Episode 934: O'er the ramparts

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is A Strategist, episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, happy American Canada Day.

Corey 0:11

Happy birthday to America.

Carter 0:29

This is why we didn't do a Canada Day. Happy birthday to

Carter 0:39

People missed the singing on Canada Day. They did. Yeah, I know. You know, it's a tradition, and they missed it. They missed it. Singing was good.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Those that are wondering, that

SPEAKER_02 0:50

was Corey Hogan doing his best Frank Sinatra. It was good. Very poorly. No, it was good.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

I mean, Carter, you've got low standards, so it makes sense. But thank you for that, Corey. I was loving

Carter 1:01

loving that Tenor tries to be a bass bass bass

Carter 1:04

bass bass. He's also tried to be a fish. So it's worked out.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

This is good. Jesus Christ, Carter. The best start ever.

Carter 1:12

No, it's good. No, no, no. It's good. It's the best start. We're really pleased with it.

Corey 1:16

No, it's definitely going to keep this one and not just hit stop. Yeah. No,

SPEAKER_02 1:20

No, this is, of course, some music history from the guy that brought you hit that music button, baby. Thank you, Carter. Carter, for rolling that in. If we're

Carter 1:28

we're not turning this into a song at the end, I'm going to be really disappointed. Is it just me who gets tortured at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Carter 1:35

Pretty much how it works. Good to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

July 4th, of course, like Canada Day, but with guns. Guys, we are going to be celebrating a bit of America. Before we get into it, Stephen Carter, any words you want to just wish to the greatest athlete of all time, Joey Chestnut?

Carter 1:52

uh joey chestnut is one of my personal heroes i mean the number uh i mean i wasn't a big fan of the dunking of the bun into the water but uh i i got on board i got on board when i saw when i saw the outcome i was like you know what that

Carter 2:07

that is a man who makes sacrifices yeah

SPEAKER_02 2:09

yeah steven you've always been a guy who's really been a you know who cares about the process as long as the outcome uh gets you there uh cory any words for the greatest athlete of all time 14 in a fucking row for joey chestnut well

Corey 2:23

well according to celebrity net worth joey chestnut is worth about 2 million u.s dollars which actually makes him richer than andrew yang so i think mayor of new york independent bid happen now let's do it let's oh my god oh my god you

Carter 2:36

you know what i can i can support that cory's made some good points that's

Corey 2:40

that's good no is there any guy who is more quintessentially American than Joey Chestnut? No,

SPEAKER_02 2:44

No, he is pretty much America. And I feel like in a ranked ballot system, he could probably win. He could probably win. Yeah, and de Blasio really gets, you know, best of both worlds. He gets obviously a mayoral candidate who can do well for the city, really carry on that food-based legacy. And also someone who really probably could do a better job than de Blasio on many files that he has dropped over the course of his life. When

Corey 3:08

When you think about when When de Blasio is eating pizza in a news conference, and you think about when Joey Chestnut is eating pizza in a news conference. Oh,

SPEAKER_02 3:16

It's very New York, how he would eat pizza. He'd be like, listen, I got shit to do. De Blasio just hangs out there. If you don't know what we're talking about, that's on you at this point.

Carter 3:25

Exactly. I mean, that's pretty much the— That

Carter 3:26

That wasn't just the one fact that I had. I mean, I know this guy. I know this guy well.

Corey 3:31

You know his soul. Well,

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Well, listen, Carter, let's go from one American story to all the American stories. Let's move it on to our first segment, checking in on them, the people. That is correct. We are wanting to check in on our friends in the United States, of course, through a political lens. There's many stories for us to hit on over the course of the, that have actually happened or are in progress over the last, I'd say, six to eight weeks since we haven't touched the United States in any significant fashion. Carter, let's start here. I want to start with Joe Biden and infrastructure. Sounds sexy. It's because it is sexy, Carter. Joe Biden is doing Joe Biden things where he wants to engage a bipartisan group to pass his historic infrastructure bill. He's engaged Republicans in negotiations on the traditional infrastructure bill side, bridges, roads, etc. But he's also trying to play this really fine balance with progressives within the Democratic party who want what they call the family infrastructure in Canada, what's been called social infrastructure. This includes everything from child care and, you know, all these sort of measures related to income supports and social welfare used in not the classic sense, but in the sense of, you know, ensuring that social programs are fulfilled. When you see this, Carter, when you see old school Biden wanting to reach across the aisle, but also having to maintain this coalition within his party. What are the first thoughts that you have? Do you feel like he's now reaching too far when he's got, you know, all three in the executive branch? He's got Congress, he's got the Senate. Should he be trying to do bipartisan initiatives like this? Or is this one of those things like learn from the Obama years, stick to your core and just get shit done with the limited amount of time you may have this power?

Carter 5:20

Yeah, I mean, Obama's situation was a lot different because at the beginning of his term, he had the Senate and he still wanted to portray this sense of bipartisanship that really wasn't necessary because he didn't have to work his way around the filibuster.

Carter 5:34

The filibuster has changed everything. And now that it's a 50-50 Senate,

Carter 5:39

you know, in Canada, we would think, well, 50-50 plus one, you've got Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker. What's your problem? You've got your majority. But they have the filibuster rules And the filibuster rules have kind of evolved from this idea that it used to take, you know, 60 senators to move the debate or end the debate and getting to the actual voting, which meant that a single senator could stand up and filibuster, right, stand and speak for as long as he or she wished to try and stop the actual vote. And what it has meant now is that essentially, if you don't have the right number of votes, they don't even try. They don't make the senators stand on the floor. They don't make them. And this matters because there's multiple different ways of getting around this that I don't know if we'll talk about later. But getting

Carter 6:26

getting around the filibuster is is a big part of Joe Biden's problem because he's got some senators that just don't want to get around it on his own side.

Carter 6:34

So that means that any significant piece of legislation that he can't put through through

Carter 6:38

through reconciliation means that he has to try and get this

Carter 6:43

managed. And so what he's done with the infrastructure legislation is actually found the 10 Republicans and found the piece of legislation that he can actually now get passed. And that's where things get interesting, because getting something passed in the Senate that is Republican dominated, if we if we can accept the 50 50 as dominant, given the filibuster rules, he runs into an immediate problem with the House in the Democratic because the Democrats don't have a huge majority in the House and the progressive Democrats have a much larger sway

Carter 7:16

sway in the House than the than the progressive senators, of which there may be one or two. So the Senate and the House, it

Carter 7:25

it doesn't matter that they're all, quote unquote, democratically controlled because they're not democratically controlled enough to find the best solutions. Now, I think his classic infrastructure bill may get through with it, with a bipartisan push and

Carter 7:39

and other infrastructure. I think that they're they're exploring the idea of including it in a reconciliation money bill, which would be really interesting. interesting um and it may or may not get past joe mansion and um uh

Carter 7:52

uh kristin cinema but uh we'll see i mean it for me this is a very interesting type of politic that we don't often see in canada because we have we have a caucus is so heavily whipped and we also have even in the minority uh parliament um you know the the government is basically able to achieve whatever they need to.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Corey, you know, America, country divided on partisan lines, though many respondents constantly to polls say that they want all parties to work together. What do you think of bipartisan dealmaking? You know, from the specifics of this infrastructure bill, you know, obviously not the most expeditious way to pass legislation. Do you feel like the process is still important, still part of like a functioning democracy? Or are you part of the camp that says, fuck it, you've got what you got. You just pass it through through the folks on your side?

Corey 8:44

If that's available to you, that seems like a more direct path in America today. This kind of notion of this Senate that is this deliberative body that's going to work together and come to consensus. And yeah, maybe they're going to be this cooling influence on our red hot house and be more moderate in their outcomes and drive the government overall to more moderate outcomes. That seems really old fashioned in 2021, especially after we've seen how how the republicans with their majorities rammed through or blocked uh supreme court appointments and uh and

Corey 9:16

and we're already seeing the fallout of that i bet you i bet you that's on your list for a bit later some

Corey 9:21

of the supreme court stuff but

Corey 9:23

but the reality is zane he doesn't have the votes to get rid of the filibuster you've got democratic senators who are unwilling to get well you've got at least one who's very firm in that with senator joe manchin from west virginia so you're gonna going to have to work and find a different way around it. Now, it's all very murky, and ultimately, perhaps even a little bit dull, but vitally important in how the infrastructure bill has become intertwined with reconciliation processes. And Pelosi, you know, Speaker of the House saying things like, yeah, we'll vote on your infrastructure bill once we get a reconciliation process, which of course, in turn would allow them to get around filibusters more often and all that complicated stuff. But it is showing a different way of governing than we've seen in the past few few years where it was extremely polarized. And in some ways, this

Corey 10:10

this is exactly what Joe Biden said. This is what Joe Biden said he would do as president, which was try to bring people together, try to work with the Senate and try to work with the Republicans and find those compromises available. It's going to be interesting to see whether

Corey 10:24

whether that's a sustainable approach and whether he succeeds or not on infrastructure and how the American public rewards the parties for that that is going to be a big part of that question.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Carter, you know, you both of you mentioned that, you know, practically speaking, the Democrats may not even have the Senate votes in their own party to get this bill passed via reconciliation, right? With I think you mentioned Manchin and Sinema, perhaps being the holdouts here that that might leave them a few votes short. There is calls that on strategy here for Biden, that this could first of all, the reason we're talking about this, let me just, you know, underline is is really that many folks, at At least political watchers in the U.S. believe that this could be the bill that either kind of bolsters

SPEAKER_02 11:07

bolsters or topples the Democrats heading into the midterms based on the strategy that they play. And Biden initially introduced this bill by saying, you know, yeah, we've got this traditional infrastructure bill and it will be passed in tandem with the rest of the family infrastructure, social infrastructure, $4 trillion sort of agenda, so to speak. Now calls are let's just get this traditional infrastructure passed and then let's work through the other stuff thereafter. Do you feel like that's the best call for Biden right now? Or would you stick to the let's get this done in tandem based on the political math and the political calculus that you're seeing in the United States? And frankly, you know, the political climate, even overarching

SPEAKER_02 11:49

overarching all of that.

Carter 11:51

Yeah, I think that the political climate remains toxic in the United States. And Biden, to

Carter 11:58

to his credit, seems to think that if he's able to get everybody to work together on something, that

Carter 12:04

that maybe he can reduce the partisan bickering that is occurring in the United States. I don't think he can. I think that the misinformation, if he is able to pass this with Republican votes and get some brick and mortar old school infrastructure into people's communities, I think the Fox News is still going to characterize it

Carter 12:26

as a bad thing or take credit for it for the Republicans alone. This is the nature of their democracy right now. Now it is highly broken, in part because of the misinformation that is pushed out there. He's playing on one side of the field, and the other side is playing completely different. So I think that Biden's

Carter 12:49

Biden's trying to do the right thing, and I can't chastise him for that. I think that that's the right thing to do. But, you

Carter 12:56

you know, I think getting this bill isn't necessarily going to be the solution that maybe he thinks it's going to be.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Guys, I'm going to move on to our next story here. We're going to get to voting rights in a second, but I have to talk about Donald

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. So Donald Trump was giving his second rally since leaving office, I should say, the first one in Ohio. This one over the weekend in Sarasota, Florida, where he railed against prosecutorial misconduct against the government for going after the Trump organization and its chief financial officer for not reporting and not paying nearly $2 million in taxes and fringe benefits to the organization. Carter, two prongs here, but maybe we can combine them into one. is Trump's comeback a real thing? And should he actually be worried about the state of the prosecution against his organization?

Carter 13:53

Well, I think he should be worried. I think he's in personal jeopardy. I think that the pressure that is going to come on those within his organization to turn on him. I mean, even today, he sounded surprised for a man who says that no one understands tax law like he does. He seemed to be surprised that if you get all your your housing, your cars, your gym memberships and whatever from your company, that's a taxable benefit. It's a taxable benefit in the United States as much as it's a taxable benefit here up here in Canada. So he seems surprised. So I think he may be in personal jeopardy.

Carter 14:28

To his people, though, to running for president, this is just going to be part of the he's being persecuted narrative. Obviously, this is the Joe Biden White House coming after Donald Trump. it's not but that's what that's the narrative that's what they're going to believe they already believe that this election was stolen from him that's a complete fabrication i mean the

Carter 14:49

the international world's gonna have to send election monitors uh to the united states in a very short period of time uh so that people have a sense of confidence in the results and the beauty is they're not even going to have confidence if that happens um the united states is in a world of hurt An absolute world of hurt.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

And by the way, just to be totally clear, we are volunteering to be part of the election monitoring force, the international

Carter 15:13

international force. I'm hoping to get the whole contract for the whole country.

Carter 15:16

And I'm splitting it, as we always do, 50-50 between

Carter 15:21

between Corey and I. I

SPEAKER_02 15:22

appreciate that. No, that's excellent. Corey, thoughts

Corey 15:27

Well, it's an interesting example of how different strategies can sometimes accidentally help each other collide into each other have weird effects on each other and you know i guess we need to wait and see exactly what comes out of the uh the da in new york and whether this is the start of something or all they came up with because as many people have observed this is not something you would normally see criminal charges for you wouldn't normally see a corporation a cfo taken to court for these it would be settled with the irs it would be in tax court the irs hasn't even brought forward these things. This isn't coming because

Corey 16:02

because of a tax violation. This was people going through records and finding a tax violation. And that's very interesting. But it's because there was a deep search

Corey 16:11

search into Donald Trump's finances and his, and

Corey 16:14

and I guess his dealings more generally by the DA.

Corey 16:18

If this is part of a strategy to build leverage and take down the lower people to help build the cases against the higher people, but there's circumstantial or strong evidence that's It's leading you towards the higher people, and this is going somewhere else. Well, then I retract everything I'm about to say. But if not, I

Corey 16:34

guess what I find interesting here is that the DA was in a bit of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. They had spent so much time. They had gone through all of these efforts. I don't entirely disagree with some of the criticisms that Donald Trump has leveled if this turns out to be all there is. And they just felt like, well, they had to now. They'd gone down this road so far. Then they're going to have to bring something. And it's not even so much that they needed something to show for it. It's that there was just people calling for blood in the streets, and if they heard, well, yeah, we found criminal wrongdoing, but we didn't think it was serious, so

Corey 17:04

didn't give a shit, right? That was just not a position the DA could take in this particular situation because it was so politically charged, because it had become so difficult. So all of a sudden that then feeds into Donald Trump and this idea of I'm a victim and look at all of this, and it becomes almost a case study for him to be able to point to and say, see, you wouldn't see that in normal context. And there's

Corey 17:25

there's some truth to that. There's some truth to that. And that allows Donald Trump, who was a raving lunatic, to say something for once that is not entirely crazy and allows him to sort of build up again this idea of victimhood. So it helps the Donald Trump comeback strategy, in my opinion, if this is all there is.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

want to jump on this, what Corey's saying, Carter, and talk about the raw GOP politics of it. So if you are a GOP presidential contender in 24, you know, you're six months-ish out from the election or so, maybe a little bit more, you're watching Donald Trump do these massive rallies, not one but two now in the summer. One would assume now that things are opening up, he's going to do many more of these, right? He's a guy who fuels himself through these rallies, quite literally.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

What are you thinking? I'm going to throw out a few names. If you're a Hawley or a Cruz or someone who wants to secure this nomination, are you just like, fuck it, I need to get out right now? Or are you just letting Trump, I hate to say it, flame out over the course of the next two years before you start making your intentions clear? And it's a strategy question, seeing what the guy will probably end up doing, which many will assume is a four

SPEAKER_02 18:36

four-year campaign for the 2024 nomination. What are you thinking if you're advising another GOP

Carter 18:43

Keep your powder dry.

Carter 18:44

Don't attack him. Don't push against him. Don't wait. Just hope that something that has not happened in seven or eight years actually does happen, and that is that something sticks to Trump. Right now, nothing has stuck to him. He's, you know, he's he's absolutely Teflon. We all heard the Axis Hollywood tapes and we were like, he's done by any by any normal level. He was done before he was not, you know, before he was nominated. He still gets not or no. It was before he was elected. How many times has this man been done by any normal standard? And yet he rises. So if you're one of those challengers, you're all relatively young. you can wait for 2028 um if there's a party left for you to run uh the trump party um that is now the republican party it

SPEAKER_02 19:33

it really carter that's your strategy if you're like i'm gonna use holly and just double click on him for a second you would you would suggest that you just let trump be trump and if he just keeps amassing strength fuck it the 24 nomination is his totally

Carter 19:48

really holly only exists in the shadow of trump anyways i

Carter 19:52

mean these these guys aren't aren't noted you know uh what's ted cruz going to do lose to him again you

Carter 19:59

you know where are the bushes they're not going to run you

Carter 20:01

you know that there is no point in in going up against a prohibitive front runner that will have all the money and

Carter 20:09

and will have all the support at the beginning if

Carter 20:11

if he flames out have

Carter 20:12

have your organization ready each one of these guys is already is already organizing but they they don't have to organize for a presidential. They can organize for the state level and

Carter 20:20

they can organize for their house seat or wherever they're sitting.

Carter 20:23

And then they just make the move at the 11th hour if

Carter 20:26

if he flames out. If he doesn't, then they just wait for 2028. There is absolutely nothing to gain from going against Trump at this moment.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

I admire your conviction in that answer. I'm not sure I would agree. Corey, where are you on this? You're advising another GOP hopeful. I hate to give names, but we can use a composite, whoever it might be. I'm sure different strategies for different folks, folks. But you see Trump doing this. Are you, you know, going through Carter's strategy? If he keeps amassing strength, let him have the 24 nomination?

Corey 20:56

You know, it's really interesting because maybe America would have been better off if the last thing we remembered about Donald Trump, the last major news event about him was him trying to start a coup, because that would be the most durable and everyone would remember that. And now we're in a situation where we're were going to be talking about the criminal charges against, you know, his lieutenant and his company, and there are legal experts weighing in already saying, hmm, seems odd. And I guess I would say just because he's a terrible guy doesn't mean in a country of laws, every action against him is a good one or a helpful one. And when I think about those Republican candidates and what they're trying to do, I think it's starve the guy of oxygen, not provide him moments like this. And so in a a sense i

Corey 21:36

would probably do something that looked an awful lot like carter's strategy like i wouldn't be talking about donald trump i wouldn't be going out there and responding to him reacting to the comments he makes trying to have rallies that are similar to his drawing myself into the conversation with him because that's the mistake every republican nominee made in 2016 as they were republican aspirant for the nomination i guess i should say did in 2016 they all took their moment in the limelight fighting donald trump and he was so different from them and it became a bunch of people and Donald Trump, and that ultimately played to his favor, right? You'll remember that nomination had, it

Corey 22:10

it was really interesting. He was winning states eventually, but for the longest time, you know, they had all of their winner take all states. He was doing it with very small percents of the vote.

Corey 22:20

just don't do it again. Don't get yourself in a situation where the story is always Donald Trump or reaction to Donald Trump. Starve the guy of oxygen. Don't talk about got him try to get into some sort of unspoken pact with the democrats where nobody is commenting on this story nobody's discussing it nobody's feeding it because the minute you do he he'll just he'll never go away that's

Carter 22:40

that's so naive though he's in every story because the man is a walking story i mean we if if we'd had if the media could do that they would have done that in 2016 if they could do that they would have done that in 2020 they can't do that then they they can't ignore the guy who who keeps lighting himself on fire um

Carter 22:59

um and i think that they honestly do it in a fashion that they they expect well

Carter 23:03

well this time he's lighting himself on fire he's

Carter 23:05

he's definitely not going to survive and

Carter 23:06

and he survives every single time the man's a phoenix he he just continues to survive all of these ridiculous

Corey 23:16

well so that's interesting and i guess you were asked for strategy for a republican candidate your comment was then just he's gonna get it in 2024 just stand back let him have it let

Carter 23:25

let him die maybe

Carter 23:28

maybe it'll happen but

Carter 23:29

but there's no point in killing yourself beforehand well

Corey 23:34

almost have to well it's fucking fascinating isn't it because if that's the math for the republican party god help us all yeah that might be the math for the republican party not

SPEAKER_02 23:42

not just not just for the 24 nomination but for the future of the party and and what it exists as Trump perhaps tries to crystallize his vision of the party by securing and going forward. I'm going to move on. Carter mentioned he's like a phoenix. That is the transition material I need to go to Arizona, where congressional Democrats

SPEAKER_02 24:02

and you're welcome are facing increasing pressure to enact voting rights legislation after the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld voting restrictions in Arizona. Arizona. This comes as several have considered enacted a rafter or bills limiting voting access in the wake of former President Trump's electoral loss. Carter, before I get into strategy on this.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Holy shit, like we thought this would get better. But the hollowing out of the Voting Rights Act in the United States is unbelievable to watch. I mean, despite the headwinds, the Democrats did what they did through the hard work and organization of Stacey Abrams in Georgia. They snuck out a victory of, I believe, less than 20,000 votes in Arizona. But legislation that is upheld and kind of solidified

SPEAKER_02 24:52

solidified by the Supreme Court like this just makes this an increasingly tough challenge. Like, walk me through before the politics, just the policy, because I see the frustration on your face.

Carter 25:00

Well, I mean, it begins with when the Voters Rights Act was gutted. And essentially what that did was it took away the requirement by states to go to the Justice Department to get their changes to voting rights approved in advance. So in essence, if they're going to make changes to the voting structures, like they're going to reduce to one polling station or they're going to require mandatory identification, that would go to the Justice Department and they could stop it prior to it being implemented. And Justice Roberts led a, at that time, very small majority of

Carter 25:36

justices when they overturned that. And they said, don't worry, we're going to push that out, but don't worry because you also have these other protections. And the primary protections that they pointed to that were still going to be in force were the protections that prohibited changes that would impact minority groups disproportionately. And what's falling now is that section. The minority groups are now being impacted disproportionately, and

Carter 26:03

and the justices are saying, yeah, but we've got to prevent voter fraud. And as of right now, not only do they have to prevent – there doesn't have to be any evidence of voter fraud. It is just merely the imagined voter fraud that could occur that they're trying to prevent, quote-unquote prevent, and that takes advantage of this situation and pushes it down on minorities disproportionately.

Carter 26:28

um is causing significant problems so they've created this um they've

Carter 26:34

they've gutted the the voting

Carter 26:36

voting rights act now twice right once with the preemptive element and now with the uh as long as you don't impact minorities element and it's now i think there's 11 or 12 states that are implementing this um and and this this is everything moving forward because if you constrain um sub some groups group's ability to vote, then you are really constraining, you know, the outcome for forever.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Coy, top line thoughts before we get into the politics and the strategy of it for the Democrats.

Corey 27:12

Well, I'd rather talk about the strategy. What do you do? What's your strategy as the Democrats when the courts are going to have their thumb on the scale for the other guys? Is your response stronger legislation like the For the People Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Or is your decision, well, we can't do anything as long as it's so imbalanced, so we've got to pack the courts? Do we try to resolve that problem first? What is the public going to allow us to do? Or do you just say this is all a distraction and ultimately, this is not where we're going to win or lose our House majority or Senate majority? So, you

Corey 27:47

you know, it's a fascinating one. And it's a conversation that you often have in politics, right? Is it the system we need to fix? Or do we need to live within the system for this moment? Do we need to fight the big battle or the small battle? Which one is likely to get us better positioned going forward? And people argue this in all sorts of contexts, in all sorts of legislative venues. And I don't

Corey 28:08

don't envy the Democrats for this one, because in many ways, you know, the solution of going after the courts will seem pretty

Corey 28:15

pretty unpopular, and they may not have even the votes in the Senate to do that. But

Corey 28:19

But are you just going to sit there and not do anything before the next election cycle? Because this could really hurt you next election cycle. Where are your efforts best put? And how do you have a conversation? conversation,

Corey 28:31

what's the right way to have this conversation? Because there's a practical, maybe practical is even the wrong, but you will have people saying, the

Corey 28:38

practical approach here is just to win the next election, get the votes to do the things we want to do to fix the system. Ram

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Ram it through. Exactly.

Corey 28:44

Well, and just, we got to get, but in order to do that, we got to survive next time. So don't, don't lose. You can't make yourself unpopular fighting and losing on the court thing. You've just got to fight this immediate fight. And you're going to have other people saying, you've got to have this immediate fight now, or else we could lose next time. And there's no way to know for sure who's right and who's wrong. And one of the challenges you have, if you're a Joe Biden type, is someone's going to ask you to pick a strategy. Because

Corey 29:07

in some senses, these strategies become mutually exclusive at a certain point. Are you trying to win the battle to set the stage, or are you just trying to win on the stage as it is? Corey

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Corey brings up some excellent points, Carter. Everything from federal lawsuits to congressional action to make this about the states and mobilize and organize statewide. I want to ask you about one in particular that I think is important and perhaps is just baked in, but it's the bully pulpit. it.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

What is Biden's bully pulpit on this in the sense of how can he use the fact that he's got the title of president, the office of president effectively? How does that help the strategic outcome that he's trying to seek? It's maybe not the legal one. It's not the legislative one. It's not the state one. But, you know, we've seen Obama take tours to talk about gun violence. We've seen other presidents use that bully pulpit. Talk to me a little bit about that and what a bully pulpit can do and perhaps apply it to this situation that we've seen with the Voting Rights Act and the current state of voting rights in the United States.

Carter 30:17

Well, the bully pulpit is really interesting in this situation because it turns out that every time, generally speaking, when voters' rights are constrained, they turn out in record number in the next election. So the bully pulpit in 2022 2022 could be very interesting if they're able to, for example, and I think that Stacey Abrams loss in Georgia really was the beginning of the of the shift in Georgia to what we now see as kind of, you know, two Democratic senators from Georgia, a significant shift in the number of voters that came out. They stood in lines. They did not let this voter this voter restriction tactic and the suppression that it was it was enforced upon them. They did not allow that to stop them. Instead, they stood strong and said, we will not we will not be cowed

Carter 31:06

cowed by these by these rules that are being pushed on us by this governor. And as a result, good things happen for the Democrats. So if Biden takes his bully pulpit and uses it at the right time, I mean, ideally what would happen is some sort of new Supreme Court ruling or some sort of new legislation, you know, something that happens just a few months before the 2022 election that just pisses off Democratic and independent voters and gets them to go to the polls or infrequent voters or first time voters. And if you can organize that type of activity, then then that's what you should be doing. Someone should be studying what Stacey Abrams did in Georgia and trying to implement that, not nationwide because it's just too big, it's too hard, but implementing that in key areas for Democrats, whether it's Arizona or it's Michigan or any of these other states that are bringing forward these types of rules.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Corey, I want to read you a quote here from a senior Biden official. We're going to fight in the courts. We're going to fight on the streets. We're going to fight for fair voting. We're going to do that. But at the same time, we want our groups and community leaders to also take the belt suspenders approach of educating people on how to deal with these new laws. What do they mean? How do I still vote meaningfully? It kind of speaks to your point around someone ultimately coming to Biden and being like, OK, you just gave us a cocktail of things you're going to do. Which one is it? And when you see that suite of reasons alongside some of the ones we've been discussing right now,

SPEAKER_02 32:36

what do you think the one that you would recommend perhaps putting in the front window would be?

Corey 32:42

don't mind the framing as belt and suspenders because you're, you know, you're planning

Corey 32:46

planning a backup plan in case that you quote unquote fail on these things. But it also maybe tells you a little bit about Joe Biden's kind of maybe intentions is not the right word, but his view of it and whether he thinks he's going to be successful in the courts with a six to three conservative majority or legislature where we've spent a bit of time already talking about the filibuster. And maybe it's just not practical that those changes are going to be made in time for these midterm elections, which, hey, it's America. They're coming soon, right? It'll be primary season again before you know it. And so maybe it's a way to kind of say, hey, we're not giving up hope because nobody wants to hear that, or at least big blocks of the Democratic constituency don't. But it's trying to be practical about it and say this just might be the rule or the rules of the game going forward. And we've got to make sure that we're not at a disadvantage because we've kind

Corey 33:39

kind of hoped they'd be different. Maybe we've got to plan for the rules to be quite restrictive, to do things like require someone in your immediate family to bring you the ballot, to have provisional ballots potentially excluded if not brought to the right place. Maybe they've got to double down on just getting

Corey 33:55

getting it done as well as possible within the rules. Let's

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Let's move on to our final story in our exploration of the birthday boy, the United States. Let's talk about recall

SPEAKER_02 34:06

election. Why is it a boy?

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Yeah, it's true. Is America gendered, Carter? That's the question.

Carter 34:14

Well, they don't appear to be particularly. OK,

SPEAKER_02 34:19

We'll let you save your answer for the lightning round. The clock's ticking for California recall candidates trying to oust Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. We now have a date. September 14th is state officials have called that as the election and ballots will hit mailboxes weeks before then. This short timeline enabled by Democratic allies of the governor allows Gavin Newsom, who has just had the guns out for him and the prospects as he looks to convert on a rebounding economy and stabilizing poll numbers. Before we jump into all of it, Corey, explain to us what a recall election is and maybe explain to us a bit around why Gavin Newsom is being targeted with one.

Corey 35:02

Well, in certain American states and increasingly in some Canadian jurisdictions, it's a law that allows you to end a term before the term concludes. So instead of it being fixed, say four years, if enough people sign something, then ultimately they will either be immediately removed or there'll be an election to see if they should be removed. And California has one of the most, I guess we'd call it, accessible recall laws in the United States. You only need 12% of the turnout of the last election for governor to sign it in order to force a recall vote. This is in California, two parts. The first question is, do you want to recall the governor, yes or no? It

Corey 35:41

It might not be the exact wording of the question. And then the second one is, okay, if the answer is yes, or if the governor is recalled, who'd you vote for? Who do you want to vote for? And then anybody and their dog can get on there because you only need something like 7000 signatures. I'm going from memory. So that might be not quite accurate. And, and you're in like you're there, you get to be a candidate. And this is, of course, famously how Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor in

Corey 36:03

in the early 2000s. So

Carter 36:07

And it also produces some of the most colorful candidates in the history of elections.

Corey 36:14

But there's two things I want to mention before I hand it back to you, Zane. One is that every California governor since the 60s has faced a

Corey 36:22

recall. It doesn't mean they've all gotten to this spot, but there's been initiatives against every single governor. Pretty common. And the second is, as things have become so increasingly polarized, I think everyone's suspicion is that 12% might be easier to get. But it might not matter at all, because people might just on party lines say, no, I do not want to recall Governor Newsom.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Carter, what do you think of the Newsom recall? I mean, for a long time, the Republicans, as well as Newsom, have been expecting this. Now there's a date that's been announced. It's a quick trigger, where he's kind of rebounding off some momentum. You know, the rates have gone down, obviously, unpredictability with California wildfires and Delta variants, and whoever knows what other curveballs are thrown at him. But what's your read of the Newsom recall and then just recall legislation more generally? I

Carter 37:10

I think recall is stupid. I think the recall is a tool that is either too easy to use, as in the case of California, it's too hard to use, as in the case of Alberta, and it creates this kind of false sense of connection. We have a representative democracy. Those representatives face the electorate at predetermined times. Those predetermined times are not egregiously long at four years, two, four and six years for most. And on top of that, I think that California's even got term limits. So, you know, like it's just it's an absolute waste of time that especially in an executive system where the the, you know, the governor or the president has to, you know, is

Carter 38:02

is this is the executive branch of government, then it just is a waste of their time. It's a waste of their energy and it just undermines the the entire system. So I think that it's dumb.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Corey, long story short, is this Newsom recall going to go anywhere? Or is this just straight up like optics and political theater that we're witnessing in California? California?

Corey 38:29

Oh, maybe, maybe either, maybe both. One of the interesting things about recall legislation is that it's sort of designed for more civil politics. Because of course, especially, I mean, look at our system here in Canada, nobody gets 50% of the vote when there's multiple parties. And so you end up in a situation where even if you are saying a head to head race, they may not have been your, you might not love them, they might just be better than the other guy, so to speak. And so you hold your nose and sort of tick a box. And so I guess my – not even problem with recall. One of the things that I think needs to be observed and noted about recall is the mechanism through which you pull back the governor and get a new governor is so very different from the mechanism in which you elect a governor. And political parties have a similar sort of thing with leadership review, but you have the population of California having a list to candidates and choosing newsome right and uh

Corey 39:24

uh then you have a situation where the

Corey 39:26

the question is do you want to keep newsome or not and those are not the same question yeah

Corey 39:30

yeah and so you may end up in a situation pretty easily where where

Corey 39:33

where if newsome was able to rerun the exact same race he would win again but

Corey 39:37

he's not instead he's facing an entirely different question i mean you could create a theoretical universe almost uh you

Corey 39:44

you know like one of these like economics questions where you create an environment where there's just no interest fees or anything like that. But you could create an environment where Newsom

Corey 39:52

Newsom is elected on a Tuesday.

Corey 39:55

And on a Wednesday, he is asked this exact recall question and loses and immediately has to vacate the office. And so that's fascinating to me, because that allows whenever you see kind of a delta in the rules like that, that allows for fuckery. And that kind of fuckery, I think, is what we have to be on guard for, I think, in general, when recall legislation is created, because it allows people to gum up the system by just getting Getting their 12% of the vote, whipping somebody back, having another election that has different rules, right, where it's just first

Corey 40:21

first past the post, highest on the list, you know, gets to become the new governor.

Corey 40:25

And that's problematic. And I think it's something that people of California should watch out for and be a little bit leery about because that delta can be manipulated.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

We will leave our segment there. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, I know what you're doing this summer.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Stephen Carter, do you know what you're doing this summer? I have a sense, yeah. I think everyone in the political—tell us, please. Please reveal the surprise as to what we all expect to be doing this summer.

Carter 40:53

I am going to be avoiding a federal election, which will be called— Oh, thank God you didn't

SPEAKER_02 40:57

didn't say the outdoors. I was just—I was expecting it to go about the outdoors. But please, yes,

Carter 41:02

you're now in right— The avoidance of the federal election will be done outdoors. So you cut me off. I was in the middle of my statement. You didn't let me finish.

Carter 41:13

No, I'm done now.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

We're expecting an election at some point this this summer. And I want to do you know, we've we've talked about this in the past. I think we talked about it last episode where, Corey, you mentioned that, listen, the political class is aware that this is going to happen. That's all the sort of runway that the liberals need to make this happen. But let's do a bit of a check in on the parties. Let's check in on some of the high-level indicators, you know, momentum, maybe money, maybe a bit of organizing. Let's start with the Liberals, and I think we can knock this one off pretty easily because it seems like most things are well in their column. But let's talk about the ups and downs that they may face. Carter, talk to me about the Liberals. Maybe use my rubric, momentum, money, and organizing. It seems like they've got certainly the momentum. Talk to me about money and organizing. They clearly don't have all their candidates nominated. eliminated we've talked about in the past that that's not a huge concern uh when you're when you're trying to call an election relatively quickly but give me their upsides and then give me some of their risks as well and we'll go through each of the parties there

Carter 42:12

there was a series of polls last week that just showed them to be doing super well the momentum seems to be there there the money does not seem to be there um

Carter 42:21

their money was behind we talked about that on the podcast uh i'm sure they've got enough money to run an election because of course we're capped So at some point, ironically, the pre-writ period, you can spend a little bit more money. So the shorter the pre-writ period, right, this period of, well, maybe they're going to call it now. Like if you were a conservative, you'd be buying billboards. And those billboards may not count because you're not in the writ period. And you may have more money to do that. So the faster that it happens, it may, in fact, benefit the liberals. But they – between

Carter 43:02

between the polling and the speed, I think that they think that they can achieve a majority government. I think Corey has been the most articulate about this in questioning whether – why to do this in previous conversations. But it doesn't seem to matter what we think. They have a plan and they're definitely moving towards an election. I don't think there's any political pundit in Canada that doesn't think it's happening really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah. Corey, walk me through it. Maybe let's use the rubric of plus minus delta. What's good? What's bad? What might need to change? I kind of threw out some metrics of organizing momentum and money. You can clearly add some more, but tell me what's the state of the affairs in terms of readiness for the liberals from your perspective.

Corey 43:49

they get to choose the date. So they have a pretty massive advantage there. And when we talk about readiness, the liberal sense of readiness or not is, especially without Parliament sitting right now, it's the only thing that matters. If

Corey 44:01

If they feel ready, they can go. If they don't feel ready, they won't go. But this is starting to feel like it's a question of when, not if. you know there's chatter that the election could be called as early as this week do i think that's likely i'm not so sure about that certainly possible um certainly enough people are whispering about it but you know the outside like the furthest people seem to think this election is going to be called is in late august for like a september early october vote at this point so um i think that just based on that alone we can have a pretty good sense the liberals feel pretty fucking ready you know they've got the candidates they've got the money the polls Polls are on their side. I think they see the environment as being somewhat favorable to them, because, of course, we are rapidly going to be approaching the place where certainly even if you were called on election today or tomorrow, where before you got to the ballot, you could have your second dose of vaccine if you wanted it. And it's not so long of a gap that you start to take it for granted and think, yeah, but what have you done for me lately? Also has the advantage of a conservative leader who has not been successful in defining himself with Canadians, at least not in a positive sense.

Corey 45:08

And if it's a summer election where nobody cares and everyone's distracted and they're all outdoors with Stephen Carter getting lost like a New Age Donner party, then yeah, I mean, I think that's really to the Liberals' advantage. advantage um they they appear to be fairly well financed based on the last financial numbers that we saw that we talked a bit about where the liberals put up some pretty solid uh numbers there and they have a ton of candidates nominated ton of candidates nominated so they

Corey 45:36

they seem ready not

Carter 45:37

not in alberta i mean have

Carter 45:40

have you guys got your call i mean at some point one of us is going to get a call to run i'm assuming it's zane because he's the only electable one of the three of us i'll

SPEAKER_02 45:48

i'll I'll be actually monitoring the election. I don't know if you've

SPEAKER_02 45:50

you've got a contract. Oh, you're the

Carter 45:50

the international monitor. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Yeah, I am. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Corey, any risks or any things that need to change glaringly from the readiness standpoint from your perspective right now?

Corey 46:02

No, and that's why I think an election is imminent. Yeah. There's not a lot that you can point to and say, well, but for that, the liberals would be in great shape. They seem like they're in pretty good shape here. I would be really stretching if I were to pull something in and say, yeah, but look at that. That could be problematic because I just don't believe that they're actually facing anything that is too, too problematic. Now, they can't change it, but this

Corey 46:25

this goes back to some of that basic advice we always give on polling. You know, this beware of novel concepts. If people haven't thought about it very long, it's not going to take very much to knock it out of their heads. Well, it's been a long time since we've thought of politics outside of a COVID context. And polling may be giving the liberals a bit of a sugar high, a bit of a false positive. They won't know until that's tested. None of us will really know until that's tested. If we see Canadians say, well, that's great. Thank you, Liberal Party, for getting us all of those vaccine doses. But you know what? We're ready to kind of think about other things now. And we wouldn't mind thinking about the economy or more deeply about the environment, you name it. But we won't know until the election calls. Almost by definition, until the election starts, we won't know what people think about during the election.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I'm going to move it on to the Conservatives. Corey, can I stick with you for a second on the Conservatives? Plus minus.

Corey 47:11

minus. You'll get a better answer, that's for sure. Yeah, well,

SPEAKER_02 47:13

let's do plus minus delta. What's in their favor? what are you liking about the conservatives on readiness what are you not liking and what needs to change you've alluded to a few of these so let's let's knock it off well

Corey 47:24

well what's what's working for them uh

Corey 47:28

uh not a lot that you can point to and say for sure this is going to this is going to work for the conservatives they've got a good thing going on right now there's been all sorts of people grabbing

Corey 47:37

grabbing all sorts of polling snippets saying look they're in third amongst women right Right. There is older Canadians are no longer with them to the same percent. We talked about that last week.

Corey 47:48

Their vote is lower than we've ever or not ever, but we've seen it a long time in places like Alberta. So when Zane becomes a candidate, obviously, that'll be good for him. He'll only lose by 30 percent, not 50 percent. That'll be fantastic. And when you see all of those things, it's kind of hard to say, yeah, this is good. This is going to be a fine time for the Conservative Party. But I guess the

Corey 48:10

the thing that probably would

Corey 48:13

help, help is not even the right word. They might want an election either way, because if you're the leader, it might be a way to snap some necks and have them look at you and say, okay, well, this is this is it. Ready? Let's roll. Let's have that conversation. Party discipline becomes much stronger during an election. You're not going to have people start taking these random, generally

Corey 48:31

generally speaking. And we'll see if that holds in 2021, because when you look at other jurisdictions, that's not necessarily been the case. But you'll see a stronger amount of discipline. And there's no opportunity to define yourselves like an election. It's a time to talk about what's next and what's going to be. And so maybe Aaron O'Toole looks at that and says, I can do this. And lest we forget, Andrew Scheer was not exactly anybody's idea of a star candidate. And he got more of the popular vote than Justin Trudeau. So there might be a bit of a shy Tory effect as well. That's when people are less inclined to say that they're conservative. Comes from the UK. Okay, Neil Kinnock was supposed to win an election. He did not win. I think that was Major, right? And Major was the person who won, not it was a big deal, although it was a big deal as well. And maybe there's also a situation where people are parking their votes in undecided, just grumbling, but as conservatives, they'll ultimately come back to Aaron O'Toole, because in this class of civilizations world we live in, if it becomes liberal versus conservative, they're going to put their chips with conservative. So, I don't know. They've got a problem with candidates. They don't seem to have the numbers of candidates you might hope for. I suspect they'll be fine on the money front, but they didn't raise as much as the Liberals, right? Right.

Corey 49:50

beyond that, they have a party discipline problem and they have an optics problem where Canadians are not loving what their polls aren't great. Not a lot's great, but

Corey 49:58

but maybe none of it matters because maybe all of it was during a moment that is so removed from

Corey 50:03

from life as we normally know it, that it's irrelevant in an election about the future. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 50:07

Carter, I'm going to ask you the same plus minus delta. But before I do that, I want to pick up on one point Corey mentioned, which is perhaps right to be fair to Corey. story, O'Toole wants an election regardless. Like, perhaps there is a argument to be said, like, fuck it, let's just do this right now. Do you buy that? Or are you part of the camp that says, if you're advising O'Toole right now, you're doing anything you can to delay this thing further, whether that be, you know, throwing out some of your oppo early to kind of create some bricks on the road or whatever you need to, to try to delay this election or try to, you know, know, throw, you know, put a put a stick in the liberals wheel to ensure that you have a bit more time. What's your what's your thinking right now, if you're in team O'Toole, if you if you have the same speculation we do, which is sometime this summer.

Carter 50:53

So when we're doing campaigns, I think one of the things that we do, and I think you've done this saying is you test name

Carter 50:59

name recognition, right? What's our what's my candidates name recognition? And do we have a favorable, favorable rating or an unfavorable rating and generally speaking you can go from unknown to known but you cannot go from unliked to liked and i think that this is what uh the problem is with o'toole he's reasonably well known now he's been the leader of the federal conservatives for long enough that people know his name they know his face they know what he stands for and they also know that they don't like him they

Carter 51:31

they it's not that they are indifferent towards him it's not that they are unaware of who he is they are solidly in the unfavorable camp and as such it's very difficult now we don't just have to change uh you know our name recognition problem now we have to change our likability problem and i'm unaware and maybe cory or zane you guys know of an example that that i'm unaware of i'm unaware of a candidate that has become a lot more likable even though they were really well known right

Carter 52:01

right i think that you know we we grew to like jack layton because we got to know who jack layton was not because jack layton um just

Carter 52:11

just became more likable you know like so this is kind of my my question is is does does sheer even have or not sheer o'toole even have the opportunity to become likable so

Corey 52:21

so are you jumping yeah this is really interesting to me i the polling certainly says that steven but i'm going to throw a hypothesis this is out there i want you to react to it i don't believe canadians actually know him at all i think they say they know him and they say they don't like him but i think that's a reaction to the partisan environment we live in and i think they in in kind of an environment with with political parties being what they are and you know party loyalty being what it is when there's a new leader to the other guys you immediately profess to no one hate them i think that's more of what we're looking at right now and maybe it's it's a difference without a distinction because it talks to the underlying partisanship in the country.

Corey 52:59

But I don't get the sense that Canadians know who the hell Aaron O'Toole is. Has he been out there in any significant way?

Corey 53:05

Is he saying anything you think that they would greatly dislike? Like, what do you think would be driving them knowing and disliking him?

Carter 53:12

In 2007, Kevin Taft was

Carter 53:15

a leader that I think a lot of people thought could break out.

Carter 53:18

But in my experience, everybody knew a person who looked like Kevin Taft, who sounded like kevin taft who kind of was the asshole that kevin taft was not that he's an asshole but perceived as an asshole although he's a little bit of an asshole um but i

Carter 53:32

i think that sheer or o'toole's in the exact same spot everybody knows a guy like you

Carter 53:38

you know aaron o'toole everybody knows what i think they have a preconceived notion of who he is and and their immediate immediate

Carter 53:45

immediate snap reaction is i'm not a big fan of his why

SPEAKER_02 53:48

why is that naked i'm like what what's Sorry, let's dig a little bit deeper into this. What is the composite of this guy that people know? Like, where are you going at with this?

Carter 53:56

If you were to ask people to draw an image or,

Carter 54:01

or, you know, you get them in with a sketch artist and you say to them, we want you to draw the prototypical conservative leader of Canada, they

Carter 54:10

they would draw Aaron O'Toole.

Carter 54:12

They would draw the haircut, the skin color, the way he wears his suits. His, you know, everything about him looks like the prototypical conservative leader. And I think that he carries all of that baggage with him. There was nothing unique about him. There's no Brian Mulroney charm. There's no Joe Clark youth. There's no Stephen

Carter 54:35

Stephen Harper, you know, just conniving. leaving it's just a opaque

Carter 54:43

tasteless conservative party leader that you would draw if you were asked to draw someone from a lineup you

SPEAKER_02 54:49

you think it's just generic in that sense um with that being said though carter let's run through the list plus minus and what needs to change what do you anything in the win column that the conservatives have right now i think we've

SPEAKER_02 54:59

we've hit on the downs but feel free to address both but give me some give me some pluses or a plus perhaps that that they they have in their column right now i

Carter 55:08

think that if the liberals go very quickly this is going to be seen like we haven't had like let's assume that they call a summer a snap summer i think that people are going to be like what the hell are you doing to me i just got released from my covid jail and now you want a snap election i don't care about you right now i care about me and my family and i think that aaron o'toole can make can turn that around and i think that his His voters are far more dedicated in the hot days of August to go to the polls than Justin Trudeau's, who are going to be out mountain biking with me, you know, in Canada's national parks.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Corey, I suspect you disagree, but jump in.

Corey 55:46

No, I think that's a good point. One of the things you've got to be careful about there is there are certain demographics that are more likely to show up, you know, come rain or hail or awesome biking in the national parks. and that's older voters who have historically skewed conservative right and and uh others go on vacations and say ah well i forgot to vote i i was in the shoe swaps oops my bad right um so there is a bit of a risk there i think interestingly enough that's probably pretty

Corey 56:13

pretty tough to extract from the strategy that the liberals are considering which is yeah

Corey 56:18

let's run an election at a time where nobody's paying attention because nobody's paying attention and the polls are unlikely to to move as a result, right? You can't, you can't have a big national conversation that changes the course of things if you don't have a national conversation at all. And so why not the hell have it in the middle of summer?

Corey 56:35

it's probably not enough to change things materially for Aaron O'Toole. Like there would actually need to be a change in the national conversation if the polling is correct.

SPEAKER_02 56:45

I threw this out as a hypothetical when kind of introducing the topic, but maybe Maybe I'll kind of come back to it to see if it's got any merit. Would you, either of you two, if you're advising O'Toole, tell him to do something to buy himself more time? And if so, is there anything he can do to buy himself more time, knowing that the liberals literally control the levers here? But my hypothetical was, you know, release some of your oppo early to kind of throw a brick in the road or anything like that. A, do you agree with that, that he should try to buy himself more time? And B, if so, is there anything that he can do to do so? Carter, start with you.

Carter 57:17

I'm not sure. Sure. I mean, I think as soon as you said release more oppo, I kind of thought of some negatives associated with that. You know, like if you do the oppo, you might in fact induce him to go because he's like, fuck it, I'm taking the hits already. I may as well get out there and get the 36 or 35 days done as quickly as possible.

Carter 57:37

I don't know. I think that the way that the system is set up, like once the government has decided to put the wheels in motion, There's very little that the opposition parties can do.

Carter 57:50

You know, maybe there's some way of something happens and he can demand that the House of Commons be recalled to have a national debate on it. I know that there's a call already to bring back the Senate to pass a couple of bills that were kind of hung up, the anti-conversion therapy bill being chief among them. But this to me is a, it's

Carter 58:13

it's Trudeau's train and it's going. Except your fate. I think the only thing you can do is find something that is important enough to recall the House of Commons. But that's going to take an act of God.

Carter 58:26

good idea. Maybe BC fires are enough. Maybe the BC fires, I don't know, but I don't think that's enough. I know we've had elections when Manitoba's been underwater. water. So it just doesn't strike me that BC being on fire is going to be enough, especially in that debate. It would be a climate change debate that probably wouldn't be in O'Toole's favor.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Corey, can he buy himself more time? And if so, should he?

SPEAKER_02 58:49

Can he buy himself more time?

Corey 58:51

So it's an interesting question, because if we take it

Corey 58:54

it that this moment is good for the libs and a later moment has less certainty, it stands to reason that buying

Corey 59:00

buying time is good for O'Toole. But it's not as though the liberals can't look at that calculation as well. And so they would be disinclined

Corey 59:06

disinclined to give Aaron O'Toole that opening, that advantage and anything that Aaron O'Toole does, that makes it almost look like it's better to wait for the, if it's better to wait for the liberals, then it's not good for Aaron O'Toole anyways, I guess is the point I'm trying to make, like the liberals do control the timing that is here. And buying time is only really useful if you do something with it as well. So So what would you do as Erin O'Toole if you knew you could push the election for a month,

Corey 59:35

two months, three months? Would you use it to try to buy even more time to erode confidence in the Liberals? Would you do it election readiness? What is your plan with that time? To Carter's point, and maybe it's not his point, but it's adjacent to his point, when the mechanisms get moving of government for, okay, there's going to be an election generally in this place, and the other parties all start to respond, their trains start moving too and they're slow to move and then they get going and it's tough to slow them down again so it's

Corey 1:00:03

it's fascinating it's i'm i don't know if you were that inclined to buy time

Corey 1:00:09

trying to create a sense of national emergency would be an obvious one that we just we've got to get back together we've got to talk about these things uh it would be totally irresponsible but beyond that i'm not really sure what you would do because if

Corey 1:00:22

if it's good for you it's bad for the libs and if it's bad for the libs why are they doing it for you now i am interested to

Corey 1:00:32

we erin o'toole has an awful lot that

Corey 1:00:35

that is sticking to him right now i'm interested how durable that is i wonder if

Corey 1:00:38

the conservatives are asking and they're polling hey

Corey 1:00:41

hey what's your strongest memory of erin o'toole uh

Corey 1:00:44

uh name a moment of his where you liked him name a moment where you didn't like him can people name anything at all or is this just this general sort of feeling about him and is Is there something to play with there? I always find it fascinating at this moment when the entire pundit class gets so obsessed with the top lines, the horse race numbers, the approval ratings, the for and against, just how much is underneath that's being missed. And I'm just so jealous of political parties that have that kind of data on their people. I think that this is a moment perhaps more than most where that under the water data tells a much more interesting story than the above the water.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

I'm going to move it on to the NDP. Carter, let's do this one quickly. Plus minus delta, what are you seeing for the NDP? Give us something positive. Give us what the negatives are. Give us what might need to change, knowing that the throttles are controlled by Justin Trudeau.

Carter 1:01:35

I mean, I think that Jagmeet Singh is probably as popular as he's ever been. I think that the problem is that that's just a really low bar, and it's hard for him to kind of gain attention um the

Carter 1:01:52

are up in their polling you know the the because some of the uh numbers have shifted away from primarily the conservatives but the liberals i'm sure shedding some and picking some up from the others too but right now their plus is that they've got good polling numbers uh their their minus is that it's it's really difficult to focus those you know 15 percent in locations where you're actually going to make impact. And that is their primary

Carter 1:02:21

primary challenge. The NDP is just so spread out that it is very difficult to imagine a scenario where they're able to recreate even something of the orange ripple. So I think they're holding on for dear life and they're just not in the narrative. They did not make themselves a national force on this minority government. And talk

Carter 1:02:44

talk about a wasted opportunity. You know, that is the primary opportunity of a, you know, that's how the NDP became the NDP. It was taking advantage of these moments. And this is just a wasted one.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:01

Plus minus delta, organizing, money, momentum. What are you seeing from them right now?

Corey 1:03:09

think they've had a pretty good spring and summer, which I've said before. And they've slowly crept up on the polls. And I think in general, if you are the

Corey 1:03:18

the NDP, one of the most frustrating things possible is that the liberals will try to make the conservatives into the boogeyman and say, you just got to lend your vote. So you've got to bring the votes to us in this election so we can stop those big, bad conservatives. And so often you see that NDP votes start to drift towards the liberals in moments like that. And so a couple things. One is the

Corey 1:03:41

the conservatives aren't doing so well. And so it's hard to be really scared of them. And if your strategy is to have an election in the summertime where people are not paying a lot of attention, it doesn't seem like your strategy is to make people scared of the conservatives, at least not talking about it and thinking about it and discussing it in pubs or anything like that. And so as the NDP, you may find that that last week assault on your vote that you can normally count on, it

Corey 1:04:05

it might not materialize in the same way. It might be a good way for you to pick up a couple of seats that might otherwise have gone either to the liberals or the conservatives, but just, you know, everybody shifts to the polls, right? All right.

Corey 1:04:16

The other thing is the Green Party is imploding, and I continue to believe that that's probably more to the advantage of the NDP than the Liberals, despite the fact the Liberals picked up an MP there. If you are looking for an alternative to the Liberals and you're left of center, there's really only one choice now, right?

Corey 1:04:31

right? Well, I shouldn't say that. We'll see what happens with the Green Party drama, but they're not looking so great. um and so you may coalesce

Corey 1:04:40

coalesce the progressive vote i suppose in a way that again you're

Corey 1:04:43

you're not going to be able to scare people to vote liberal if your if your strategy is even a little bit successful so the ndp might um might end up in a stronger position after this election for sure it's certainly a possibility i suspect they'll be fine on the dollars it sounds like they have managed to fundraise themselves to a point where they're not feeling like they're in mortal peril candidates always interesting but you know when you're the ndp you don't have the same expectations around and it's full slate sure or something approximating it but not necessarily star candidates across the board and this this could i mean it's not likely but this you know you're pulling at a place where you could conceivably leapfrog into second place um and that's that's kind of cool too so it'll be interesting to see uh if you're the ndp what what comes out of it. But I actually don't think they're in bad position. If you'd asked me this question last fall, I would have given a very different answer. But I think the NDP is in is surprisingly strong position going into an election.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

Corey, let's let's hit on the Green Party. You mentioned them. I'll start with you. Plus minus deltas. I think we know the minus. Is there any upside for the Greens right now on as it relates to a summer election?

Corey 1:05:51

Yeah, the planet's on fucking fire. And it's the biggest issue on everybody's mind. So this is the time for people to have environmental discussions. And the Greens are a natural vehicle for that carter

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

carter green party i think we know the minuses um pluses i

Carter 1:06:06

i mean the the world is on fire i mean the the you know there was another uh spill today i can't remember where it happened but another big spill oil and gas related the uh the fires in british columbia there's tremendous fires everywhere and uh unfortunately that has spread to the green's head office so i don't know how they're going to actually get through it um because this is the opera this is their opportunity to to speak to um i think i think that this is the first manifestation i shouldn't say first people are waking up to the physical manifestation of climate change and how it's impacting their lives and uh you

Carter 1:06:47

you know i know that the greens will be frustrated by that you should we've been talking about it for 20 years yeah well we're listening now and we're listening now and you guys decided to set your own hair on fire. Well done. Great job. You guys continue to be political marvels.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Carter, round it out for me with the BQ. What are you seeing from the BQ, if anything, around what pluses, minuses, or deltas they may need? Obviously, a regional party, very singularly focused, but well-performing last time. And obviously, Trudeau's got a mark on a lot of their seats that he wants to take over. I

Carter 1:07:19

I think that they're a really good party and that they They continue to play small ball, right? They don't ever try to make themselves into something that they're not. They are a regional party that stands for the region and everybody knows what they're going to get when they vote for them. And that makes them very, very difficult to unseat. If the Reform Party had stayed like that in Western Canada, the Reform Party exists to this day and they would be a massive player. This is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of proportional representation. The regionalization problem in Canada is particularly acute cute and uh quebec is just really dug in on it and uh the party quebecois will be a or the black quebecois my my mistake is going to still be uh a factor at the end of this election the same way that they are now cory

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

cory the bq uh give me your thoughts on plus minus or delta in terms of what they need to change yeah to

Corey 1:08:12

to be candid i haven't been following the drama of the bq enough to give have a competent answer on that, ask me next week. I'll do some Googling. But they seem to be doing their job just fine. And their job is not, of course, to compete for government, but it's to represent Quebec interests in a way that resonates with Quebecers and where they can credibly make an argument that they've made a difference for Quebec within Canada and perhaps even on the way out the door, right? But they're pretty dominant in some of these conversations, even around the The ideas of Quebec as a nation and these constitutional amendments and all of that, you see everywhere.

Corey 1:08:48

I just don't know how it's playing in Quebec, and I'll commit to looking into that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

And Carter, you've called for it for a long time, but our BQ Strategy Special, Corey's just marked the calendar for it for next week. We're doing it. We're going deep. We're doing it all in French. I know you and I speak tremendous French. I

Carter 1:09:03

I am so excited about this. As always, you know that I'm a specialist in regional parties.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

Let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready? I'm

Carter 1:09:14

I'm always ready. It's not me you should worry about.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:17

Stephen, you know, you have sold your house on Aranotool Island, but you now have an offer to buy one for the summer. It's a summer rental that goes until September 30th. Are you purchasing a home on Aranotool Island, or are you renting, I should say, a summer rental? Are you renting a home on Aaron O'Toole Island for the summer?

Carter 1:09:40

I think I might, because I think that this is probably the low point. I think that traditionally

Carter 1:09:47

underperform in polls and overperform in elections. And so by the election day, Aaron O'Toole is likely to have overperformed our expectations today. Whether he has overperformed the expectations of the conservative party is still an open question.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

Corey, I know in the past you have decided to keep a residence on Aranotool Island. Are you renting that residence out to Carter or to some other vacationer? Are you keeping your residence on Aranotool Island?

Corey 1:10:17

You know, I think I'll keep it. It's a pretty nice place. You're free to live as you please there. There's always a drink waiting for you when you come back from your jog. Not as flashy as Trudeau Island, sure. But, you

Corey 1:10:27

you know, something that you can feel ethically good about. No, I don't know. I think that, to

Corey 1:10:33

to Carter's point, this is probably the low watermark for Aaron O'Toole. I think the nature of elections is that they tend to move towards competitive, and he is likely to be the benefactor of that. So I don't

Corey 1:10:46

don't think it's going to be the debacle that some people are waiting for.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:50

Both Corey and Carter summering on Aaron O'Toole Island. Look at this. Who knew? Who knew this would happen? Excellent

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Yeah, low expectations, Island. I like it. Corey, sticking with you, yes or no, does Enemy Paul survive her July 20th vote of non-confidence from the party? The Green Party,

Corey 1:11:06

I should say. It's interesting. You asked this question to us a bit ago in a different way. Would she still be leader in a month? And I said no, and Carter said yes.

Corey 1:11:16

if an election gets called before then, of course she'll survive it. What choice do they have? Like, it would be absolutely insane otherwise. So I'm going to say yes, just based on election chatter.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

Carter, does she survive?

Carter 1:11:26

She should. I mean, it's absolutely insane. sane i mean everybody knows there's going to be an election there's going to be an election at some point in the next it's going to get called in the next two months uh and you're going to remove your leader are you nuts has

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

has the leader ever been removed during an election because that very likely that's an interesting question i don't really think i

Corey 1:11:47

i can't think that's

SPEAKER_02 1:11:49

no i know i know leaders have stepped down weeks if not months before uh been been forced out weeks if not months sometimes days before but during an election july 20th we never know i don't think the smart money's on it that we're going to be in the red period but who the heck knows at that at that period in time stephen carter i'm sticking with you on this um are you uh are you buying some uh stock that cashes out in 20 in in uh the second week of november 2024 on one donald j trump are you buying

Carter 1:12:20

that you have to sit on stock in a a charlatan. No, I'm not buying stock in him. I've been proven wrong at every step, but I have been consistent in my opposition to him as an elected representative.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

Carter, they say the best stocks are monopolies. He seems like he is monopolizing the GOP. Corey, are you purchasing stock in one Donald J. Trump that you have to hold and sit on until the second week of November 2024? Are you doing it? Yes or no? No,

Corey 1:12:47

No, I'm not. Between potential criminal charges, between the fact that he did lose and so people will start thinking of him as less and less relevant and between just actuarial tables the dude is old i just don't know that it would be reasonable suggest he's going to be president again in 2024 or i guess 2025 cory

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

cory we got to see it play out now um so i'm going to ask you this question on the heels of canada day rather than before which is give me a letter grade on aaron o'toole's defending canada day strategy of course He wanted to be the guy that ensured that Canada Day was not forgotten, that it was celebrated, that he wanted to cancel the cancelers of Canada Day. How do you think that played out for him? Give me a letter grade on that short-term micropolitical strategy by Aaron O'Toole.

Corey 1:13:35

think it was fairly forgettable, Zane. I'm not sure how many people even registered it or thought about it. But insofar as it served

Corey 1:13:42

served a purpose with his base and gave voice to something that some people have probably been thinking but anxious to say, it's probably a B.

Corey 1:13:51

I don't think it hurts him at all. I think it's very on brand with who Aaron O'Toole is as a person and who the conservatives are as a party. So, yeah, it's fine. line.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

Carter, give me a letter grade on Aaron O'Toole's cancel the cancelers of Canada Day strategy or the defend Canada Day strategy he tried to employ over the course of the last couple of weeks.

Carter 1:14:11

The canceling the cancelers was canceled. I mean, he walked away from it. It was not a thing. It has to be a total fail.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:21

I'm going to do my last question. Corey, I'm going to start with you for an obvious reason. We're going to go as we went from from the United States to Canada, we're going to now go very local, to here in Alberta, touching upon it with a name that I'm sure he's not happy that is now part of the political zeitgeist in this province, but one Steve Allen. Yes, he has not asked for another extension on his official inquiry or commission, but in fact, he's now set up an endorsement for a municipal candidate. Corey, do you want to walk us through this? And simultaneously, can you give me a letter on this endorsement, both from content and quality and timing and just everything included. Can you give me a consolidated letter grade on this Steve Allen endorsement?

Corey 1:15:06

Well, it's an interesting one. I'll try to narrow my critique here because there's a lot that you could point to. But Steve Allen, for those of you who have not been keeping track, is the commissioner responsible for the anti-energy campaign inquiry here in Alberta. The idea is is supposed to look into all of this foreign money coming to Alberta to fight against Alberta's interests. And he was supposed to look into this and expose this. And he read a report about this. And this report is now going to be a year late. It has had budget overruns. The documents they released last year were a

Corey 1:15:39

a little subpar, to put it modestly. Ironically, included some foreign analysis of the situation, because of course, that's pretty rich territory for irony. And now Now, a letter has been released, I saw a journalist reporting on it, where the same Steve Allen has asked people to support Jeff Davison for mayor of Calgary. Now, I

Corey 1:16:04

I think the reason Zane came to me first is because Carter's involved in a municipal mayoral campaign. And so yeah,

Corey 1:16:10

maybe he's conflicted out. out. But a

Corey 1:16:12

a lot of reaction online where people said, well, that's like the biggest anti endorsement I've ever seen, you know, which, you know, maybe it's not totally fair to Steve Allen, who's well known as a community leader. The letter itself talked about, hey, Jeff Davison's a great guy, if you want to like cancel the green line, I'm paraphrasing, but like, you know, it listed out some policy positions that I think a lot of people would be pretty horrified by. And, and then, Then, of course, it also came from a commissioner of an inquiry.

Corey 1:16:42

And that, to me, is the one that I want to focus on here because I was – I thought – yeah, I mean, right for comments about, yeah, this endorsement was 12 months late. Ha, ha, ha. This endorsement was over budget. Ha, ha, ha. But all very good. But this is somebody with the power – like in the Alberta Inquiries Act, it is like they have the powers of a judge of the Court of Queens bench. Like they have real legal authority. This is a quasi-judicial appointment. And the idea that they would be mixing up in politics at all, let alone helping fundraise for a mayoral candidate, let alone weighing in on the issues of the day, I thought was a bit wild. held. And obviously,

Corey 1:17:20

obviously, that's not something anybody in a position like that should be doing. But what really struck me is it gives you a lot of insight into how Steve Allen sees his position. And he doesn't see it as being a judge or quasi-judicial or somebody with a very serious nonpartisan role to kind of sift through the evidence and tell it as it is. He sees it as, I'm a guy hired to write a government report by a UCP government. So I'm just going to continue living my life as normal, Well, weighing in on the things I want to weigh in on. And

Corey 1:17:48

And that is so deeply problematic. And I don't

Corey 1:17:52

don't know, like, I think that weird Jeff Davison wanted this weird Steve Allen did this. But it also tells a bigger story about how this inquiry has just sort of fundamentally

Corey 1:18:08

inquiries in the province of Alberta. Like, I'm not sure if we're ever going to be able to take one seriously as almost a judicial underpinning again.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:16

Carter, I'm not going to get you to comment on the municipal side of things, but comment on the inquiry side of things. Christmas in July,

SPEAKER_02 1:18:23

Jesus Christ. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 934 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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