted. And I'm not saying that because I think there was any kind of shady dealings. I just think law enforcement is, generally speaking, not wild about getting involved in political campaigns. Stephen

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Stephen Carter, over, under, on six, Justin Trudeau's performance at Toronto Pride.

Carter 57:15

He's the expert. It's got to be over. He's amazing at the photo op. Everything

Carter 57:20

the clothing to— Oh, my God. Did you see that picture? Did you see that picture? That picture's amazing. Corey?

Corey 57:27

guy kills the photo op. Like, you just stop asking us about photo ops of Justin Trudeau. they're all amazing

SPEAKER_01 57:34

legitimately frustrated at the question well

Corey 57:36

well no i'm legitimately frustrated that how good he is at this that he's so good and that we talk about that and we're all talking about justin trudeau at pride and we've totally turned the page on the fact gay men still can't give blood okay

Carter 57:50

celibate gay men for one year can

Carter 57:52

can now give blood oh

Corey 57:53

oh that's good there's a lot

Corey 57:55

celibate there's a lot of celibate men period in in the world. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Corey, back to you on this. Over, under, on six, Hillary Clinton taking a piece out of Bernie Sanders' book and talking about the free college tuition that she's kind of laid out there. Sanders today tweets out there that, listen, this is a proud step. Is this part of the healing over, under, on six on that notion?

Corey 58:15

Yeah, it is part of the healing. I don't

Corey 58:19

don't know how you've kind of combined scales there and shame on you for your poor question construction. make

Carter 58:25

make up your answer yeah i guess you always do dude has have the questions ever bothered either of you thursday's the answer

SPEAKER_01 58:31

answer moving on give

SPEAKER_01 58:33

give me an answer give me like how good is it first of all maybe i will parse it into two constructive step yes or no yes constructive

Corey 58:39

constructive step over under on six

Corey 58:41

over i you know it's not a ton over because this is kind of almost the table stakes at this point the longer she waited to do something like this the higher the price was going to be because the acrimony wasn't dissipating i gotta

SPEAKER_01 58:52

gotta spoon feed this to you guys constructive stephen

Carter 58:54

Yeah, it was constructive,

Carter 58:55

he's a spent force. He's a spent force. It didn't matter. I'll take six. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

Okay. Scale of one to ten, the anti-Trump movement leading into the convention right now. There's a new wind that they've caught. Corey, what do you think their scale is right now heading into that?

Corey 59:11

It's one. I mean, I'm not saying that this is impossible, but the possibility is fairly remote. And that's not least because I think that you're going to see a bit of a tightening of the polls again. it like it's

Corey 59:22

it's just this is the reality of these campaigns and the fact is if trump was down by 15 there might be some legitimacy but he's down by like five to ten at the most in these polls yeah

Carter 59:32

yeah he gets crushed in the electoral college but there's not many amongst them that wouldn't be crushed in the electoral college right now what are

SPEAKER_01 59:38

are you giving it two

Carter 59:40

two i mean they're never going to happen it's never going to happen it

SPEAKER_01 59:43

it all leads to this cory hogan will jason kenney be the leader leader of the PC party.

Corey 59:53

It's tough. This is like, this is very hot take. Yeah. Right. Hot take. This just happened. He announced it right now. I think the answer is yes.

Carter 1:00:02

No, there is no way.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

Okay, I thought you had more then. That's a wrap.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

On episode 581 of The Strategist, my name is Zane Belger. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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