Episode 586: Balloons and other bounces

Zain 0:03

This is the Stratatrists episode 586. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan.

Carter 0:11

That was tricky. A

Carter 0:13

A little different than usual. It's good. Keep

Carter 0:15

Keep you on edge. I like it. Listen,

Zain 0:16

Listen, Monday night of a long weekend, and we're here recording a podcast, Corey. Yeah, our families love us. That's true. They don't. That's what you meant, though, right? Yeah. My

Carter 0:25

My family physically left.

Zain 0:28

They left for this. They left

Carter 0:29

left the house for this recording. There's

Zain 0:31

There's just too many episodes that have gone... They can't

Carter 0:33

can't stand to listen to another one. How

Zain 0:35

How was your weekend?

Zain 0:37

good. It was productive.

Carter 0:38

Listen, I got sunburned on the top of my feet. I am the whitest man in Canada. I was 100% sure

Zain 0:43

sure he was going to say top of his head.

Zain 0:46

That's good. These open-ended questions really lead nowhere. I'm glad that you guys have such robust and entertaining

Zain 0:52

entertaining responses. Our lives are very dull outside of this podcast. Oh, yeah. This is it.

Carter 0:55

it. This is the most exciting part of our lives. Okay,

Zain 0:57

Okay, so let's not dull it even more. let's get into our first segment big hilly style guys you

Zain 1:02

like it you like it yeah

Zain 1:04

you like it see

Zain 1:05

it was a rap album by will smith did you know he did rap at one point steven i

Carter 1:09

i have only seen him in in movies this

Zain 1:12

this is ridiculous all

Zain 1:17

another great start court is what you wanted we start really slow we also end really badly okay so we've discussed i guess what you'd call the first night of DNC. We talked about Michelle Obama. We talked about a lot, actually, in terms of the precursor of DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, email hacks. But now let's get into what was night, I guess, three and four. But mainly, let's reverse engineer from what ended this convention. And let's talk largely about the optics, the stagecraft, the messaging, the tone, and then we'll get into individual speakers from there. So Corey, kick us off on what you thought, comparatively, of course as it relates to the broad notion of stagecraft of dnc as opposed to rnc and we'll start there yeah

Corey 2:00

yeah and we should probably mention we have a little bit more the benefit of hindsight and seeing how the analysis and the analysis the analysis has gone because the convention ended on thursday we're now recording on a monday um the

Corey 2:13

the stagecraft was comparable i think in in In most of the setting senses, you know, they had the big stage. They had the animated screen behind. Yeah, actually,

Carter 2:24

actually, I think the set could have been almost identical from my point of view. It was just so overwhelming, these kind of huge screens. So red

Corey 2:31

red and blue, yeah. Yeah,

Carter 2:32

Yeah, and oh my goodness, flags, flags, flags.

Corey 2:34

They did this weird thing with like this metallic pattern at the Democrats behind them, but I still prefer that to the phony American flags behind Trump's. What

Zain 2:43

What would make for, you know, what is the bar on stagecraft, right? At what point would your guys' comments have been, that was weird or that was ridiculous? Both of you were like, eh, negligible, fine. What's kind of the bar that you're looking for? What are some of the metrics that you're looking for on StageCraft that maybe people just don't process right away but could be awkward in certain senses?

Corey 3:03

Well, first and foremost, if you're going to have a big digital screen behind you, you don't want it to turn off or accidentally show Triumph of the Will or anything like that. uh you want to make sure that everything is technically moving along as it should and with a few minor exceptions at the gop convention that that was the case you managed to get

Corey 3:27

relatively flawless technical performances i'm sure during the day there were probably glitches we didn't see what for prime time they kept it together again except for one of donald trump's sons they all they're all the same to me one

Corey 3:39

one of his sons was up there and the screen behind wasn't working but other than that they were all fine as far as like a top you know blow you out of the water yeah

Corey 3:48

that's pretty tough to do when you're so the challenge is zane that you you want to play it pretty safe with these things because you don't want to be you know they call it the cutting edge because you might cut yourself and the problem

Corey 4:01

problem is political conventions don't like to to push it very far and that goes back to a couple of high profile gaffes that they've had so in 1988 the The Democratic Convention, knowing a little bit about television and production and all that, wanted to go with a softer palette. So they went with kind of like a pink instead of a red, a light blue, and instead of white, it was off-white. And you may have heard this phrase, pastel patriotism. So the Republicans really laid into them because they did this to the treatment of the American flag. And, you know, the red and the white and the blue there was all watered down, which was a bad optic. right this was an example of them taking the best thinking from television and trying to move it into a political convention generally speaking if you see it at a political convention it's probably been done at a corporate convention for four years because nobody wants to make those kind of mistakes again to

Zain 4:53

to to cory's point carter and i don't want to dwell too long on this but i find this personally quite interesting is stagecraft one of those things where you can only lose points for it where there's not many points to be gained for doing it i

Carter 5:05

i don't know i mean i think that really well executed stagecraft really just makes the experience a lot better yeah

Carter 5:10

um being what we're talking about with uh the primary speaker so so imagine yourself having two different objectives okay number one is the primary speaker needs to be able to be seen and understood in a grand context on television right on

Zain 5:25

which is very important yeah

Carter 5:27

yeah so so there needs to be something that is visually interesting for tv and the other one is uh the the people in the hall so

Carter 5:36

so one of the things that i think is interesting is i think that the project the production values in the united states are so much better they're using a lot better equipment like if you saw the same type of thing in canada you'd generally be looking at a projection screen right so a rear projection screen would probably be the time of the the technology that we're using and and it fades it looks very weak it's very um the the color of the screen uh never really leaps i think they were using lcd projections lcd projection screens at both of these conventions and the difference is having a real television behind you or having like a projected image behind you you know like what you get off of uh one of those projectors that we do a million presentations yeah this

Carter 6:20

was a fantastic high quality image

Carter 6:24

image that was being projected both both behind Trump and behind Hillary Clinton. To Corey's point, neither of them stepped very far outside of the expected. You know, the podium was center stage. The graphics were very few risks.

Carter 6:39

there's a couple of things that we do in Canadian politics that they don't do. Like in Canadian politics, we almost always have the screens too low. The screens are invariably cut off by the head of the primary speaker. Those are the types of things that you're at. To your

Carter 6:55

is it losing points? Yeah, you lose points when you do that. And almost every Canadian production does that because we don't

Carter 7:04

don't spend as much money. The

Corey 7:05

The amount of money they spend is literally in the millions. Those are custom sets that they're building in each case. You can expect the conventions to give you the best of the tried, tested, and true. And that is because to a point Stephen made a few episodes ago, I'm always accused of never giving him credit. But to a point a few episodes ago, this is millions of dollars of free advertising for them. This is on the networks. This is on the cable channels. This is everywhere. And they need this to look perfect. This is like the Oscars times a billion. They're making sure that they have the best people stage managing that thing. And generally speaking, they do a very good job. They have contingencies. If something screws up, it's fixed so quickly, the viewer at home is not likely to see it.

Zain 7:51

Carter, you know, when we discussed the RNC, we talked about this at length, and I want to get into it here for the DNC, which was the story arc. What was the story that each convention needed to tell upon its culmination of Thursday night? So we discussed night one. We discussed the precursor in the context leading into it. Maybe answer this question first. Do you feel like they nailed the story that they needed to, and more specifically, what was the story they needed to kind of hit? or what was the story they needed to tell that culminated on thursday well

Carter 8:22

well i thought it was interesting they tried to tell the story of hillary so the story of hillary as told by bill clinton is possibly the one that stands out on day three i think that was yes

Zain 8:33

where where they're trying to no it wasn't day two day

Carter 8:39

it was day two because obama was day three day three or four

Carter 8:43

thought that was interesting because they're trying to reframe who she is, right? So there's two objectives during the overarching goals of the DNC. One is to reframe Hillary Clinton as a human being that someone might actually choose to vote for.

Carter 8:57

Interesting challenge. Second thing was, look at this Trump guy. This Trump guy is a loony Tim. And that

Carter 9:05

that was interesting because you saw the attacks from Obama. So Bill Clinton comes in. He builds up Hillary Clinton, tells the story of Hillary Clinton as really only Only Bill Clinton can. It was an hour and 10 minutes. It was rivaling Trump's speech in length. It was, I

Carter 9:22

I think, I still think the guy is one of the most amazing speakers. Then Obama comes in and starts tearing him apart. You've got Kaine tearing apart Trump. And then you get Mr. Khan coming in on

Carter 9:35

day four. And what I thought was interesting about Khazir

Carter 9:38

Khazir Khan coming in is

Corey 9:41

You practiced saying that. I did. I practiced

Carter 9:44

practiced saying that for hours. That was all the Twitter was talking about, and the strategist was, I was going to mispronounce

Zain 9:51

mispronounce Khazir Khan. How does it feel to know two Muslim names now? Is it weird for you? Is that too, too many for you?

Carter 9:55

Well, I know three. Oh,

Zain 9:56

Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah, Nahid Najib. That's right, you do know that one. Although

Carter 9:59

I'm told, I mispronounce it every time.

Carter 10:05

Sorry, Nahid. I get it wrong.

Zain 10:07

You just assume he's listening, don't you?

Carter 10:10

course he's listening. Kazir Khan was interesting to me because I think he almost upstaged Hillary Clinton's speech. He took the story arc that she was delivering in the very last speech, which was, I am a woman who is shattering the glass ceiling. Correct.

Carter 10:27

Correct. I am shattering the glass ceiling. And that was lost because

Carter 10:32

because the Khans got up there and destroyed Trump. And not only did they destroy Trump, in the moment Twitter

Carter 10:39

Twitter was reacting, Facebook was reacting,

Carter 10:42

during Hillary Clinton's speech, everybody

Carter 10:44

everybody was talking about Kant.

Carter 10:48

as only Trump can do,

Carter 10:50

he takes a steaming turd

Carter 10:54

and multiplies it and expands it and makes it bigger and completely shits the bed. And now here we are on Monday still talking about a six-minute speech by Khazir Khan that nailed it. And then he's nailed every single media interview subsequently.

Zain 11:11

Okay, so I want to get into the depths of each of these in a second. But, Corey, same original question back to you. The story arc. What was the story the Democrats needed to tell?

Corey 11:22

they do it? May I say, Zane, first of all, what I love about this podcast is that we would spend seven minutes at the top talking about the stage being set up before you get to, how

Corey 11:34

how was the convention? Did they do anything? Listen, I fucking wanted to talk about the stage.

Zain 11:38

I thought it was interesting.

Corey 11:39

interesting. I love it. I love it. And, hey, to close out the stage, the Democrats were softer. It was nicer. It had less hard edges. Why are we moving on from the stage so quickly? I don't know if this is your passive-aggressive way of telling me that you did not want to talk about

Zain 11:52

about the stage. No,

Corey 11:53

No, it was a little – it met the more chaotic mood of the Democrats, and ultimately it played better for the messages that were to come. Are

Corey 12:02

done? I think we're done. We talked about the most important thing. Look, I'm just – I'm tying these things in because – Because someone's got to. The story that they ended with, you talk about that arc.

Corey 12:13

The arc was pure Americana, all right? And it actually surprised me a bit because that wasn't necessarily where I thought they were going to go with this convention at the start of it. And on day two, we

Corey 12:24

we talked on the Monday afternoon about – or I guess the Tuesday afternoon about what we thought was going to be happening. And I said, much to my great shame, I didn't expect very much from Bill Clinton's speech. And I hope we get into how we thought about the speeches and whose speeches were best. But I'll tell you right now, for

Corey 12:41

for my money, the absolute best speech of that convention was Bill Clinton's. And the reason is pretty simple. It's because it

Corey 12:49

it was the only speech that made me think differently about Hillary Clinton by the time it was over. There's no question. Barack Obama, barn burner of a speech. Joe Biden even gave a really good speech. Tim Kaine, about to become America's stepdad. And I like that guy. That is such

Carter 13:05

such a great brand. Oh, my

Corey 13:07

my God. But, and Hillary, messages I'd heard before. um even

Corey 13:13

even you know khan's speech it didn't change what i thought about donald trump i always thought he was that asshole but bill clinton with his in 1971 i met a girl and then told this and i get it i understand what everyone's thinking about clinton and his history and the trouble they've had marriages have trouble they've been married a long time they've been in the spotlight a long time and frankly he is probably a weaker man than most but uh that to me was very powerful And it reminded me about her story about caring passionately about making change and how in America you make change by getting involved in the public service however you can and making things better however you can. And that story as it carried through, you

Corey 13:55

you know, the best darn changemaker that I've ever met, Bill Clinton said, and how it carried through when Barack Obama talking about how he was better for having met her and how tenacious she was. us the tenacity that has always been a negative to the clintons you know that they just want it and they're striving they're hustlers yeah they're

Corey 14:12

i think they've really adeptly turned into a positive on this convention that they are always trying to make things better is it spin yeah of course everybody's story is part spin like that but then on thursday to wrap yourself in the american flag the way they did oh yeah and to talk about donald trump being patently un-american The arc they created, Zane, was not the arc of Hillary Clinton is smarter. The arc they created was Hillary Clinton does

Corey 14:41

does what we expect Americans to do in a democracy. And I will unpack that more, I'm sure, but I

Corey 14:48

I thought it was a powerful arc. I think it's an arc that can appeal to the left and the right, and it is where Donald Trump is particularly vulnerable. Well,

Carter 14:55

Well, I think it really appeals to the middle. I mean, the fact that the Democrats are wrapping themselves in the American flag. Which is

Zain 15:02

is a conventionally Republican thing to do. Well,

Carter 15:04

Well, and I just saw a poll, and I can't remember them specifically, but the three big issues are traditionally Republican issues. Security, international relations, those types of kind of economy. Those are Republican things that they stand up and they own. They own it in American politics. And by the end of the DNC on Thursday, the Democrats had taken that position and had just thrown Trump over. Corey,

Zain 15:32

Corey, you said this was a arc or a theme you would not have expected going into it. With the benefit of hindsight, which we have now, is it one that you congratulate them for going with? It absolutely is.

Corey 15:43

is. I think Tuesday

Corey 15:44

Tuesday night I started to say like, OK, they can still surprise. and donald or donald trump and the republicans and all of those guys had did exactly what bill clinton had been accusing them of creating this cartoon of hillary clinton and you know i've i've

Corey 16:00

i've known air quotes around known the clintons for a quarter century they've been on our television forever i didn't know that his speech would end up making me think differently about them but it really did it truly did and when you like lifted up that with all of the personal anecdotes about all of the ways that she's tried to help people and i understand and that many are embellished and that credit is being taken maybe more aggressively for some of these things than should have been but there's no denying the core truth there which is that her entire life going back to her university days and before she was the one fighting for the small changes that make difference in people's lives and contrast that contrast that with melania trump's totally vacuous not a single single anecdote uh story right i mean it was the anti you

Corey 16:48

know melania trump speech it was entirely about things that hillary clinton did which i didn't know to be honest bill

Corey 16:54

bill clinton could even do i didn't know he could go that long without talking about himself in

Corey 16:58

in the way that he was talking about hillary carter

Zain 17:00

carter i want i want to talk to you about the stage again no i'm kidding listen uh listen

Zain 17:04

clean sheet of paper right you're gonna make me say

Zain 17:07

is that what you're gonna make me say i think you've done it yourself you've practiced you've practiced practice you practiced you actually didn't tell us what you did this weekend which was pretty much just standing in front of the mirror while your family wanted to go out we

Carter 17:18

we were water skiing i had a lot of time waiting for my kids to get out of the water okay clean

Zain 17:21

clean sheet of paper i give it to you on monday and you write a thesis statement for what thursday's supposed to be cory said he was pleasantly surprised with his phrasing new americana would this have been what you would have chosen question one or part a and part b were you were you pleasantly surprised like cory that they went with this story arc and this thesis statement.

Carter 17:42

It's easy afterwards to say this is what I

Carter 17:44

I would have chosen.

Carter 17:45

It is. Look how good it was. This is, of course, what I would have done. But you have a million options, right? I don't think this would have been where I went. I think that this is dangerous ground, and if you blow it, the risk of blowing this is, I think, higher than the risk of taking a soft stance. And I mean, I think that Hillary's speech, for example, took, you know, if you look at Hillary Clinton's speech, that risked being the entire convention, but they didn't they didn't fall into that trap. So the Hillary Clinton speech, I'm a woman, I, you know, I take this. And then, you know, the criticisms that happened after the second half of the speech where it was the laundry list, that

Carter 18:23

that could have been the convention. But

Carter 18:24

But it wasn't. The

Carter 18:25

The convention was much better put together than Hillary Clinton's speech. the convention was crafted it took risks it it had um

Carter 18:33

it had such a such a high payoff and i

Carter 18:37

mean i'm not sure that anybody would

Zain 18:38

would you consider it risky you think this this this this story arc was a risky one yeah i do okay

Corey 18:44

okay well i would agree

Corey 18:45

yeah okay they jump in they took weakness and they turned it into strength i already talked about the sense that they took her striving and they said that's america baby you know they they made it about her always trying Trying to make things better. But they also made the messiness of the DNC with the Bernie Sanders people and all of that. And they embraced it. Right? And they said, that's democracy, baby. That's how it works. I mean, the way that they took these things that could have really be taken as big negatives and put them in the window like that was by no means a safe strategy. It was definitely gutsy. Right? You could have easily made the convention instead about trying to keep all of the Sanders negativity as far away from cameras as possible. They didn't do that. You could have easily made all of your speakers focus pretty much entirely on Donald Trump, which I have said on this podcast, I think the more you keep it on Trump, the better it's going to be for Hillary Clinton. But instead, they opened the field and they made it not just about his crazy policies, but his general approach. And, you know, America doesn't need somebody to save them. and then to embrace yourself as well in

Corey 19:51

in optimism when pessimism is the flavor of the week carter

Corey 19:54

carter go ahead yeah i

Carter 19:55

i think that we if we were to go back to the last podcast in fact we said that we were just going to watch bill

Carter 20:00

bill clinton barack obama just rip the shit out of donald trump and the very next day that night the night we released the podcast instead bill clinton gets up and tells Tells a story about his wife that changes a hard ass like Corey's mind.

Carter 20:18

It was like a love note to Hillary Clinton.

Carter 20:20

I know many people

Carter 20:23

Who doesn't want to hear, first of all, who doesn't want to hear Bill Clinton ripped the shit out of Trump?

Carter 20:29

I do. Sign me up. Right. Didn't happen in no small part because they chose to go the riskier route and have him reset who his wife was or is. is and who who she will be seen as i mean if they can keep that type of a tone and tenor moving all the way through the

Carter 20:49

the next 100 days right

Carter 20:50

this is going to be a ballgame so go

Corey 20:52

ahead yeah well look i'll say this i said after trump's speech if that's the trump we have until november donald trump wins this election you did say that if this is the hillary clinton we have until november i don't care what trump rings hillary clinton's winning this election so

Zain 21:07

this is this is a risky strategy that they deployed during the convention, what is the risk profile going forward? Because it's interesting to me now that they've embraced this, you know, they've embraced what Carter may call Republican issues. They've embraced all of this. Is there a risk profile that's higher than, let's say, bashing Trump going forward as well, Corey?

Corey 21:27

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things we should talk about specifically there. One is that when you throw the board up in the air like that, you don't know what pieces are going to fall on the other guy's side. And it is definitely true. And there's some anecdotal evidence moving into something stronger with Republican registrations up in some Democratic counties and whatnot in Pennsylvania that suggests that perhaps

Corey 21:48

perhaps they have ceded some ground for Donald Trump to then come walk into, specifically around the economy and trade, trade specifically, right? Yeah,

Carter 21:57

Yeah, Bernie Sanders style trade. That's

Corey 21:59

That's right. I mean, the Democrats being

Corey 22:01

being the free traders and the Republicans not is kind of funny.

Corey 22:05

funny. It's not unheard of, but it's kind of funny. Now, the

Corey 22:09

other thing, though, is something that I've said on this show an awful lot, and regular listeners will hear it, but it's the same as when you're polling and you put a question in nobody has heard of, and you get a very positive response to it. Beware of novel concepts, because you can knock somebody's opinion around with a novel idea, but because it's novel, it's not deeply held. And maybe you manage to convince people for 30 seconds that, yes, Hillary Clinton is this person and donald or bill clinton said she was but maybe there's an anecdote that comes in and like that that whole view of her is yes yes yes right and you have to be careful about that like you are just fundamentally it's like you're taking somebody who you've always looked at head on and you're turning them to the side and

Corey 22:50

and you're just hoping nobody turns her around all the way right i mean there is a risk there that somebody is going to be able to because you've now opened Open that door.

Corey 23:00

Paint her in a different way in that in that whole general subject area. Very

Zain 23:04

Very good point, Carter. Talk to me about the same thing. The risk profile on this strategy going forward. Right. Risky. They execute it well for the four days home run. But going forward, what

Zain 23:14

what do you have to say for that? Well,

Carter 23:15

Well, you have to think of who your messengers are.

Carter 23:17

Right. Like you're not going to have Bill Clinton standing up before every speech and introducing Hillary.

Carter 23:23

Right. How many people can do what Bill Clinton did in

Carter 23:25

in terms of setting the character that is Hillary Clinton? they had so they didn't even try and do it with Hillary herself Hillary

Carter 23:33

Hillary herself didn't take up any of those threads really that Bill Clinton had he she took up the women issue and the women believe me I mean my Twitter feed on the women's issue that night during the speech I mean

Carter 23:46

mean they loved it but she didn't take up the story that Bill Clinton told it'll be interesting to see or stump speech moving forward and how she tries to position herself and Tim Kaine positions himself as they move forward. Okay,

Zain 24:00

Okay, let's get into the individual speeches. Corey, we'll start with the one you guys have been mentioning the most, which is the Bill Clinton speech. Talk to me on a few grounds. Effectiveness, what I think is very interesting, so maybe we'll spend some time on this, his oratory style specifically and how it's different. I love his oratory style. We'll talk about effectiveness and oratory and we'll see where it goes from there. So let's just talk Bill Clinton first. What do you think? Well,

Corey 24:20

Well, the effectiveness I've already talked about,

Corey 24:22

I thought that was a very effective speech. It might not have been the most popular speech. My wife, when she was watching it, thought it was long and a bit boring, I think, although admittedly, she would say she came in at the end. um but

Corey 24:36

but for me it it checked the boxes that it needed to check and it and that is that a speech at the end of the day if you've got this captive audience of americans 23 million americans watching you want them to leave thinking something yes that they did not know before right you don't want to

Zain 24:53

goal that you have that's

Corey 24:53

that's right you can try to reinforce a message sure but isn't it even better to just totally beat the shit out of a negative and sort of build something stronger there and it wouldn't work for everybody so uh

Zain 25:05

you think is bill clinton a rare type of person yeah

Corey 25:10

i don't just mean it wouldn't work for everybody like bill clinton's the only one who could make that speech but i mean not everybody at home is going to buy it yeah so i

Corey 25:18

was born in 1981 okay

Corey 25:20

okay i was a teenager when the monica lewinsky situation happened and

Corey 25:25

and when i was a teenager i remember what bothered me about the The Lewinsky situation was like, I can't believe this guy would cheat on his wife like that. When I became an adult, what bothered me about the Monica Lewinsky situation is, I can't believe that old man, like, creeped on an intern like that. You know, she was like 20, 22, something like that.

Corey 25:44

My point is, like, depending on when you grew up and how you sort of went through both the Women's Live movement and the 90s and everything after that, you're going to approach the Clintons in different ways. And you may just never think of him as redeemable. If you had a daughter the age of Monica Lewinsky when

Corey 26:01

Bill Clinton did what he did in the Oval Office, you are never, never

Corey 26:06

to have any time for Bill Clinton. And a speech like that is going to leave you so fucking cold you won't believe it, right? But I was of a different generation and a different era and it just – I didn't have a daughter at the time and things like that. But the

Corey 26:18

the other point which

Corey 26:19

which you put on the table was could anybody besides Bill Clinton give that speech?

Corey 26:25

No, not anybody who's in politics right now. Like if it was Barack Obama's cadence and style of that speech, it wouldn't have played. He just has that folksy, southern, classical oratory style. He must have studied rhetoric, like literally the Greek arts and all that to do that. Like anecdotal to the max, yeah. He's just very good at connecting with the audience, looking at them. As he was going through that speech, it's been noted by a couple of people, but I certainly noted it too. The

Corey 26:52

way he shouted out different states, and then we went back to Illinois, and then Illinois goes nuts. And

Corey 26:59

And then we did this in Arkansas, and Arkansas goes nuts. And by the way, that panel was chaired by Walter Mondale. You know, Minnesota goes nuts. The way that he managed to play those different groups and keep the energy up was masterful. And Bill Clinton can do that, but to be honest, I've never even seen Barack Obama do that.

Zain 27:16

Stephen Carter, Bill Clinton's speech, I mean, you guys are both impressed with its effectiveness. I know you may want to comment on oratory as well. What did you make of it?

Carter 27:26

I was thinking that the three best speakers of both conventions were Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton.

Carter 27:39

And, you know, for me...

Zain 27:42

A very important omission to that list.

Carter 27:47

Is there? I mean, I actually felt bad for Hillary Clinton, you know, coming in, you know, watching the headliners from the last three nights just

Carter 27:56

crush it, and she's got to step in next. You know, like that's – I mean, first of all, I think those are three of the best speakers in the world at this particular time. This is not, you know –

Zain 28:11

Yeah, major leagues. She was dealing – yeah, yeah, yeah. I

Carter 28:13

I think that, you know, I was just trying to compare like in my head.

Carter 28:17

mean, obviously, I hated Trump. I hated Trump. I hated Trump.

Carter 28:20

Was he a better speaker? And I'm trying to put aside the

Carter 28:23

the fact that I hated him so much

Carter 28:25

to determine whether or not he was a better speaker than her. And I don't think he was. I think he's so one note with his yelling that it became virtually impossible for anybody to. And I didn't understand his stagecraft of walking away from the podium when people started yelling things. And I

Carter 28:39

think it was weird. But Hillary Clinton, I thought, did a very good speech. She was following three of the best speakers in the world. And Bill Clinton, to me, I've

Carter 28:49

I've seen him speak live. I've seen him speak in person. He's wicked. He is wicked. I said after seeing him at the convention center in Calgary, he was up there with all the civic leaders and all the provincial leaders. And I said, if you if a Martian dropped

Carter 29:03

dropped into the room, you know, into the room and just saw them sitting there, they

Carter 29:08

they would know that one of these people was the leader of the free world and the rest aren't. Right. And this was all of our top political class sitting up there at the head table. Yeah. Last Supper. Yeah.

Carter 29:25

Bill Clinton was was Jesus. There's only one Jesus in The Last Supper. Bill Clinton was the guy. And I think— So who was

Carter 29:35

You know, I have trouble with that. It was

Carter 29:38

wasn't it? If you

Corey 29:38

you don't know who Judas was, you were Judas.

Carter 29:40

It probably was Judas. I was thinking it was Klein. But, you know, could have been. Okay,

Zain 29:43

Okay, so Bill Clinton, home run. Let's talk about the two VPs, outgoing and the incoming candidate for the Democrats, Tim Kaine and Joe Biden. Effectiveness on both, oratory style on both. You've called one of them the stepdad. You've called Joe Biden relatively effective. cory but maybe give us your impressions on both joe biden is like

Corey 30:01

like your mom's rebound before the yeah exactly

Carter 30:05

he's the guy with the cool glasses now

Corey 30:06

now joe biden joe biden's fine and joe biden has become a caricature of himself as it goes along and one that he i think embraces he embraces it a fair bit but the problem with joe biden's speech as a canadian is just it was was so jingoistic so we're america we own the finish line things like that yeah come

Corey 30:27

it was never going to be my favorite i was uh i was talking to a friend of mine who has dual citizenship and he was talking about how much he liked it i'm like well okay that's fine because you're part of the chosen people as i watch it from the outside i'm just like oh man okay um but obviously a crowd pleaser really riled them up he was like was that his goal you think if If you put Joe up there, that's his goal, right? That's always been his goal.

Zain 30:49

That's been his goal for eight years. So in that metric, successful. Yeah. Yeah,

Corey 30:53

Yeah, I mean, he would be a great lounge emcee, right?

Corey 30:57

And he did his speech, and it was short, and he did his whole Joe Biden thing where he's like, no, folks, I'm going to be serious here for a while, which is like Joe's been doing that for 20 years, right? Like, don't laugh. Don't cheer. I want you to really think about this, right? And he talks about what I actually thought were some of the weaker anti-Trump arguments, just the way they were positioned. But it

Corey 31:18

it was fine. It was Joe, and they love Joe, and they ate it up. And the onion version of Joe Biden is adored, and actual Joe Biden is adored, and it's fine. It was Joe. Tim Kaine.

Corey 31:29

Kaine. Tim Kaine. Let's get into him. Tim Kaine's speech was very interesting. It was a great speech for Rotary President.

Corey 31:37

What did he need to do with his speech, Corey? He needed to give a great speech for Rotary president. This was fantastic. It was, I mean, it was exactly what was called for. You've got Hillary Clinton, the calculating super politician, and you've got Tim Kaine, who seems like he fell backwards into the job because somebody else was like, you know, my knee's acting up. Tim, can you run for council and then maybe get all the way to vice president nominee? Is that okay? And he's like, oh, geez, Bill, I didn't want to, but shucks. If it'll help you out, I'll do it. it you know i mean this is the vibe that tim kane gives off like there's not like there's

Corey 32:11

there's not like a cold slick polished vibe to him at all but do

Zain 32:15

you say that with the kind of you say you know you the positive connotation yeah and

Corey 32:18

and you know what maybe it's perfectly calculated but if it is he's

Corey 32:21

he's a master it's like if you watch the show trailer park boys right i've always thought when i watched that show that either those actors are geniuses or truly idiots and i'm not sure which I go

Corey 32:34

But because to play a part like that takes a real skill unless that's who you actually are.

Zain 32:40

Carter, Joe Biden, Tim Kaine laid on us. What do you think?

Carter 32:44

You know, I always struggle with the vice

Carter 32:47

vice presidential candidate. Or then in this particular case, it's a little weird because you have both, right? You

Corey 32:53

You have the vice president,

Carter 32:53

president, the sitting vice president who never ran for president, you know, which was kind of interesting. Most of the time, the sitting vice president throws his hat in the ring,

Carter 33:03

although not recently. Yeah, not for

Corey 33:05

for a while. Yeah, not

Carter 33:05

not for a while.

Carter 33:06

But this is a very

Carter 33:10

very ill-defined position in the American government. Sure, everybody knows what the vice president does, right? They wait for the president to die.

Carter 33:20

Do they have another rule? So are we electing? When they put together the team,

Carter 33:25

team, I mean, 538's done some interesting work on whether or not the vice president even helps in his own home state in

Carter 33:33

in terms of actual polling performance or the ability to win a state.

Carter 33:39

They appear to have literally no impact. So what

Carter 33:44

what you're looking for is someone who can do the dirty work.

Carter 33:48

And I think that Cain, the problem actually with Cain is I don't look to my stepdad to do the dirty work. uh

Carter 33:53

you know the stepdad's already somebody i'm not real comfortable with you know and i just i don't think that he he stepped up i i prefer joe biden uh in that role but he feels like this gonna feel weird to me but he feels like quail

Corey 34:08

well kane that's actually pretty good yeah but because kane or quail gave off a similar vibe in my opinion too but imagine with kane that donald trump is

Corey 34:19

is a marijuana cigarette and tim kaine's caught you smoking it like that's basically the vibe you're going to get that's so good

Corey 34:28

listen sporty you sure you want to do that can i can i talk to you about what that could do to your development god

Corey 34:35

god i won't tell your mom about this this

Carter 34:38

this is between you and me a marijuana cigarette puts

Carter 34:41

puts you in the exact same category as tim kaine

Zain 34:44

kaine So Corey thinks Tim Cain is a mid-budget PSA. Carter, you made an interesting comment, though. He didn't deliver for you. Tell me why. Like, are you expecting a different vibe from your vice president based on just recent past? Or do you feel like this presidency and this campaign will be very different where you need a different type of Tim Cain to go after Donald Trump or Mike Pence?

Carter 35:10

this is gonna sound weird but i really like paul ryan as a as a vice presidential candidate tell

Corey 35:16

because he's done it so he's got an experience well

Carter 35:18

well no but you know when he stood up in two you know four years ago uh and was and was there for romney uh first of all i don't think any of us really knew him i mean we can look back in hindsight and say it's paul ryan uh but now he stood up he he hit the ball out of the park and for me he attacked and did his job now it didn't work but i'm

Carter 35:39

i'm not sure that tim kaine comes close to the categories of paul ryan in my mind of a of a vice presidential candidate that adds to the ticket that

Carter 35:49

that does the job that he's supposed to do i

Carter 35:52

i don't think he does i would have preferred i mean maybe not elizabeth warren but there's got to be someone that's more interesting no

Corey 35:58

no no no no no for the narrative tim kaine makes perfect sense oh is it because you predicted him well i did but beyond that when you think about the the arc that i just described that new americana arc like is he not just mr smith going

Corey 36:12

going to washington he is perfect

Corey 36:14

that message he is absolutely perfect for that whole story of of like civics and engagement and you know i'm just gonna stand up here and get the boy scouts whatever he wants i can't remember the movie it's not a great movie there's

Carter 36:26

there's not really no one watches okay

Zain 36:27

okay let's move on barack obama stephen carter uh effectiveness oratory style obama being obama his swan song is going away so many things to discuss so start us off and then i've got a few questions leading up to it during

Carter 36:39

during the time of his speech i loved it watching

Carter 36:41

watching it listening to it another barack obama speech where you watch a man doing what he does as as well as anyone in the world really he just was doing great and here i am on monday after you know he did he did his speech each wednesday

Carter 37:05

it's like eating cotton candy really

Carter 37:07

really love it it's fantastic and it's gone i'm

Corey 37:11

i'm i'm nodding vigorously you agree yeah basically why i give bill clinton the top mark on this i can think of the anecdotes he told and i recall like i i think about his story about hillary clinton you know and the woman or the little girl with the wheelchair and all that i remember that and not just because he said it but they were smart might have to reinforce it but you know it was it was

Corey 37:32

was a barack obama oratory it was very well constructed he he did what he went to stage to do and then i forgot about it right yeah i mean why did you forget

Zain 37:42

forget about let's go one layer deeper on this because well

Corey 37:45

well i mean first

Corey 37:46

first of all turns out i'm tired of his oratory so when bill clinton was speaking i was watching i was in rapture i was right there you know i was prime time for the you know i watched a lot of conventions the past last couple of weeks barack

Corey 37:58

barack obama i'm checking twitter to see how everyone else feels about his speech i'm i'm sort of looking at what you know the stream is on 538 how everybody's commenting i'm not as fully engaged in it and i think it's because i've just heard this shtick you know what people got really excited about don't boo vote right this is not the first time he's said that i mean this was his greatest hits reel and his greatest hits are good it's why you go to see the eagles but the problem is you

Carter 38:25

don't have the same emotional attachment the second time

Corey 38:27

time you see the eagles i've had that i've had that cd in my car deck for way too long i need to move on i want to hear something new and barack obama did it very well zane

Corey 38:36

zane right now is imagining whether or not i actually have the eagles in my car i don't i'm

Zain 38:41

i'm just i'm just thinking how much time as much time carter spends in front of the mirror practicing foreign names i think you come up with metaphors just write them down on your hand like a crib sheet and just be like oh let's use the marijuana one just go with the eagles right now listen so but for

Corey 38:57

for both of you kind of disposable kind of you know in a sense it was the fast food of political speeches satisfying the next day you're not really sure what you ate i

Carter 39:07

i mean maybe not the fast food you know but it was definitely because the fast food you kind of have that regret the next morning i didn't have the regret the next morning i never

Corey 39:17

never regret fast food okay

Carter 39:19

okay hold on i've seen you eat let's talk let's

Zain 39:23

this is this whole podcast is

Corey 39:24

up the rails taquitos oh

Carter 39:27

oh yeah why do

Carter 39:28

eat yes another foreign name that i have trouble with

Zain 39:33

yeah yeah okay hold on there's there's an important uh content theme within barack obama's speech that i want us to discuss which was near the end his endorsement of hillary Hillary Clinton was very much tethered to his own presidency where he said that this and this is the guy that was a candidate of change is now advocating for more of the same and an extension of him. What do you make of that? Is there any danger there? I just kind of want to throw that on the table and see what what you guys make of

Corey 40:01

of it. He's still going to be president for the next six months. I don't know that he had any other choice. It's not like he was going to say, please vote for somebody who's going to undo a lot of what I did. No,

Zain 40:10

No, no, no. No, I'm just saying that he very much took a tact of saying this is someone who's going to extend my legacy when he very much knew many people that are in his camp that he was just courting were part of change. Carter. I

Carter 40:22

I think it just boils down to who's popular right now. Oh,

Carter 40:25

Oh, yeah. Of the three politicians that we're talking about, Trump, Obama and Clinton. Yeah.

Carter 40:29

Who's popular? There's only one guy. Yeah.

Carter 40:33

Right. He's the most popular of these people. I mean, he's got a positive rating. Everybody else got a negative rating. so so when he's making this case he's taking he's trying and you got to admire this he's trying to take the political capital that he earned and give some of it to hillary clinton yeah

Corey 40:48

yeah and to carter's point in 2008 george

Corey 40:53

george w bush spoke at that convention via video link like he was so unpopular he wasn't actually in there in the convention hall right uh barack obama is a popular politician and and you know outgoing presidents usually give some version of the speech that he gave which is if you liked me you're gonna love her right although this is the first time it's been you're gonna love her because history but you know this is um this is a very traditional presidential speech carter

Zain 41:21

carter anything to add on on brock obama for very close i

Carter 41:25

really do like the way he speaks i

Carter 41:27

i would spend 350 to watch him speak in person good that's just good

Zain 41:31

that's good that's It's a cotton candy of comments right there, Carter. Okay, before we move on to the big show with Hillary Clinton, I want to discuss two more. Kazir Khan, you mentioned it, six minutes on the same night that she's speaking. I don't know how far apart he was from her speech, but why did these six minutes move so many people? Why was this the buzz in your mind, Carter? Go ahead.

Zain 41:55

You think so? Completely

Carter 41:56

Completely unexpected. And tell me,

Zain 41:58

me, was this, in your mind, do you think this was unexpected to the Clinton camp as well?

Carter 42:03

don't know. I mean, they put this guy up there. Again, I don't know exactly when he spoke. I mean, it might be interesting to note, but I

Carter 42:10

I didn't watch it. I didn't, you know, I wasn't engaged at that moment. I was coming on to watch her speech. I wasn't watching his. Then I saw pieces of it. Then I watched the whole thing of it.

Carter 42:22

He goes up there. Now, Corey, I'm

Carter 42:24

I'm going to take Zane's role for a minute because he's not asking the right questions. um just you you're organizing the convention right

Carter 42:35

under what circumstances do you take a guy okay

Zain 42:37

okay this is my next question go ahead yeah

Carter 42:39

yeah i'm up there no

Carter 42:41

no notes no pre-cleared speech and

Carter 42:44

and he literally pulls a prop out of his pocket you may not know about oh

Carter 42:49

oh under what circumstances does that work out good what what well look you're assuming yeah

Corey 42:53

yeah this was the gop and a muslim reached into his pocket and pulled something secret service would have taken them down no

Corey 42:59

no i mean to your point they

Corey 43:01

they took a big risk but this was clearly a convention with some interesting risks like that and that's i mean it all starts playing this narrative of they're like you know what things could get messy we love messy messy is our story right now democracy is messy america is not a place where one man can be the strong man and fix all your problems it it it

Corey 43:20

it was risky but in the overall context of what they were doing it was just another piece of that puzzle that that would be my beat on it now i um i

Corey 43:30

i think about that speech yeah

Corey 43:33

it was the message was strong and it was obviously being received well in the in the hall i didn't i didn't think like that that's the moment that is the moment that everyone's going to be talking about that is it but i wasn't on twitter that night either to be honest at least not you know religious yeah twitter

Carter 43:50

twitter was blowing up uh

Corey 43:51

uh i thought oh that was interesting and and uh

Corey 43:55

fine and the constitution thing to me felt almost forced yeah you know what do i know right everybody loved the constitution bit but um this

Corey 44:05

this was one of those moments that with the benefit of hindsight like we're going to be talking about three or four conventions from now which is especially the way that the candidate you know donald trump bit to

Zain 44:15

to carter's point was Was it simply the fact that it was unexpected that really kind of has carried it to what I can call virality going forward as well?

Corey 44:25

I mean, I think that's what sort of started it. But what kicked it to the high gear was really Donald Trump's

Corey 44:32

Trump's insane reaction. Donald Trump does not know many things. But one of the things he should have learned by now is in politics, you don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. It's like law. and if he didn't know why a you know a gold star mother as they call them somebody who lost their son in the war was not speaking on stage he

Corey 44:52

he should have shut up oh

Corey 44:54

yeah you know that was that was just way way too easy to rebut and what what that his speech and her op-ed in the washington post both screamed amateur to me in the best way possible i did not get the sense that the The Clinton campaign was orchestrating on either of those pieces. Which is what they wanted to, yes. All the more damning. All the more damning.

Corey 45:17

You know, I read her piece and I'm like, this is written fine, but this is not newspaper-y. Yeah. Right?

Corey 45:24

And that's what it was supposed to be in a sense. Same deal. I'm like, this is an okay speech if you're speaking, you know, at a court or whatnot. But this is not convention oratory. And that was very unexpected. And that sort of got it on people's radars. But Trump is the one who kicked it in the high gear. Carter,

Zain 45:39

Carter, let's move on to Hillary Clinton. Let's talk about her acceptance speech of denomination, her effectively laying out her credentials, what it means to be a woman, the glass ceiling thing. Effective, not effective. And what was the story she was trying to hit as a closer for Thursday night? night it

Carter 45:57

was the weakest story right um it had and people were talking about it online during the speech checkbox speeching right like a speech that just checks all the boxes you want to make sure you hit everything um i didn't like the glass ceiling theme um i

Carter 46:14

i thought it was a bit

Corey 46:15

bit overdone it was for you i

Carter 46:16

i think it was a bit overdone i would suggest something twitter and And the women in my Twitter feed, the women on my Facebook feed thought it was fan

Carter 46:25

fan-fucking-tastic and about time, damn it. So, you know, I was in the audience. But I think, again, if

Carter 46:35

if I was writing that speech, if I was, you know, sitting

Carter 46:38

sitting down and saying, what theme do we want? I would have tried to pick a theme that reached beyond just women.

Carter 46:45

I would have tried to reach a broader audience. But, you

Carter 46:49

you know, it worked. It hit the audience that clearly it was intended for. So I'm going to give it a solid B+. I'm not going to go into the A's, but it's a solid B+. It did what it was designed to do. I think it could have had a higher aspiration. So,

Zain 47:02

So, Corey, extending on Carter's point, was the Hillary Clinton speech designed to do the right thing?

Corey 47:08

this is a prime time speech uh where you need to check the boxes it needed to be a box check checking exercise if she had not done that i would have deemed it a total failure so i disagree with steven on that well

Corey 47:20

yeah but to me the

Corey 47:22

the speech content i

Corey 47:24

i watched it and i remember thinking i don't think it's that great i thought it was a very good hillary clinton speech but i didn't think it was out of the park but i'll tell you i won't forget the visual of that arena arena literally drowning in red white and blue so amazing

Corey 47:41

i mean that is the image they wanted you to leave and remember the balloons the balloons the flags

Corey 47:48

everything bill clinton playing

Zain 47:49

playing with the balloon that

Zain 47:50

that meme is hilarious

Corey 47:51

hilarious great i mean it's so to

Corey 47:54

to me the speech would

Corey 47:56

would seem perfunctory to somebody who watches it at the level we watch it yeah okay but it restated her her case to the american public many of which are hearing it for the first time unfiltered in

Corey 48:08

in a way that i thought was not just coherent but

Corey 48:10

but strong and the fact that it also was about shattering that last barrier in united states politics the presidency a woman running for president yeah

Corey 48:22

yeah i mean take a lap why not why wouldn't she say that this is historic we forget how historic it is because it's such a crazy fucking election cycle but this is a big deal yeah

Corey 48:32

um you know steven you've got daughters i've got a daughter this this is a big deal not just to women but this is a big deal to men who have women in their life who care about them and to see that was not a miss in my opinion yet

Zain 48:45

yet the big thing for you was that visual that's going to stay with you forever the

Corey 48:48

the visual was so that was it if she had said blah blah blah blah blah blah boo trump blah drop the balloons yeah

Corey 48:56

still would have deemed it so so

Zain 48:57

we started this podcast with seven minutes of stagecraft we end with stagecraft and you think i don't know what i'm doing wow

Zain 49:06

was well done a moment of

Corey 49:07

of applause for zane well

Zain 49:10

okay um carter do you want to finish off on anything on hillary clinton i know i don't want to give her a short trip this was the what everyone was waiting for anything else let's just take

Carter 49:18

take a moment and talk about the balloons because i believe i would have drowned in the balloons there

Zain 49:21

there was so many so

Carter 49:23

so many balloons way too

Zain 49:24

many balloons okay let's move it on to our next segment our next Next segment, Stephen Carter, sponsor time. It is too close now. Like, it's ridiculously close. Listen, there is

Carter 49:31

is some guy walking around in the United States who booked Khan to speak. Yeah.

Carter 49:37

He might be a campaign tech in Chicago on

Carter 49:41

on Thursday. When? Thursday?

Zain 49:43

Dude, Thursday? It's like a couple of days away now. Thursday.

Zain 49:47

August 4th, Chicago, campaign tech. So those people

Carter 49:49

people who have not made up their minds to come, good

Carter 49:52

good news. You can still do it. You can still join us. We're going to be there. in Chicago. Hey,

Corey 49:57

Hey, are you going to give them the promo code? Yeah, we probably should give them the promo code.

Carter 50:02

You know how there's good news and there's bad news? Bad news if you try to put the promo code strategists in. The

Corey 50:08

The one we've been using for the past

Carter 50:09

past couple months. Six weeks. It turns out it's actually strategist pod.

Carter 50:15

So you'll want to use our Twitter handle to

Carter 50:17

to get the 5% off. If you did not get the 5% off,

Carter 50:21

go find Corey Hogan in

Carter 50:22

in Chicago. Corey's made of money and he is going to To refund everybody their 5% discount that they did not get. Probably

Corey 50:30

Probably in drinks. That's probably the only currency I carry with me.

Zain 50:36

4th. I mean, this is going to be fun. August 4th in Chicago. A few days away. You can still flights. Get down there. You can

Zain 50:45

CafeTechChicago.com. Promo code StrategistPod. That's right. I've been saying that the whole time. How about that? How about that? Okay.

Zain 50:52

Okay. Let's move it to our next segment. 99 Days. And this is one. Guys, 99 days until Election Day. We're in the thick of it, but we need to start by talking about what we ended last podcast with, which is the post-convention bump. Corey Hogan, we talked about who would get the higher of the two bumps. We talked about what the spread would be. Where do we effectively stand today? I don't know that we did talk about who would get the higher bump. Did we not? Okay.

Corey 51:20

Okay. No, I was trying to think about that.

Corey 51:23

I thought we did discuss that. If somebody had asked me, I probably would have said that I thought Hillary Clinton would get a very average bump because that's the safe answer. It looks like she's going to do better than average on her bump. Now, you have to think about convention bumps holistically in the sense that, in theory, Donald Trump's bump should still be going on, at least partially, while Hillary's is kicking in. So the polls right now, as of Monday at 9.20 p.m. Mountain Time, also known just as Standard Time for the strategists. strategist time 9 20 strategist time um have

Corey 51:57

have hillary clinton leading depending on the aggregator by like five or six points which is a big swing from donald trump being in the lead this

Corey 52:05

this is huge this is a very big convention bump this is a bump that is getting close to double digits which we've seen a lot of in the 90s and and before but we have not seen recently if this proves out if this is actually looking like what hillary clinton's managed to do with their her convention bump i mean donald trump's in a fair bit of trouble that's a big bump carter

Zain 52:26

carter how concerning is this for donald trump right now he seems to have had a very very bad week uh everything kind of thrown at them with this with the kazir khan family and family uh op-ed blog he tried to get russia to hack hillary clinton's emails uh he's now saying the system is rigged against him that's just the last 72 hours i mean this this has been a very bad week how concerning is this this post-convention bump for him, the Hillary Clinton bump for him?

Carter 52:54

Well, I think you have to look at things, again, in the electoral college map, not necessarily the

Carter 53:03

Right. So Clinton always

Carter 53:05

always had a lead with the electoral college. That's just the way it's been. And the Democrats have had that standard lead for a number of elections now.

Carter 53:18

they're really in the lead now i mean in places like ohio uh pennsylvania is a significant is is significantly moved uh to the democrats iowa is in the democrats column right now florida has moved to the democrats nevada moved to the democrats these are some states that he shouldn't need to worry about um if

Carter 53:42

if he's worried about them there is no path to victory and that's That's what we've talked about before, because when you go in and now you have to win in all of these states or you need to put together a new winning coalition, you

Carter 53:53

you have to say things in some of these places that you can't say in other places.

Carter 53:57

Right. We've talked about this in Canadian politics and how, you know, you win in Quebec, you lose in Alberta. That's

Carter 54:03

That's just the way the world works. So you've got to pick one. Which one are you going to try and win in? Because you can't carry both. Well, now he's got to try and find a way to even shore up North Carolina. Imagine what happens if he slides another half a point. Another half a point means he loses North Carolina, and that's basically his bottom. He

Carter 54:25

He will have bottomed out. There is nothing else for him to lose if he loses North Carolina. And that, to me, is the fascinating part of where we are in this particular election cycle. though car

Zain 54:35

car uh cory salvaged this for me if if if i'm donald trump like what does even trying to get back on the the treadmill look like for him at this point i mean i've been we i'm just looking at your screen right now you got what is it 84 for hillary clinton and the odds of winning right now right

Corey 54:52

right on the if the election were held today that's

Corey 54:54

that's right and i think that would be my first point to him one is don't panic and it certainly looks to me right now like donald trump is panicking if you look at his twitter feed even by his standards he's lashing out a lot uh he is definitely taking heat from republicans about how he's treated the cons and you know with them losing their son john mccain coming out his comments the ukraine comments to me were the most obnoxious they were just ridiculous where he said you know russia is going to russia is going to you know respect the territorial integrity of ukraine oops

Corey 55:28

oops as it has before yeah as as they have a good track record of doing right um no i mean he's just gotta he's gotta just take a beat this is supposed to be hillary clinton's moment she will rise in the polls post-convention he is making it worse some of these polls that were true post-convention polls you know we're doing it in the 48 hours right after the convention before the stefanopoulos interview which had a lot of these gaffes in it started to be released they

Corey 55:55

they weren't as bad i mean now we're starting to see a pretty steady drumbeat of polls with hillary clinton up six points seven points things of that nature this

Corey 56:03

this is not just a convention bump this is a trump stumble and he's just got to take his foot off it right now regroup start thinking about these things because

Corey 56:13

because this is this is not the way that you get out of a ditch you don't dig down donald carter

Zain 56:17

carter is this how you salvage the the trump campaign going forward so

Carter 56:20

so but we're talking about traditional political rules right

Carter 56:24

right traditional Additional political rules don't apply to Donald Trump. He

Carter 56:27

He doesn't stop digging down. He doesn't leave an issue alone. Some may

Zain 56:31

may argue this is how he got here to winning the nomination.

Carter 56:34

He picks up the scab and it's been working. His technique has worked to this point. The problem is, and we've seen this in a number of different political races where somebody does something that's just good enough to get them elected something. Preston Manning's my guy for

Carter 56:49

for this example in Canada.

Carter 56:50

Preston Manning was only good enough to bring a populist movement across Western Canada, never could figure out how

Carter 56:56

how to take a populist movement across Canada, right?

Carter 56:59

right? He was very, very good. And if you were sitting out in Alberta, you would not have understood why he was not playing in Ontario, Quebec, and the rest of Canada. Why is it that we can't get this man elected prime minister? He's our guy. And

Carter 57:13

And I think that right now where Trump is, is his point. And he needs to either play a different game or accept his failures. I'm not thinking that we have the ability to see a different game out of Donald Trump. He doesn't have that particular skill.

Zain 57:28

Corey, let's talk about this timeline as well, because that's what interests me. We're 99 or 100 days out from Election Day. Talk to me about what the campaigns may be doing right now and maybe tether it with some of your past experiences, what you guys have done in the past. You're 100 days out. Do you have a strategy like written in place for the 100 days? Are you are you planning it out? How agile is it? Is it how flexible is it? Like, what do you think they're doing right now with with that timeline in mind? A

Corey 57:55

A hundred days ago today was April 23rd. People were still saying that Donald Trump, you know, could easily be taken down in the primaries. That's right. I mean, it wasn't even necessarily true at that point. But a hundred days is a long time. And I think that's the main point to take in here. There's going to be so many more chapters in this book to come. him but if you start you're

Corey 58:18

you're you're writing you're writing the epilogue if you start acting like this the way you're acting donald trump right now needs to worry about tipping points so he needs to worry that he goes down another

Corey 58:29

another five points and it looks consistent because that's when the gop runs away from him right i i mean i've long said the only way he wins this is if he keeps his party together and he's kept his party together by force of being in this race if he's not in this race they're They're going to drop him, and he's going to drop more, and it's going to fuel a vicious cycle. He has to get out of that right

Corey 58:50

right away. And that's another reason why he can't give anybody right now who's looking for a reason to stop supporting him a reason to stop supporting him. He needs to shut his mouth. He needs the polls to stabilize naturally, as they will, taking the most milquetoast approach as possible. And then he needs to press forward. And he can be the crazy fuck that he is because that's obviously sold once he's only down two points to Hillary Clinton again. But right now, that could prove to be lethal. Carter, 100

Zain 59:15

100 days, 99 days, in fact, Corey's saying that, you know, we looked at 99 days prior to 100 days prior to and we're in April going forward. Corey's advice. Do you agree with it?

Carter 59:29

Yeah, I do. I mean, I

Carter 59:31

I just I just think it's hard to give that type of advice to someone to Trump who

Carter 59:36

has no ability to hear it. I mean, I've

Carter 59:41

I've worked with some interesting clients, right? And they hear some of the things that you ask them to hear and other things they do not hear. And,

Carter 59:50

you know, I mean, this is a guy, first of all, that doesn't have the world's best advisors sitting around him. He surrounds himself with people who attack the cons and say that their son was a double agent working for the Taliban or something ridiculous like that. People who tried to blame this, you know, the poor, their son's death on Obama

Carter 1:00:15

Obama when he passed away in 2004.

Carter 1:00:24

I'm not sure they have the capacity.

Carter 1:00:27

if I was sitting there, if I, you know, why

Carter 1:00:31

why not double down? How many times have we argued double down, double down, double down, double down on this podcast? Why not double down? Now, why not go all

Carter 1:00:42

and make that your last 100-day theme and just

Carter 1:00:45

pound it out and see what you can get? All-American crazy,

Corey 1:00:46

crazy, really? Because I think he'll lose the GOP, and if he loses the GOP, he loses. Dude, he's

Carter 1:00:51

he's not of the GOP. He doesn't give a shit.

Carter 1:00:54

We've covered that. Oh,

Carter 1:00:56

I mean, he doesn't care if Paul Ryan endorses him. He doesn't care if John

Carter 1:01:01

John McCain, the failure, attacks

Carter 1:01:04

attacks him. He doesn't care. You

Zain 1:01:07

You struggle to get to that strategy, but you sound more and more convinced as you speak. I'll tell you something, though. It's a shitty

Corey 1:01:13

It's a shitty strategy.

Corey 1:01:14

hear you. I hear you. He got to this point, and I think that this is the Peter Principle writ large on the national scale, right? You always get promoted one level above your competency, right? And Donald Trump got the nomination doing one thing, but that doesn't mean it's going to translate. So the Peter Principle is often misunderstood as, you know, just because you're good at X doesn't mean you're a good manager. But that's not it. It's that you're promoted because you're good at something, and then you're in a different job, and does that skill set follow? Well, I

Corey 1:01:46

I think that Donald Trump had a skill set that was enough to win a GOP primary under those rules and those conditions. I don't think that strategy carries through in a general because the media will be much more even. You know, there will be X number of minutes for Hillary and X number of minutes for Donald. Money is going to pay a much, much bigger part in it. And there is the ground game that he himself does not have right now. He needs to rely on the GOP.

Zain 1:02:10

Carter, close it on this. Hillary Clinton, very briefly, how does she leverage the 6-7, 8-point bump going forward? What really allows her to kind of just spike this home? I know we're sitting 100 days before, but what does the 100-day out spike look like for Hillary Clinton right now? I'm

Carter 1:02:27

I'm going to say something that's impossible. we always say at the beginning of each campaign and we and we know it to be almost impossible to do but it's error-free ball she

Carter 1:02:35

she has to play without making any unforced errors and you

Carter 1:02:40

you know no more Benghazi no more emails no more things like that that that hopefully she has to have put it all in the rearview mirror nothing new can come if

Carter 1:02:52

if there's something new suddenly

Carter 1:02:54

suddenly we Suddenly we have a whole new take on who

Carter 1:02:58

who Hillary Clinton is. And at the end of the day, who Hillary Clinton is, is why Hillary Clinton hasn't already won this election.

Corey 1:03:06

Corey? Well, yeah, be aware of what the Americans term the October surprise. If something happens that will just flip the way people think about the election. WikiLeaks has already suggested they're going to hold some stuff for October. What is

Corey 1:03:19

I mean, if it's in the public interest, crazy idea, release it now, right? Right. No, but they've

Carter 1:03:24

they've been bought off. I mean, this is bad.

Carter 1:03:26

They've got political motives. I

Corey 1:03:28

I mean, they're a bad

Corey 1:03:29

But although I will say again on the WikiLeaks side, the

Corey 1:03:34

the the whole Clinton, this, you know, democracy is messy. USA, USA. These are Russians. Like it's all playing into an image where she's really wrapping herself with the flag. But I'll tell you, if I'm Hillary Clinton, this

Corey 1:03:47

this is when you step on the throat. This is when you bait him to say the crazy things that will scare the GOP away. way this is when you do everything you can to press your advantage and normally i'm not a guy who suggests you press your advantage because that's when you screw up right that's when error free ball becomes impossible but i think it's worth the risk because this race will gravitate back towards even it will i mean even if i think that her baseline is now probably established as four or five points up of donald there will be weeks where it's closer uh unless she finds a way to destroy him right now your opportunity to destroy an opponent like donald trump only only occurs in that sweet spot when you're up by about 10 points this is going to be the only time she's going to have that opportunity otherwise this guy's going to be riding next to you the entire election unless he does something crazy in the debates or just crazy in general you never know with donald i should not make absolute statements with him okay

Zain 1:04:38

okay we will leave that segment there on to our final segment our final segment are over under our lightning round stephen carter you are excited for this well

Carter 1:04:45

well as usual i am planning to ignore the rules here we go let's

Zain 1:04:49

let's see if you can see if you can successfully do that with our first question so now that you've seen both conventions and you've given your report card okay you've done so who would you have chosen we're going to do a little bit of a fantasy convention situation who would you have chosen any politician celebrity whoever to open for hillary clinton oh

Carter 1:05:07

oh my god i'm

Carter 1:05:09

i'm gonna put your mind to work man you're killing me remember

Zain 1:05:12

remember we used to do these we used

Zain 1:05:14

used to be doing

Carter 1:05:18

Madonna. An aging starlet who's... So you are ignoring the

Carter 1:05:22

You are 100% ignoring the rules.

Corey 1:05:24

rules. Corey. Go on for me. Who

Corey 1:05:26

Who would I have gotten to open for Hillary Clinton?

Corey 1:05:31

is the worst question you've ever given us. It's not true.

Carter 1:05:34

I really wanted to get to that. I

Zain 1:05:36

I really wanted to get to the point as to what the concept or what the role of an opener would be. That's why I think I wanted to ask the question. Well, the night was Americana, right?

Corey 1:05:44

had the general i loved by the way we didn't talk about the reverend who's no

Corey 1:05:49

talk about reverend or william barber oh my god that so when you talk about like the cotton candy of political speeches that that to me that was the speech that was great he had all of those notes to fire up the base uh she

Corey 1:06:02

she her openers were chosen because they wouldn't outstage her everybody we've talked about who is so so good came the nights before with the exception of khan who i would still argue did not speak nearly as well as hillary clinton did i think that her yes i think that's good and so what are you gonna do like chelsea clinton is not a great speaker she set a baseline that she's a good speaker and actually she spoke a lot to me as as somebody who was born at the time we're almost the exact same age we have kids that are two and zero uh so we share that she was like dropping the names of books that i read to my kids uh so it was just that That spoke to me. That was a great opener. I don't know why you would want anybody to open other than Family because Family personalizes you. But Family is not necessarily a great speaker. I'm going to overshadow you. You've got a

Carter 1:06:51

a good answer. This is interesting. Elizabeth Banks did the fight song. Yeah, I want to talk about Celebrity for a sec.

Carter 1:06:56

And so there was no Celebrity really at the RNC. At least no one I thought was a Celebrity. Like D-List. Scott

Carter 1:07:08

So there was no

Carter 1:07:11

you know some people were tweeting about it and saying that wasn't a good good thing and and shit

Carter 1:07:16

shit i thought it was good because it's celebrity and people like celebrities and so

Carter 1:07:21

so i think that they already did they i think that the nc's convention was damn good man okay okay

Corey 1:07:27

okay okay okay okay one one observation this

Corey 1:07:31

going on way too long this is lightning lightning lightning i lost the plot very early yeah the

Corey 1:07:36

the biggest celebrity at the gop convention was donald trump and any other year we would say that's a pretty lame biggest celebrity at your convention stephen

Zain 1:07:47

stephen carter one speaker you would have replaced at the dnc you don't have to tell me with who who would you have just plucked out of the lineup oh

Carter 1:07:54

oh man that's a tough one because i thought it was all pretty good i mean it would have to be someone pretty secure obscure

Carter 1:08:01

um they had such an all-star lineup i'm going to have to say i wouldn't have changed anybody cory

Corey 1:08:05

cory anyone you would have plucked out controversial answer yeah cory booker really

Corey 1:08:09

really yes nice because what did cory booker not do for

Corey 1:08:13

the biggest thing he didn't do for me was hit the mood of the room at that night so that was the night about appealing to the progressives and i think that there was this impression within the clinton camp that he would play much more to the bernier bus crowd than he was ever going to he's just not the darling of the progressives the way they are if anything i would have reversed the order and i would have put warren before booker because they weren't going to boo Warren.

Zain 1:08:37

Corey, back to you. Same question on the RNC side. I know there's many options, but which one of the mainstream, let's just say that, or one of the more, I

Zain 1:08:46

I don't know what you'd call them, the major speakers from the RNC would you have replaced?

Corey 1:08:49

replaced? This is not a serious question. Ted Cruz, of course, the guy who did not endorse the guy on stage. Oh,

Carter 1:08:54

Oh, yeah, you'd have to take Ted Cruz out. God damn it, I should have asked

Zain 1:08:57

asked Carter first. He would have gone with someone else. I know he would have.

Carter 1:09:00

No, I think I would have had to go with Ted Cruz. Okay. You probably would have been the only one I could have remembered. Tell me this. Outside of the candidate, what's

Zain 1:09:05

what's the biggest liability for the RNC going forward? Biggest liability for the Republicans going forward? Outside of the candidate.

Carter 1:09:12

Outside of the candidate. No one wanting to stand beside the candidate.

Corey 1:09:15

Good answer, Corey. Yeah, I mean, I think it's technically within the rules, but outside the spirit of the rules, I would say the biggest liability the RNC has is the weak ground game in some of the areas that Donald Trump is trying to play to. Outside

Zain 1:09:29

Outside of Hillary Clinton, the candidate, what's the biggest liability that the Democrats have, Corey? Apparently their internet security.

Zain 1:09:35

Oh, yeah. Jesus Christ. Carter, in your mind, who was the most effective speaker in the sense of who was the one that scored Hillary Clinton the most points throughout the course of DNC? Is that both of your answers? That's my answer, too. Yeah.

Zain 1:09:50

No one else? No,

Zain 1:09:51

the reasons I've already said. RNC or DNC. Khan, maybe.

Zain 1:09:55

I mean, I guess you could have gone with Khan. Interesting. Interesting. Which of the two conventions, not that you liked the most, which of the ones was executed the best in your mind?

Carter 1:10:03

Oh, the Democrats. Hands down, the Democrats. The goal

Zain 1:10:09

goal of the audience, what they had in mind, who executed the best, Corey?

Corey 1:10:11

Yeah, I think by almost any metric you could throw at me, I'd say Democrats. I will give a tip to the GOP in that it was more

Corey 1:10:19

more orderly, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Finally,

Zain 1:10:22

Finally, just give me your ranking. One to ten on the DNC, Corey?

Zain 1:10:29

There we are, that's a wrap on episode 586 of The Strategist My name is Zane Velji, with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter And we'll see you next time

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