Episode 938: You sunk my battleship

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 938. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, was that loud enough for you? Was that good? That was pretty good. That was better. That was good. That was good. Did you like the energy?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

You're making me re-record this intro because you felt like I didn't bring the heat. Well, let me tell you something, Corey. I'm in a closet. I'm recording this episode. It looks more like a pantry to me, but yes. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Sure. I'm in a pantry closet. This pantry, of course, has racks for shirts and underwear, as most pantries do. But here, here I am. That's where I put my bread.

Carter 0:36

I want to know the circumstances. Why are you hidden in a dark mini room? I'm on a family vacation.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

vacation. I wanted a high-quality recording space. Have

Carter 0:47

Have you been scolded away from the main room? Have you been told that you can record the podcast but not in the main room? I have

SPEAKER_02 0:53

have no idea, by the way, how you get away with recording this podcast literally in your living room. I don't know how that happens for you without huge repercussions. I like to think that I'm in charge.

Carter 1:03

I like to think that I'm in charge of my household.

Carter 1:06

Actually, my daughter just doesn't come down ever. And Heather doesn't like to spend that much time with me. Is anyone in the room with you right

SPEAKER_02 1:14

right now? Is anyone in the room with you right now? Are you kidding?

Carter 1:16

kidding? It's 20 after 10.

Carter 1:20

I'm ready for bed. I'm ready to go to sleep at

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I'm going to give you an opportunity to do a victory lap. Do you want to take a victory lap or do you want to just bypass a victory lap?

Carter 1:31

No, no. I think that it's important that we recognize that I am right and I have never been more right and I will always be right because it's a great way to start the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Well, it's not always. It's once. And I'm giving you the opportunity now. You, of course, were amongst a lot of hot takes last time throwing spaghetti against the wall, which is the Stephen Carter way. You did say, after prompted by an excellent question by myself, that there was a chance that the O'Toole campaign may indeed be doing shitty posts on social media and, by extension, this week, perhaps their literature to try to get some virality and attention. attention seems to be that that might be the hallmark of the firm that they're using to help them with some of their communications. Do you want to expand? Do you want to take that victory lap? Do you want to gloat? Because I'm giving you, let's say, 35 seconds to do something.

Carter 2:22

I am remembering that. And I saw the tweet. And you know what I thought when I saw the tweet? That

Carter 2:27

That was the one thing in the podcast I wish I'd said differently. I wish I'd actually said the exact opposite. And it was the single regret that I had from the podcast. I can't tell if you're being serious or not. No, I'm serious. I think it's a fucking—because as Corey's explained to us multiple times, it's a stupid strategy. And making yourself look like an idiot doesn't feel to me like the best way to collect it. I

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Corey, I like Steven's dedication to the game. He'd rather win than be right. He'd rather put good strategy on a pedestal rather than take a victory lap. But let's just suppose he were to take a victory lap. Your retort,

Corey 3:06

Well, look, I think that this is one of those things that – isn't

Corey 3:10

isn't it convenient that you find a reason that this is actually a brilliant political strategy? And I have no doubt that this is actually a strategy that's employed by this group and that they're looking to put garbage out there and get people outraged about the garbage. In this

Corey 3:22

this particular instance, it was this

SPEAKER_02 3:24

this O'Toole brochure that's getting a bit of quasi-political virality with people highlighting how many spelling errors there were and how the kerning and the format size was wrong, etc., etc. I just wanted to add that context. Go ahead, Corey.

Corey 3:38

Yeah, and you would get a bad piece of lit in every campaign long before we ever heard about geniuses from the United Kingdom doing it intentionally. So in many ways, it's a very convenient excuse. But ultimately, I don't think that, to Stephen's point, particularly when you look at some of the stuff we were talking about at that moment, which was that Willy Wonka video, when you've got conservative premiers dunking on it, when you've got your own base saying, just delete this, you've got your MPs saying, just delete this. If this was your strategy, it was a poorly executed one because you probably should have at least given the heads up to the people in your caucus that this was your strategy so that they are not taking a round out of you. So, you know, maybe, maybe not. If it is an intentional strategy, I'm still not convinced it's a particularly good one. Maybe the lit drop worked a little bit better for them than the Willy

Corey 4:28

Willy Wonka thing, but I don't even necessarily think that's the case. I feel like this is almost

Corey 4:34

almost too convenient, frankly.

Carter 4:35

I mean, I did read the lit.

Carter 4:38

I read the lit, but of course, I had forgotten what it was about.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Okay, well, thank you, Carter, for not taking the victory lap that you deserved, but instead promoting the victory. Let's move it on to our first segment, our first segment, the headline. Oh, they're back. No, it is back. It is a headline. The headline. Well, I might do two. I might do two. I might do one that just was hilarious. And I might do one that I want to jump off. Don't show behind

Carter 5:04

behind the curtain. Don't show behind the curtain, okay? No one else knows that you're never prepared.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

me tell you something. If you do see curtains in here, let me know. I think I could use them as a buffer of some kind in this closet. So do let me know. Our first headline comes to us from the Oregonian. Stephen Carter, an Alabama man, thought he'd been shot by an intruder. It turns out it was his wife's boyfriend secretly living in their house.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

That actually, I don't even need to read the rest of the story. That's pretty much it. That is

Carter 5:34

is pretty much the entire story.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

story. But an Alabama man was shot by his wife's boyfriend who was secretly living in the couple's home, officials said. The Mobile County Sheriff's Office said that the wife told her husband that a quote unquote intruder was in their home Sunday night and he armed himself with a gun. The men shot at each other and both went to the hospital, the news outlet reported. reported stephen carter your initial thoughts on uh on on the headline i

Carter 5:59

i think the green parties turned things around oh

Corey 6:06

oh cory you're really reaching for these campaign metaphors zane i

Carter 6:10

i mean really the green party did shoot at each other you know one you know the leader shot at the executive the executive shot at the leader but i think you're really turning it around yeah

Carter 6:19

they're going after now anime paul is is definitely going you know getting the attention that she deserves um belatedly so and it sounds awful a lot like that shit posting idea that the conservatives have too i mean we did talk an awful lot more about the green party than we were supposed to well

SPEAKER_02 6:37

well thank you for that's a great point yours truly carter uh cory your reactions to this headline i

SPEAKER_02 6:44

don't understand what oregon's

Corey 6:45

oregon's interest is in this yeah

SPEAKER_02 6:46

yeah i neither do i this is very interesting i feel like this is either slow new summer in the united states or there's a a yeah nothing going on down there right yeah or an oregon interest that

SPEAKER_02 6:57

that is somehow embedded into this but now we need to figure this out the

Carter 7:01

the good people of oregon just like to feel superior

SPEAKER_02 7:05

that's what they do let's move it on to our next headline our next headline comes to us from the globe and mail we'll do this one we'll talk about this lego lays out quebec's demands and criticizes quote-unquote centralist liberal and ndp campaigns let me fill you in a bit on this The premier, Francois Legault, weighed in on the federal election campaign on Thursday, making health care and immigration his upfront and center priorities and criticizing the liberal and ND platforms as being out of step with the nationalists in the province. He took issue with the Liberal and NDP proposals for new health care funding that would be tied to specific areas such as long-term care. He said federal health care transfers should be enhanced substantially and then annual increases of 6% locked in. Simultaneously, he had praise for Aaron O'Toole's plan regarding health care. And he mentioned that he liked generally where O'Toole was on that side of things and liked his pledge for the 6% increase. But he said provinces would also want an initial boost to the Canada health transfer. Carter, let's talk about the politics here. Legault, obviously, a premier that wields a big stick, that when he shows up can make a splash. slash he's decided to enter on today which i believe is day 12 of this campaign jumping in 11 or 12 jumping in into the campaign smart strategy for the go let's start here and write areas to hit on and then talk about what you think he's trying to do and what he's trying to get out of this um as the well as as the premier the liberal premier of quebec every

Carter 8:50

every premier across across the country should be doing this. This is a free hit at the tee ball, right? It's right up there on the tee and all you have to do is go up and you swing against it. You're not running against any of these parties. You're not running for any of these parties. This is a fight that you want on terms that you want, that only you can set. So why not set these terms? Why not say, you know, Aaron O'Toole? It's going to cost you nothing in the overall scheme of things. This This isn't going to reset your agenda. What it does is it allows you to stand up for the people of your province, outline what you think is important at a time when really it doesn't matter. And I said this to some people today. I said, you know, some

Carter 9:31

some people, people seem to be afraid of the fight in politics. We want the fight. We want to have conflict because it is through that conflict that we are able to define ourselves. selves so this is a premier who said i am going to define myself on my terms by using these punching bags over here that aren't going to punch back at me they're not going to come after me they're not going to fight with me because at the end of the day their quarrel isn't with me so it's a free punch it's a free hit and he gets to do what he needs to do and wander off and have another day if jason kenney was in you know in alberta i'd recommend the same tactics to him but it's going to be difficult for him to do it on a beach somewhere in Europe. I don't know. He'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Corey, I'll get your initial take on this as well. But give me let me just give you some added context. Legault said that health care and immigration reform are two crucial issues on a list of requests he laid out in that letter. He said, quote, We need to remember that Quebec is an island of francophones in a sea of anglophones in North America. It's math. If new immigrants don't integrate, don't learn French, well, then it's the future of the French language, the future of our nation that's at stake. What do you make of Legault's strategy, jumping into the campaign with the big stick he wields and knowing that the majority status that Trudeau wants, and frankly, the seat gain status that other parties need go right through his province?

Corey 10:56

a couple of things you got to keep in mind. I think foundationally, it's that Legault is more of a conservative than he is a liberal in a small L sense. And so he's not too fussed about perhaps putting up that easy lob to his pal Aaron O'Toole. I don't know if they're actually pals, but I think ideologically, they're a little closer than Justin Trudeau. And of course, also, there's kind of the pettiness

Corey 11:18

pettiness of local politics, right? The fact that Trudeau is from Quebec, Legault is from Quebec, there can be only one top dog in Quebec. Why the hell not, right? I'm not really sure every premier could get away with it. I think that only he can get away with To the degree that he will get away with it. Because Carter said, well, they're not going to punch back at me if you're Legault.

Corey 11:38

You know, that's not true if you're Jason Kenney. That's not true if you're Scott Moe. I think that Justin Trudeau would love that fight. I think he would love also to define the conflict for the exact same reasons that Jason Kenney does because it's a free hit, right? You get to knock them around. You get to look like you're a tough federalist when there's not a ton of consequences like, oh, I don't know, dissolving the country, at least right in front of your face as there is with Quebec. And you can tie them to his good pal Aaron O'Toole. That's a lot harder to do with Francois Legault. So this is something I think you can anticipate in any general election is that there will be demands, maybe not always so overtly placed by the province, and that everybody reacts to it and acts on eggshells. And, you know, you can talk about whether that's good for for the notion of Canada or not. But certainly it's not new. And, and there's always a bit of this winking as to who they would prefer to support or not without saying they support. I did find it interesting. They basically called or Legault called the NDP and the liberals, these these quote unquote centralists, right? I

Corey 12:45

mean, there's two obvious parties not there, the Bloc and the Conservatives. And while everybody is talking about O'Toole's

Corey 12:52

O'Toole's reaction and the Conservative reaction, it

Corey 12:55

it is a reminder of that flirting with that nationalist, almost sovereignist band that Legault regularly does. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Carter, we talked about the 100-day contract that O'Toole has proposed for Quebec, swimming in the same or similar lane as Justin Trudeau, not playing the Harper strategy here, which was ultimately, let's just ignore this place and try to make gains elsewhere. But I want to ask you, Carter, you talked about Jason Kenney. How would Kenney do something like this? You know, Corey gave the reasons why it wouldn't be possible. How would Kenny do something like this if, from the simplest math perspective, Carter, there is no swing status in Alberta? There's no path to victory that goes through our province? What leverage does Kenny have, should he or any other premier that isn't Legault in this particular sense, have to make this same case and get the attention and wield that quote-unquote big stick? dick

Carter 13:49

he's already doing it we're running a municipal election across the province it's going to you know try and strike out part of the equalization discussion across the country kenny has taken up this big fight and he could take it up again with a provincial uh provincial police force he could talk about the mismanagement and the culture of um the culture in the rcmp and and how it doesn't represent Albertan values. He has the opportunity to take some big swings at the pension plan. You know, if our pensions here had had positive returns ever in the last five years. Anyways, this could happen, and theoretically he could go after Trudeau on any number of fronts. It wouldn't be the same. He's not necessarily going to go after it. I mean, he could go after it on the health transfers. Don't tell me how I'm going to spend money in Alberta. Alberta is unique. We have different needs. Why wouldn't he go after after that? And sure, Corey's right. Trudeau probably doesn't mind fighting with Kenny the same way that he finds fighting with Legault. But that's because there are like two to Corey's point on power and politics today. Hope you tuned in and saw him in real life. He's very handsome. Very handsome. His his point is that maybe there's six seats in play.

Carter 15:08

Right. So Kenny could try and seal up those six seats for the Conservatives. He's just not going to get as much airplay. But Trudeau can come after him too, but he's not going to win any more than six seats anyways. So I think these are free passes. Why not go for it? And I don't even care if you're Scott Moe. Go for it as well. It's practice for Scott. He sucks. So why wouldn't you try and get better?

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Oh, that's pretty funny. Corey, tell me this. How big of a boon is this for O'Toole?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Is this like, you know, is this, am I overstating it by saying that this adds a nice little feather in O'Toole's cap to end the week off when he's, and we'll talk about this in a second, that in daily tracking, you know, he's up, that he's surpassing expectations. And now, you know, wink, wink, the Premier of Quebec, who everyone is kissing the ring of, now leaves you out in terms of criticism and gives you a little bit of praise. How big of a deal is this for Aaron O'Toole?

Corey 16:07

Well, it's not bad for sure. In Quebec last election, the Liberals won 35 seats, the Bloc won 32, the Conservatives had 10, NDP had one, right,

Corey 16:16

right, which was, you know, a big resurgence for the Bloc Quebecois for sure.

Corey 16:20

I do think that ultimately, as much as we're talking about it in terms of O'Toole, there is also the fact that it provides a bit of a lift to the Bloc Quebecois. And

Corey 16:28

so I think it's got to be perceived more as an attack on the Liberals and NDP than a lift of Aaron O'Toole. That said, it's obviously very good for him. And it is

Corey 16:40

is basically impossible for the Conservatives or really any party to win a majority without a good chunk of seats in Quebec. Yes.

Corey 16:47

And this maybe puts a couple more in play. I don't know. I'd have to see what the next ones to fall are. But certainly, if you could move 10 seats to 20 seats to 25 seats, that would certainly make it much more likely you end up on September 21st as the presumptive prime minister of this country. Now, I

Corey 17:05

I think that this shouldn't surprise people, though, that Aaron O'Toole is trying to make a play for Quebec and making inroads with Quebec. When you look at how he won the conservative leadership, there

Corey 17:15

big vote gains in Quebec, right? When we were watching those results come in that night, it was just unmistakable that the province of Quebec in many ways is what put Aaron O'Toole over the top and provided him this leadership. So when you think about Quebec Conservatives, that's a group that Aaron O'Toole is pretty comfortable with.

Corey 17:34

One of the things you've got to keep in mind when somebody wins in an area like that and wraps up all of the local organizers is they are likely going to understand what's going to play in that province better than somebody who couldn't even win their own party in that space. Right.

Corey 17:49

And and maybe just knowing how Quebec has swung in elections past towards an eventual victor of an election, you

Corey 17:56

you could very quickly see a bit of a runaway effect to the conservatives if the liberals truly lose control of things the way it's

Corey 18:04

it's not happening yet. But some polls are starting to hint is a possibility, certainly not a probability at this point. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Carter, tell me about O'Toole. What do you think? Is this is this would it be overstating to say this is very good news for him?

Carter 18:18

Yes, because the timing's wrong, right? So he may get another little boost. And, you know, in the late days of August, he gets a little bit of a boost as he's heading to September. But I think that you want this type of intervention closer to the actual election day. You know, getting someone else's capital on your campaign is fantastic. I remember in 2012, we were campaigning against Danielle Smith. The Bozo eruption that was Lake of Fire was about to go out. And in stepped Stephen Mandel and Nahid Nenshi. Thanks, guys. Helped us tremendously. So, you know, when you can get that at the right time, it's unbelievable. It's manna from heaven. I just don't think that today's the right time or this week's the right time. It's awfully early in a campaign. even when

SPEAKER_02 19:08

i don't know about to prove that he's not a sugar high and that there could be something real here cory jump in here it's

Corey 19:13

it's not even that there's there's some more foundational mechanics at play here there

Corey 19:18

there is another leaders debate in quebec happening next thursday right next week is a fairly important week on the calendar for quebec politics in this in this federal election so we'll

Corey 19:28

we'll see yeah it's quite possible this timing was not optimal per se it's quite possible that it was but i'd really need to understand better the situation in quebec and how some of that stuff's going to unfold. But I'm not 100% convinced this was the wrong time for it. And it's not just about the sugar high conversation. I think that's one of those meta conversations. And yeah, you always want to stack victory on victory, of course, but it's not because you're worried that you're a sugar high. It's because you you want to just keep moving momentum.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

I'll prepare you. We're going to talk about Trudeau next. But on this particular Legault coming out criticizing the liberal platform, and their policy proposals specifically to Quebec. Very quickly, Corey, we talked about how good it could be for O'Toole. How bad is this for Trudeau?

Corey 20:11

I don't think it's very bad. I don't think this is entirely unexpected, that they wouldn't be ideological best pals. The Liberal Party of Canada has obviously got a long history of being the federalist party in Quebec. And so I don't, I wouldn't overstate it, right? It's obviously popular everywhere, not just in Quebec to say, butt out federal federal government we got this um and there's

Corey 20:37

there's always going to be a contingent who say actually i don't mind i don't mind if the federal government puts these strings on because i want the things right i want more doctors or or

Corey 20:45

or what have you carter

SPEAKER_02 20:48

how bad for trudeau

Carter 20:51

uh i don't think it was that good for o'toole so it can't be that bad for trudeau i mean i liked how cory made it good for o'toole and bad and not bad for trudeau i mean who's it okay who's That's what happens when one owns a home on O'Toole Island. The NDP, like, when you're inconsistent is what it is. Yeah, when you want to promote your stock that you bought on O'Toole Island, it's doing fine, buddy. You don't have to make shit up, okay? We've

SPEAKER_02 21:15

We've never told you where O'Toole Island is actually located.

Carter 21:18

I'm imagining it's in the middle of some sort of fecal waste dump. It's fine. What a

SPEAKER_02 21:26

a fecal waste dump it is. Yeah, it's going to be fine. I

Corey 21:29

I think it's amazing. Where there's four parties that are at play here, Stephen Carter finds it impossible to believe one could be up and one could be not too badly

Carter 21:37

badly impacted. Someone needs to be a loser, and it's not the Bloc Québécois, and it's not the NDP. So if it's not Trudeau, it's not the Green Party. So who lost in order to give Trudeau gain? Because it turns out that politics is a bit of a zero-sum game. If someone goes down, someone goes up. Period. Boom. that's

Carter 22:01

that's my take hot

SPEAKER_02 22:02

hot take we're gonna leave that we're gonna leave that there let's move it on to our first segment our first segment 30 below guys ecos research daily tracking i know we slag daily tracking i know we have but there has to be some import given to this the liberals are now in the newest ecos tracking for the first time in about two years stephen carter below 30 points in the daily tracking tell

SPEAKER_02 22:28

me about this i know i know you slog it but

SPEAKER_02 22:30

but give me the give me the importance because we i want to jump into a conversation about the trudeau campaign what this means where they need to go from here we're going to have that discussion but give me top line analysis um what

SPEAKER_02 22:43

what do you think below 30 i

Carter 22:45

i think this hasn't happened in a while yeah

Carter 22:47

yeah this is something called the strategist's podcast effect um

Carter 22:50

um on days that we record yes

Carter 22:53

yes the cpc takes an unpredictable jump up and

Carter 22:57

then on days when we aren't recording the lpc levels out again so this is just the stress this is the strategist podcast bump that's all it is tomorrow things will level out as i predicted last week when everybody was losing their shit because oh my god look at the daily tracking and then two days later it was back you know the liberals were back in front one day one day of weird numbers and it's easy to get weird numbers you know they do that 19 out of 20 all the time 19 out of 20 well when you're doing it every day you're going to get the one out of 20 fairly frequently so that this to me is just daily tracking uh you don't take it too seriously you certainly don't look at the daily tracking and say oh this day is the one that really matters sure it's a trend line it is a very close race there will be times when When one party is up and the other one is down, and I'm not going to pay—I don't think it's going to matter until sometime around the Labor Day weekend.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Corey, okay, so Carter gives me his analysis on daily tracking. You are welcome to do the same, but maybe I'll tag on an additional question. I think where I want to go, the symbolism of being under 30, even in one daily tracking poll, what would that do to morale? What does that do to operations? What does that frankly do to strategy? Because that's where I want to get here, which is if you're inside the liberal camp right now, you were up plus 10 before this thing started. Now we've just normalized, you know, a horse race, like in 12 days, we've just been like, fuck it, you know, it's just normal that O'Toole is gained. And that's where we're at now. So give me your analysis on what this number means, maybe from the standpoint that Stephen Carter did, which is, yes, it's one day, but also, let's start having the conversation of inside the liberal camp right now. And how are you reading it in there?

Carter 24:45

Yeah. You know, a

Corey 24:46

a week ago, it was just a couple of bad days of polling and

Corey 24:50

and it was going to bounce back. And the expectation was the norm was the liberals a little bit higher than they were.

Corey 24:55

It's pretty tough to avoid at this point, a trend line that we're seeing across basically every pollster, which is that the liberals are going down a bit. And it's not even so much, by the way, that the CPC is going up. It's that the liberals are going down a bit. CPC may be up a point or two, but then the NDP are gaining at the expense of the liberals by and large. And so I

Corey 25:14

think you've got to take it a little seriously. If you're a political party, you've got to look at it and say, okay, what the hell is going on here? And I really do get the sense, and

Corey 25:24

and why shouldn't I? The liberals basically said as much at the start of this week, that

Corey 25:28

that they have been taking this kitchen sink approach to O'Toole. They were going to try to define O'Toole. They were going to bring out these heavy-hitting attacks, you know, the old – they

Corey 25:35

they tried to get this nickname of two-tier O'Toole running, which doesn't – Oh, my God. Oh,

Corey 25:41

Is that coming up? Because I'll save my fire on that one. The healthcare wedge

SPEAKER_02 25:43

wedge is coming up. So save it. Save it. I want to

Corey 25:47

bring it up. I'll save my fire on that one. But, yeah, I mean, the other thing is people do sweat this on local campaigns. They look at the results. They start to get worried. They start to have volunteers less enthused to show up. It starts to just feel differently. And obviously, in some of these red-blues ridings where they rely on the orange vote, if the orange vote is all of a sudden in a place where they can compete as well, like, well, maybe the lend us your vote goes the other way this time. Maybe here in Alberta, where we're seeing polls where the NDP are perhaps 10 points up on the NDP, or

Corey 26:20

or sorry, the NDP are 10 points up on the Liberals. Maybe we're going to start seeing calls for, hey, vote NDP this election. Certainly wouldn't be the first time it's happened. In 2011, you saw very similar approaches here. Of

Corey 26:31

But, you know, I mean, I

Corey 26:34

I guess I'll just say it here because I don't know where else to say it.

Corey 26:39

What did the Liberals think was going to happen? I mean, this was not inevitable. I'm not going to pretend it is. I'm not going to sit there and say everybody saw this coming or whatnot. But like this is such a tiring and disappointing campaign. We've gone from the whole sunny ways to the end of days with Justin Trudeau where all of a sudden he is just kind of raising all of these alarms about this political party that only has a chance to be government because he's decided he wants an early election. And it's just it's impossible to ignore the cynicism of that. And I think it's just too much. I think it's just been put in front of Canadians to a degree where they're just they're not having it. They're not happy. And I'm so disappointed, because I feel a bit like Lucy with the football, you know, this time with the Liberals, it'll be different. We always say that, right? Oh, Chrétien, he won't be like Turner. Oh, Turner, he won't be like Trudeau. And here we are now with another Trudeau, and he won't be like all of those other guys, right? Right. But no, it's started with a bunch of grand promises very quickly. It went from breaking promises on how quickly they were going to bring people in from Syria. That was supposed to be the last election under first past the post. It's just, you know, the cynicism of it all and the cronyism that came along with it. And the liberals do so much I agree with, but they

Corey 27:55

they do it in a way I can't condone. And I just sit here in an election like this and I think, how

Corey 27:59

how can I reward a party like that? And I wonder how many Canadians are having a similar reaction. And it's annoying to me because I'm a professional and, you know, you generally want to turn off the part of your brain that cares about those things and just look at the strategy and the techniques of it.

Corey 28:13

But they're clearly not working either.

Corey 28:15

Because here we are looking at polls that are going down like this. And I just, we're a third of the way through this campaign. This is Act One. Done. Yeah, well said.

Corey 28:23

said. This is like 12 days.

Corey 28:26

Where are they going from here? How are they going to make sure that we don't wake up on September 21st with Prime Minister Erin O'Toole?

Corey 28:33

Because the way it's going right now, I

Corey 28:34

I think a lot of Canadians would welcome it.

Corey 28:37

Carter, I know – actually, let me give you a fair shake at this.

Carter 28:41

Why start now, Zane? Yeah, no, no. Why start now? Let

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Let me give you a fair shake. Let's make it the first. I asked you about the daily tracking. Let me ask you less about the daily tracking and give you the fair shake of, OK, drop the drop the curtain on that and tell me about if you're in one of these parties, if you're in the Liberal Party, not one of these parties, if you're in the Liberal Party right now, to Corey's point, you've got to have to be taking this seriously. Right. You've got to have to start thinking about some remodeling, some redrafting of the story, maybe killing a few ads, trying to script something new. You've

SPEAKER_02 29:16

You've got to, don't you? you

Carter 29:17

yeah i mean i don't think there's any question that liberal

Carter 29:20

liberal campaign day 1 to 12 has not gone as scripted at all um in fact i would argue they

Carter 29:28

they didn't seem to have a script which was really weird for a group that actually called the election i mean we've talked about it in the last couple of podcasts uh

Carter 29:35

uh and we we noted it

SPEAKER_02 29:37

it and we and i also

SPEAKER_02 29:38

mentioned right and this is what i wanted to say we almost talked about it last week about quote-unquote going dark on the weekend What would your story be for this week? Did you see one, Carter, to your point? Now that we're pretty much at Friday, did you see a Monday to Thursday story that you could really see some characters in, see some texture, where they're going, the vision? Did you see any of that this week? week

Carter 30:00

i i reluctantly i'm saying no i'm i'm still i'm i'm i'm i think that the can't the the liberal campaign is still lurching and looking for a reason uh and and uh some sort of thing to grab on to uh they haven't been and i think that frankly all the negativity almost

Carter 30:20

well all the negativity has really defined them very poorly because if if you if they'd come out and said that the reason we're doing this election isn't to protect you from the cpc but to define a an economic future out

Carter 30:32

out of this pandemic that that makes sense and that doesn't immediately put us back into uh significant cuts because what we're going to do is let us down easy right get us get us back to fully functioning as quickly as possible without turning off all the taps um i think that they could have they could have done something a lot better but they

Carter 30:53

they just didn't and they didn't seem to have anybody in place that wanted to um and that to me is is baffling i know when i'm running a campaign and i've got 28 days or 35 days i know what the script looks like for each of those days and i just don't think this campaign did cory

SPEAKER_02 31:09

cory cory jump in here i want to get your thoughts before i move on to some of my my like follow-up questions on reformatting and such yeah

Corey 31:17

yeah and i think that that's kind of where i want to go there are still two acts here the future is not written And I wouldn't want anyone to take either what Stephen or I is saying. I think it's fair to say, Stephen, as we're saying, liberals have lost this thing. That's not what anybody is saying here. But this has not been a very auspicious start to this particular campaign. And it's going to take a bit of a course correction to avoid some of the worst potential outcomes here. I mean, at this point, a majority looks very much not in play here. Now people are talking about whether the liberals can maintain their minority, which maybe is, I

Corey 31:54

I don't know. I mean, if this ECOS poll was correct, that would be a legitimate question to ask, but it's pretty breathless to ask based on one poll.

Corey 32:03

but you know the what

Corey 32:05

can i say when you're the government and you have all of these cards and you play them and people don't like the way you play them you get held to a certain standard and uh and no matter how much liberal whataboutism there is about well but look at the tories no but look at the ndp and look at this and they're just as bad as us it's not going to have the same effect because you are the ones who have the cards right now so i think the liberals need to wrestle

Corey 32:29

wrestle with with that fact and say, how

Corey 32:32

how do people expect us to act as the governing party at this moment and hold themselves to that standard? Because right now what we're seeing is Canadians

Corey 32:42

kind of with a certain amount of peak to this. Maybe Canadians will get over it. Maybe Canadians will go through an arc where they say, screw

Corey 32:48

screw this guy. And then they'll think about Aaron O'Toole for a week and say, well, actually, I'm not so sure about those policies and come back to Justin and trudeau lots of time for that still but this

Corey 32:58

this is not how you want to see your first 12 days go yeah

SPEAKER_02 33:01

yeah carter let's let's talk about i'll get to reformatting in a second perhaps but let's talk about two things that they've done in act one and

SPEAKER_02 33:08

and first has been frankly the title of our last episode wedge salad and the one that they they put out was on private health care and then all of a sudden stephen carter private health care distributed through christa freeland's twitter Twitter account has

SPEAKER_02 33:23

has a manipulated media badge

SPEAKER_02 33:25

badge associated with it. It moves it away from a pretty solid start on a wedge you can probably make some gains on and

SPEAKER_02 33:33

and is now put it into a category of you talking about ethics and liberals doing anything to get elected. But the liberals persisted on that wedge. They used other spokespeople, including the prime They used a party account, two-tier O'Toole, almost a two-tier Trudeau. Corey, you'll jump in on that in a second. But what do you think of this healthcare wedge, Carter? How they launched it and was it the right strategic move to continue post-Freeland sort of hiccup there when it kind of, you know, on day one got slammed pretty hard?

Carter 34:12

Two-tier healthcare is a winner. It is a good issue for the Liberals. It is a bad issue for the conservatives. Unfortunately, it was poorly executed and poorly set up. I mean, obviously, the manipulated media tag was really weak, but also it

Carter 34:27

it set itself up in the way that it unfolded. The strongest arguments came at the end when we were no longer paying attention to the issue. We have what do you mean by that? Just just kind

Carter 34:38

Yeah, we have a collective attention span of three of three days, right? Three to four days. Absolute max. Freeland took a day and a half, right, to get out of it. Then it became about the prime minister stepping in on it. And then by the third day, they were starting to show video of O'Toole basically saying that he was okay with two-tier health care. But by that point, we were all moving on to the next thing. Things had happened. I mean, there's Afghanistan issues. There's all kinds of things going on. And we were moving past the two-tier health care. And so the strongest arguments fell

Carter 35:08

fell on deaf ears. No one heard the strongest arguments. So this is the problem of a fuck-up on day one. you fuck up on day one you lose the whole three-day cycle so you know freeland's manipulated video thing um i thought was stupid but i also think what's stupid she's using christia freeland as a fucking attack dog that's not her job that's not her job here um you know she's

Carter 35:34

she's supposed to be the next leader uh the the the thoughtful intelligent uh person who stands by the the rather

Carter 35:42

rather good-looking and vacuous prime minister, that's supposed to be her job, and you put her down as a tack dog? That's just bad planning. That's bad casting. That's just bad casting. And it showed when it broke, and it showed because the person who would have come in, the person who would have fixed that mistake if you used a different attack dog, Freeland,

Corey 36:08

let's talk about this. No, there's a lot to that.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you start with that? Perhaps even, A, do you agree? And B, perhaps if you can even just talk about the mechanics of how a Freeland may have had that video pop up on her account, because I assume that that was not her choice and perhaps a choice by the central campaign.

Corey 36:26

Yeah. And central campaigns are often looking for other voices to do attacks like this. But let me sort of more broaden the point about communications. And this is true, whether you work for a political party or a corporation, you

Corey 36:38

you do not, you are always thinking about if something needs to be cleaned up, who do I elevate it to? To whom do I elevate it? I suppose, if you want to be grammatically correct. And that

Corey 36:47

that is why you don't start with the CEO, right?

Corey 36:50

You'll start with some spokesperson, and if that spokesperson really steps in it, then the VP of communications can clean it up. And if the VP of communications really steps in it, then the CEO can clean it up. But that's really kind of a last step, and God forbid you have to go to the board or something like that. That's true in a political party as well. You don't immediately start with the risky communications with your primary because if you screw it up, there's nobody to clean it up, right? There's just nowhere else to go. And so Freeland

Corey 37:18

Freeland makes sense in the context of don't give it to the prime minister, because you might need to clean it up, as we saw. But Stephen's

Corey 37:25

Stephen's absolutely right. It was probably a mistake to start with her and not another candidate somewhere else where you could have then elevated it further, right,

Corey 37:33

right, to Freeland, and then you don't need the prime minister to jump into it. And I really did think that that video was that was put out of Justin Trudeau was not, not the best work I'd ever seen. You know, it's, here's what I'll say more foundationally. When you are a political party that starts a campaign by saying this is about the future of our country, post COVID, everything has changed, everything has changed. And we've now got to go to the people to talk about things we never could have talked about before. You don't bring out the same fucking tired attacks on health care that you've run for every election since I've been alive, right? And this is part of what I mean where I say there's just like this foundational dissonance in how the liberals have run their campaign to this point. And also, like, let me just say on more of a style point, two-tier O'Toole, two

Corey 38:17

two-tier Trudeau runs off the tongue so much faster. It's just like I find myself almost accidentally saying that all the time. I don't believe that he

Corey 38:24

he wants two-tier health care, but maybe two-tier Trudeau wants one lane for his friends and cronies and one for the rest of us, right? I mean, like, I just don't think it was a very elegant attack as well when you just get to the nuts and bolts of it. How

SPEAKER_02 38:35

How would you guys have cleaned up that mess?

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Carter, suppose you didn't have a choice. It was Freeland. You stepped in the day after or the hour after the manipulated media tag came in. You know it's one of your strongest wedges, as you have said yourself. How would you have cleaned it up?

Carter 38:52

uh how would i have cleaned it up i probably would have kept it out of the prime minister i would have thrown uh three other senior liberals at it across the country and tried to do it more regionally instead of trying to do it on a federal single campaign basis i think that you can do that attack regionally once you've started the attack you can't abandon the attack so i just don't know why you elevate it to the prime minister right away um i would have you know gone to senior liberals in um bc ontario and atlanta canada uh and gone for it there i mean you can't really do that attack in quebec because well arguably not in bc either there's a lot of private care in quebec especially so i probably would have just gone with regional ministers instead of pushing it to the prime minister uh and um found regional examples of of how how O'Toole and his candidates feel about private health care.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Corey, what would you have done to help clean it up if you stepped in the hour after and manipulated media?

Corey 39:52

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this because the approach the liberals took was basically to say we think Twitter is wrong, right? Yes, yes. We're going to be going to them and we've got some questions for them, right? Just trying to go on the offensive, which is actually not a terrible strategy from a pure strategy point of view. But I think what I probably would have done, I don't know. I mean, what I was about to say is maybe I would delete it and post the whole video and say, Twitter has a problem with this. We think we were entirely fair, but you judge for yourself. Here's the video.

Corey 40:22

And maybe tried to keep it at the Freeland level for a bit longer. Maybe gotten the Minister of Health, Patty Hazlitt, to jump in and provide an assist. But yeah, I don't think I would have necessarily gone to Justin

Corey 40:35

Justin Trudeau with some real strong willity, willity, willity energy from the Simpsons. Just it didn't work for me.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Of course, Monsef, a refugee from the area, talking about its cultural resonance. But, you know, we say if you're explaining you're losing, Carter, how bad was this one? And does it speak to a more systemic sort of problem on preparation or political acumen in your mind?

Carter 41:27

think the Liberals suck at campaigning. I think we've talked about the Liberals are bad at campaigns. We've talked about how the Liberals are bad at crisis communication. Stephen Occam's Razor, Carter.

Carter 41:41

someone heard that message this is not the first time she uttered that phrase and you know what it

Carter 41:46

could be cultural it could be that maybe that was the very first time she's uttered that phrase because in the in the culture you're referring to uh your your brothers right but this is this is i mean i've certainly heard it many many times but fuck

Carter 42:02

fuck man it's the taliban right like this is why you're a refugee like this is not something that is going to to play particularly well um it's super duper easy to misconstrue and if there was anybody with the salt prepping

Carter 42:22

as soon as you would have heard this you would have said excuse me excuse me um no we're going to not use the word brothers to describe the fucking taliban anybody worth their salt catches And this is where I keep coming back to. I just don't think they're good at this part of the game. And maybe that's good. Maybe it's better to govern well. But if you can't manage crisis and you can't manage campaigns, your future as a political party is in doubt. out.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Corey, jump in on this one. I see you a lot of head nodding, which is very rare when Stephen Carter speaks. So I'll let you have the floor without any provocation from me.

Corey 43:03

Yeah, you know, this is really this is a funny episode. It's an interesting one. And I think it's all fair and earned. But it really does feel right now like we're just piling on the liberals, but they have had a bad week. And I think we need to underline that.

Corey 43:15

When we talk about the Monsef thing specifically i mean call me crazy but i'm pretty convinced that you don't send a diplomatic message in english on cpac like i don't believe that was truly designed for the afghanistan you know audience and this was a gaffe for sure mistakes happen but this was a gaffe let's not pretend otherwise but let's also not pretend that moncef has anything but loathing for the taliban let's not overswing the other way this

Corey 43:41

this occurred however because people were looking to clean up something that was not a gaffe was a foundational error that we should all feel very ashamed about as a country and that is how we have approached the evacuation of

Corey 43:53

of afghanistan and uh like i just i give nobody passes for this we called an election on a day this was all beginning to unfold nobody needed this election you could have put off this election but for cynicism

Corey 44:05

cynicism the desire to run the campaign right there and it

Corey 44:09

it was not going away it is still in the media to the media is great credit. It is still in the media. It is still something we are talking about. We have not been subjected to that three days moving on that Stephen Carter is discussing because the story continues to evolve. And because somebody pointed out on Twitter, I can't recall who, so I won't be able to kind of properly reference, but so

Corey 44:27

so many members of the media have been to Afghanistan or know people in Afghanistan. It is very personal to them. And so they're not willing to move on and good for them. Good for them for not moving on. Let's talk about the fact that Canada started started so late. Let's talk about the fact Canadian planes were so empty. Let's talk about the fact that we didn't go into Cabell to try to find some people and protect them. And let's talk about the fact that we're now throwing in the towel before we absolutely need to. And I get it. Others are too. I don't think that makes it better. I

Corey 44:55

I don't. And the reason Monsef was there is what we should be talking about, not necessarily the Brothers Gaff. She was there to try to clean up the fact that this

Corey 45:06

this government didn't care enough to

Corey 45:07

to deal with this problem.

Corey 45:09

And you look, lots

Corey 45:10

lots of people screw up lots of things, but

Corey 45:12

but this is inexcusable.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

I want to let you jump in on this, and maybe I'll loop back to a statement from a few episodes ago. Afghanistan, what we're doing there, horrible,

SPEAKER_02 45:24

horrible, horrifying, the visuals, the imagery, the circumstances, our response.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Is it now an election issue? Can I safely say it's an election issue? Or do you still feel like the Stephen Carter give-a-fuck factor doesn't apply?

Carter 45:39

When are the Americans leaving? The 28th, right?

Carter 45:42

right? I mean, maybe Biden extends it because of the explosions today. Maybe he extends it. Maybe he makes a couple more forays into the various towns to find Americans and find Canadians, find allies, bring them out. Maybe he does. But there's a better than zero chance that he's going to say the 28th is the day that we're out. um i don't want a further uh

Carter 46:04

uh deterioration of the relationship with it we have with the taliban i certainly don't want it to return to a full shooting war i mean i think it was isis today that was uh responsible for the suicide attacks or who they're claiming is responsible um

Carter 46:18

that is uh that changes if it's all of a sudden the taliban shooting at your airplanes when they go up and and pick up uh refugees how does it look when uh um you know uh one of the planes goes down with several hundred refugees on it. So I think that it

Carter 46:38

should be an issue. I think Corey's point is very good. I really love to have a calm, rational discussion about what happened in Afghanistan, why it has taken so many years to get people out of Afghanistan. Maybe they didn't want to leave until the government fell. And the government fell very, very quickly. and who the hell could have predicted um but

Carter 47:03

but i don't think we're going to get that during an election and i don't think that when the pictures change and the pictures cease i'm not sure that on the 7th or 8th of september we're still talking about it and i hope we are i hope we are but i'm just not sure that we will be because the pictures the pictures every day you get a new picture it's a new story and

Carter 47:22

and when we stop we

Carter 47:24

we stopped too quick when syrian children were drowning trying to get into the rest of into Europe. We stopped too quick when I mean, how many stories of how many tragedies do we do we have to go through that we stopped to who even remembers Haiti and the earthquake that occurred? Who remembers because we're talking about Afghanistan? Where's where are Canadian boots on the ground in Haiti? Why aren't we responding to that natural disaster as well? Well, because we're focused on on Afghanistan, because we have the collective attention of Nats. And that's where we are. So I'll leave it there. But I

Carter 47:59

I have many more things to think about and talk about with Afghanistan. But, you

Carter 48:04

you know, as Kim Campbell once said famously, an election is no time to talk about the issues.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Corey, I want to talk about Trudeau and O'Toole on this. I'm not going to move on just yet, because O'Toole made a statement from his studio this evening, which is about a three and a half minutes talking about the state of affairs, I have to say, look pretty prime ministerial to me, in terms of how he presented himself. But Trudeau's kind of in a bind here, isn't he? Because, you know, when we talk about elections,

SPEAKER_02 48:35

elections, and we talk about incumbents during elections, and then we layer on crises of any kind, only one of those candidates is the prime minister that can kind of take off the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party hat and say, say, sorry, duty calls. I got to go be prime minister. I got to go look prime ministerial. But because this election was called and triggered by Trudeau, he doesn't really have that escape hatch. Am I reading that right from your perspective in terms of the bind that he might have in order to, in a more conventional election setting, you know, take off the liberal party cape, put on the prime ministerial one and say, I got to go do diplomatic shit?

Corey 49:12

Yeah, as much as people talk about us being in a post-truth world, the reality is when your Your position is largely in tension with reality that causes problems in politics. And here's the brass tacks, folks. It's a serious situation in Afghanistan. Now, when Justin Trudeau says it's serious, he's admitting a certain dereliction of duty. That's an awkward conversation for him to have. When O'Toole says it's serious, he's also taking a political attack at his opponent. And so, not to be too crass about the politics of this, because I think that there are reasons

Corey 49:41

reasons to sort of blame the Canadian government writ large over many years, including the Harper government, as

Corey 49:47

as to the situation that we're in.

Corey 49:50

Although most recently in the chair, most responsible.

Corey 49:55

O'Toole can say it's serious and look like a prime minister. The funny thing is our prime minister can't.

Corey 50:00

He can only skirt to that line. He can say certain things, but he can't go any further because that would be almost self-defeating in a sense. So, yes, I think you're right. I think he's in a box of his own making here.

Corey 50:14

you know, you reap what you sow, I guess. But maybe the way to deal with this was to clean it up more directly a week ago. Like, I don't know if any of us expected that it would continue to be in the news this long. Certainly, Carter and I both cynically said, yeah, probably not. not. I'm glad it is. Glad

Corey 50:33

it is. But he may have made the calculation it was better to ignore it, or at least not take

Corey 50:38

take the O'Toole approach.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

Carter, let's start here. I like Corey's breaking down of this election in the three acts, 12 days, finish act one. Start with cleaning up Afghanistan, what you do if you're the prime minister. Let's jump into scripting act two for him. What are you doing? You're now the lead strategist. The pen is yours. You've got a bunch bunch of dry erase markers you've got a whiteboard what are you up to steven carter like what are you doing you're scripting act two you're the pen is yours there's no one else unencumbered jerry butts is somewhere in in the atlantic promises he hasn't shown up katie tufford's on the road the pen is yours what are you starting with what does act two look like are you scrapping ads are you scrapping everything are you bringing people back and saying we're going dark again this weekend. Fuck it. We have to get in the room or, you know, give me some, you know, a 12-day window. What is revamping this thing in 12 days look like for the Liberals in Act 2?

Carter 51:38

I think that Act 2 has to be about caring, not about fighting. I think that you need to return to the voter and stay away from the parties that you're fighting with. You can return to fighting with o'toole in the last 12 days and in fact that might be your best play the last 12 days you're going to focus on uh the attack ads again but for the next 12 days you're going to put forward a caring uh caring

Carter 52:03

caring empathetic understanding of what canadian families have gone through over the last you know uh the last two years because here's the other thing delta is real there's a surge there's a pandemic like let's get back to taking care of one another let's get back to being the the the federal government that actually um was leading the provincial governments especially at a time when the provincial governments have basically abdicated responsibility i mean suddenly british columbia has been dragged back to the table of actually giving a shit about covet um yeah alberta hasn't yet been dragged back uh doug ford is is trying to decide whether or not he should do things like how do let's get back to having a caring government that shows us why we like the liberals a few weeks ago get back to the table show us that you know what it does look like we're going to need to live with covid and if we're going to need to learn to live with covid we better do so in a caring environment not a threatening environment and that's that's the way i would do it right away 12 days 12 days of covid is maybe what i would call this thing

SPEAKER_02 53:11

12 days of COVID, safe, caring, back to, in some ways, the victory lap that you initially premised this election on, on ground that what you provided. But Carter, before I come to you, Corey, how are you visioning that out? How are you actually making it about the future rather than the past?

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Well, I think that we can make it about the present. I

Corey 53:30

I think that we can make it, forget about the future. The

Carter 53:33

The future is something that you're not going to be able to define in this campaign because, Because, you know, right now what you have to do is remind people. Is

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Is it because you lost the opportunity to define it? You had one and you lost it? Or do you feel like it's never about the future in your mind?

Carter 53:47

I think that people are incredibly selfish. I've said that a thousand times. And I think that people are incredibly tied to the moment that they're in. Right? They are tied to right now. Right now, I'm scared. My daughter goes back to university. Corey's family goes to school. um you know we i don't i don't i we have an office that's opened up for a project right that office is going to close down again because we can't keep we can't keep delta out of our system we can't keep ourselves safe and so we're going to have to close the office down again and now i've got you know what do i do now with my rent and all these other things that that are going to be real issues. And that's really playing on people. I fear, there's a lot of fear and anger out there again. And that fear and anger can be manifesting itself into O'Toole land, which is I'm angry and I'm going to change the government or it can be manifesting itself into Trudeau land, which is people care about me. People are protecting me. And this government that stood for me for the last two years is going to stand for me again. And I have to keep them because at the end, I am afraid of the others.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Corey, you're hearing Carter's 12 days of COVID, safety, caring about the present. That's the message arc. Do you want to add to that message arc? Do you want to change it? If I threw you a second dry erase marker, would you be scratching stuff out or would you be adding to what you saw from Stephen Carter on the whiteboard?

Corey 55:16

There's a few things I'd want to explore. I'm not sure I'm willing to say I would immediately jump into them, but I would want to focus test them as well. Some of what Stephen says about COVID, I'd worry there's some backfire effect. And obviously, some of the messages on COVID around vaccines have introduced a certain cynicism on the topic that we need to be mindful of. here's the thing if you're the liberals based

Corey 55:37

based on the the kind of the process stories that were going on you had the hope that two things would turn the page for you and you'd really get down to kicking ass and one of them was defining aaron o'toole and the other was releasing the platform which everybody expects next week right yeah it

Corey 55:52

it is time to put that platform forward and it's time to wedge positive it's time to talk about the things that you know the the conservatives wouldn't be willing to do but i also and this is where i think maybe some testing would be interesting Justine. I've seen a lot of polling that shows Canadians still fully expect that Justin Trudeau will win this election. The actual results don't necessarily suggest that the confidence Canadians have on this matter is justified.

Corey 56:17

It's not entirely clear to me that Justin Trudeau could win the election with the numbers he has. I think you do need Canadians to marinate on the notion of an Aaron O'Toole government. You need to get them past their fury with you calling the election and start thinking about the consequences to them in their life. You know, get to this point of O'Toole could win, but he shouldn't. And talk about your plan for child care. Talk about your plan for COVID, sure, but be very careful. Talk about growing the economy and jobs and finding the liberal way to do that and define these things. As I think you successfully did during the budget. And some of that stuff just needs to be re-bundled and put back into something else. themselves and then i do believe you you sort of need to commit

Corey 56:58

commit to taking an approach that is just a little bit less tactic based and fundamentally more about i mean god it sounds so new age but like you've got to talk about your audience here you've got to be much more audience centric than you've been today right

Corey 57:11

right now i feel like so much of what's come out is clearly a bunch of people who hate the tories in a room saying how can we rat fuck these people and so finding quotes and tweets and all of this stuff and putting it forward. And listen, man,

Corey 57:25

Justin Trudeau, Canadians are in no mood. You put them in no mood by calling this election the way you did and in the fashion that you did in the days to follow. So you've got to flip this around. And I think part of it really is getting them used to the idea that this is a horse race now, because Canadians right now want to punish you.

Corey 57:43

But I don't think Canadians are ready to live with the consequences of that punishment. So you have to make that real to them. Accepting

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Accepting the fact that O'Toole is stronger than people expected, or even maybe not even acknowledging that, just saying, this is where we are, and this is what we expected, as we kind of discussed last time. Carter, would you go so far as to embrace underdog status, or is that disingenuous and bad strategy at the same time?

Carter 58:05

No, I like Corey's thing. I think that I like Corey's bit at the end. So if you were to take, so we've got 12 days that you've asked me to fill. I would put Corey's thing in the first six days of the next 12-day cycle. What happens if Aaron O'Toole is able to form the government? That's when you can start to put in more realistic attacks that make more sense and that will land heavier. And on top of that, it's going to be right after Labor Day. I feel a lot more comfortable making that play after Labor Day than I do in this kind of dead zone. own. I think that Aaron O'Toole, if he goes on to win this election, he's going to need

Carter 58:49

three or four or five more surges. If Trudeau is going to win this election, he just needs one more surge at the end because the fundamentals of the liberal seat

Carter 59:01

seat gains and where the liberal votes are gives them tremendous opportunities. I think we've talked about how inefficient The conservative vote is because you get so much vote in in so many in certain key areas. That's less this year because Alberta's falling out. But still, there's there's still it's still an inefficient vote for the for the for the conservatives. So anyways, all to say that I like what Corey is saying. I just would put it 12

Carter 59:31

12 days from now. I think you have to redefine you have to redefine yourself. And yeah, there could be a backlash effect, but you have to redefine yourself so that people know that they still like you.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Okay, so Corey, you've got the scaffolding on the message of what you want to say over the course of the next 12 days. Let me talk a little bit about O'Toole because he's also, it's not like he's not knowing that you're not going to do perhaps a power down script of the next 12 days. He's been really confusing up until this point. Maybe you'll disagree. I'm actually curious to hear if you do. He's been going with some very dog-whistle-y things that he has in the platform, but announces some union-related items this week. He talks about gig workers and their future. He's doing some worker stuff back and forth. How do you deal with O'Toole? And maybe more specifically, let me actually make you switch teams, Corey. How are you planning Act 2 if you're O'Toole? You have the same 12-day stretch. You may not need a rewrite, but you certainly need an expansion pack to make sure more of this good feeling of what the first 12 days have been continue. What are you doing if you're Team O'Toole right now, knowing that Trudeau is also probably going to lean into his strength somewhere in the ballpark of what Carter was saying?

Corey 1:00:49

Yeah, let's not overstate where Aaron O'Toole is right now. But I'm sure that within the campaign, there's an anxiety that perhaps they have peaked too early or that there's a liberal attack that's going to come and undo all of the good things that they've managed

Corey 1:01:01

to do and how they've managed to write themselves in the polls here. There is also a reality that as much as people are now paying attention because we're in an election, we've always said that engagement would go up. Engagement increases as you get later into the election. There's still an awful lot of people on holidays or who are getting their news distilled or they're turning on the TV and they're realizing, I've never heard Jagmeet Singh speak before because normal people don't think about the campaigns all of the time. So Aaron O'Toole, well, he has really, I think, really charmed the pundit class, right? Like even people who don't like him have said, wow, the conservative campaign has been very good and he's

Corey 1:01:38

managed to redefine what he is. is the next step really is turning that into kind of a broader public appeal. And we are not necessarily seeing in the approval numbers for him, like they're up at

Corey 1:01:48

least some of the polls, but there's not this universal love of him. He's still net negative by a pretty significant portion. The story has really been that Justin Trudeau's numbers now join him in the basement, not that Aaron O'Toole's numbers have dramatically improved. Right,

Corey 1:02:03

And again, the polling shows Aaron O'Toole somewhere between 31% and 33%. He's not rocketing around anywhere. He's just holding on to that conservative base. So there is work to be done still.

Corey 1:02:15

People are looking at Justin Trudeau. They're finding him somewhat wanting.

Corey 1:02:18

This is benefiting largely the NDP at this point. I think this is funny because it's like the second episode in a row I've thought, in many ways, the real story is the NDP, and I feel like we're not really going to quite talk about them. But

Corey 1:02:27

But I do want to underline, they're

Corey 1:02:29

they're sort of the real story right now. But if you're Aaron O'Toole, what you need to do is actually turn that into some increased support, not just reduced support for Justin Trudeau. And that's got to be the focus of the next couple of weeks. You've built a nice foundation, you're going into the period that's going to have the leaders debates. debates this is the time you've set the table well but this is the time you want to stay away from your oddball dog whistles and the weird shit like like saying it's time to put the flags up again on parliament hill i'm sure there's an audience for that but read the fucking room aaron right nobody wants to hear that right now and it's an absolute distraction from the message that you've been driving towards these uh these working class voters that are in some ways the the rust belt voters that went for Trump, right? These are these are people with good jobs, union jobs, blue collar jobs, in many cases, manufacturing jobs. But maybe they're, they're not, they're not so quote, unquote, woke, right? They're not necessarily feeling all of the good vibes that the NDP are otherwise putting out on on a lot of the social issues out there. So when

Corey 1:03:34

when people come looking though you've just gotta you've gotta not scare them and

Corey 1:03:39

it's not the time to bring in some of that other weird stuff carter

SPEAKER_02 1:03:43

12 days similar thing probably a different strategy what are your what is your focus for the next 12 days if you're team o'toole yeah

Carter 1:03:52

yeah i mean i think that uh my focus is getting myself into a much higher position with preferred prime minister right now if if O'Toole was to win it's by accident not because the 338 ridings are selecting him as the potential best prime minister it would be a mathematical outcome

Carter 1:04:15

outcome right it would be a mathematical accident that would would ultimately elect him not because people said you know what I think we should give O'Toole a chance of being the prime minister it'd be in spite of his incredibly low numbers like he is not seen as as a preferred prime minister by the vast majority of the country justin trudeau is still the person that people look to and say yeah i would prefer him in this role so he could win like otul could win but if i'm running his campaign i want people to think that he could be prime minister that statement tonight uh about afghanistan showed showed that he could be prime minister. Now you need to not fuck up and say, you know what, let's put the flags back up. I mean, everything that he does that's good is currently being undermined by one thing that's bad. Let's get focused on the good things and leave these ideological pushes or these dog whistles to the base. Leave them alone. Go win. If you need to do a dog whistle to the base, it's going to be afterwards because right now the base is going to come with you because they're going to be excited that you might win. So

Carter 1:05:23

So don't feel like you have to bring the base along.

Carter 1:05:26

The base will be there because you're going to win.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:29

Corey, we're going to spend some time on the NDP, by the way, on Sunday. So worry not. I want to end this segment with one question for the both of you. And, Carter, I'm going to stick with you if that's okay. Talk to me about some best – yeah, thank you so much. Really appreciate you showing up. It's the bare minimum. them uh carter tell me about some of the best practices lessons learned uh mistakes you've made during in-campaign rewriting in-campaign script building you know we all talked about prior to this election that every party every leader had a 36-day script we are now suggesting that at least for the liberals they're tearing up what act two was for them and they're rewriting it this weekend, and they're perhaps rewriting it tonight or tomorrow in anticipation of this weekend with each precious day. Tell me about your experience having had done that, I'm assuming, having had to do these mid-campaign rewrites. What are some hard lessons learned or stories or anecdotes that you would share if someone from that camp right now is listening to some advice for them as they head into this rewrite and this whiteboard session? profession

Carter 1:06:42

would probably say that most of the errors that we've made in previous campaigns that i've done um are because of off script moments right so suddenly there's a young staffer who's suggesting that danielle smith doesn't understand families because she doesn't have her own kid the whole fucking world you know blows up and we're taken off script yeah we're we're going down a path that no one wants to be on no one thought this was a thing this is certainly not not a scripted moment. And we're off track. The difference is, I would hypothesize that the liberals are exactly where they wanted to be.

Carter 1:07:19

They've said all the words they wanted to say, they're just landing flat.

Carter 1:07:23

And that is a totally different problem. We ran into that problem a little bit when we were doing some of the, you know, the early 2012 stuff when we weren't taken off uh off message but it's just the words you're saying aren't working the words you're saying aren't being heard because it's just not the right time to hear them or um you

Carter 1:07:46

know the the audience just doesn't want uh to buy your bullshit and i think that the fear that i have with the liberals is that people aren't buying their bullshit so you

Carter 1:07:57

you better change the bullshit and you better better change the messengers. I would be taking

Carter 1:08:03

taking Chrystia Freeland off the front line. I would be taking Monsef off the front line. I would be pushing up a whole new group of people

Carter 1:08:15

that are going to carry the day because it looks like your front, you know, your first group shit the bed pretty hard. So find some new blood. You've got lots of it. 338 people are running.

Carter 1:08:29

Find some new ones that can carry the load.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Corey, any lessons learned, best practices, advice you'd be giving to someone in the liberal camp as they power down either this weekend, tonight, tomorrow to in-game rewrite Act 2 for their campaign?

Corey 1:08:49

Yeah, you've got to be careful when you're rewriting Act 2. What you're not going to end up with is a blank piece of paper. You've got to come up with a new plan, not throw out the notion of planning, because campaigns run into a lot of trouble when they don't have a skeleton, like a plan to hold on to. Can I tell you, to build on Stephen's point, when your days on your calendar are empty because you've said, oh, we're throwing out that event, those are dangerous days because you don't know what you're doing. And that energy goes somewhere, and that's when people do some crazy-ass shit. And you're not just

Corey 1:09:20

just talking about the candidate here. You're talking about the entire apparatus. The entire apparatus. And I'm speaking from some experience on this particular matter. Be

Corey 1:09:28

Be careful, though, right? You can't be overly reactive. You can't say, okay, well, I

Corey 1:09:34

I agree with Stephen 100%. I think this is exactly what the intention was. I think this was the campaign that they wanted to run to this date. um but

Corey 1:09:43

but you can't as a result of saying none of that work today just come up with something that is just like so scattershot and so about how do we get through tomorrow how do we get through the next day how do we get through the day after that that you actually lose focus on strategy overall there you

Corey 1:09:57

you know steven said people aren't buying their bullshit i agree um i don't want you to think that i think bullshit doesn't work in politics bullshit often works in politics but But right now, people aren't buying your bullshit. So maybe give bullshit a rest for a while. Maybe that's the most obvious strategy here.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:14

We'll leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment or our next segment because we've still got something that is just for you, Stephen Carter, the over-under in the lightning round. But our next segment, we do it for you. We do it for you. I

Carter 1:10:27

to the final round because, you know. No,

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

No, no, no, Stephen Carter, because there's now a pattern we've established with our next segment. Our next segment, the elevator ride campaign strategy.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

Carter has another legal appointment. Yes, his lawyers want to speak to him again. Of course, Corey drives him in their 2003 Kia Sorento. They park on P9. They're even more late than they were last week. And just as the elevator doors are closing, Annamie Paul jumps in. She says, Stephen Carter, why

SPEAKER_02 1:11:00

why do you have a name tag that says Stephen Carter on it? And why do you have a name tag underneath that that says campaign strategist on it? She says, regardless of that, regardless of the fact that you wear name tags with both your profession and name on them, give me some free advice. What should I be doing with the limited resources, time, attention that I have as leader of the Green Party?

Carter 1:11:23

Get on an aeroplane and go to the places that you can win seats. Toronto Centre was a fun little dream, and it's cute. But you've got to go because if you don't win seats, this is over for you. So you've got to win two seats, get on a plane, go win those seats, and then make sure that it is attributed to you. Because right now, the world's worst case scenario isn't just that you lose all of your seats. It could be that the two seats are won in spite of your performance. So get out there and take credit for God's sake. Get out and try and win two seats on the West Coast. And who knows? You might even be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

Corey, same question to you. She says, hey, nice to meet you. Why do you have a T-shirt with your own face and name on it? Regardless, I'll put that aside. Corey Hogan, is it? Tell me what I should do. Is this Stephen Guy right?

Corey 1:12:19

I ignore her because of her general irrelevance to the campaign, and I turn to Stephen. And I say, it's

Corey 1:12:25

it's interesting, Stephen. Stephen, I do wonder, though, if the Liberal vote is somewhat collapsing in some of these urban areas, as we're starting to hear anecdotes about, do we actually know she can't win Toronto Centre?

Corey 1:12:37

Maybe she should stay in Toronto Centre. What

Carter 1:12:39

What do you think?

Carter 1:12:40

I think that that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. well

Corey 1:12:44

well what's your data source like where are your data points here um maybe we need to revise our thinking on this a bit and we need to look a little bit deeper here because if the liberals vote

Corey 1:12:54

vote is disappearing and there's a party leader for a green party there that might be a pretty natural place to park votes i don't know maybe she should stay there yeah

Carter 1:13:03

yeah if we ignore the fact that there's an ndp if we just ignore that uh then i think we're okay good

SPEAKER_02 1:13:11

so she now feels She feels like me on one of these episodes where she just sits back and gets conflicting advice and doesn't know what to do as she gets off the elevator. Thank you for that, gents. Let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, I said we'd do it for you, so we're starting with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:28

Stephen Carter, overrated or underrated, the liberals hitting below the 30% mark in an ECOS Daily tracking poll. Overrated, underrated?

Carter 1:13:38

overrated i think that um anytime you are playing with daily tracking you can get caught up on each an individual day uh you have to look at trend lines the trend line isn't good uh but uh this particular day uh is just one day in a trend line cory

SPEAKER_02 1:13:56

cory overrated underrated liberals hitting the sub 30 mark for the first time in a couple years what do you think it's a daily tracker overrated it underrated no

Corey 1:14:04

no i agree with steven i think he's entirely right the 19 times out of 20 people

Corey 1:14:09

people it's right there and the sort of the the math on it we've got a 36-day campaign we've got so many of these tracking polls you're going to have numbers and that's not to say this one is wrong but you can't you can't react so strongly to it you've got to take it in with all of the other data points but as steven said the other data points aren't awesome either there is a psychological effect to dropping into the 20s no question but it's not going to be something they can't manage unless we start seeing a lot of polls. Corey,

Corey 1:14:34

I'm going to stick with you for this next one.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

one. We've talked about culture wars on political campaigns before. We've talked about, frankly, progressive parties, perhaps the most aligned in this case, the liberals trying to engineer a culture war. Today, Ryerson University is saying that they're going to be renamed. Is that overrated or underrated for the liberals?

Corey 1:14:56

Well, that's an interesting question. It's not as though the Ryerson University name goes back to, I don't know, the 18th century or anything like that. I guess Ryerson

Corey 1:15:04

himself was from the 19th century. It's a name that was assigned to them because they wanted a name that sounded important and old in August. And it doesn't really have anything to do with their school, but they had a statue there and it's become a big flashpoint for them.

Corey 1:15:19

It has the opportunity to be a flashpoint for other people as well. And I think when we talk about culture wars and the place of history in in the present. I think there's an opportunity that people in Toronto will be having this conversation. I think there's the opportunity for people outside of Toronto to point to it and say, hey, is that something we're particularly excited about? One of the interesting things about the Ryerson decision is that the recommendation came and the emphasis that the board put was, we're

Corey 1:15:46

we're not actually passing judgment on Ryerson. We're talking about how Ryerson is perceived. And I guess when you think about a university, I can go two ways on that. One is like, yeah, I mean, he's perceived in a certain way, and so maybe the name's got to go. But the other is, okay,

Corey 1:16:02

okay, but shouldn't we be talking about the person at a university in the search of truth and all of the things that you normally think about with higher education?

Corey 1:16:09

There'll be conversations. It's a chance that it could be something people point to and say, say what's the world coming to, but that really depends on whether the political actors pick it up and run with it. And if I were Aaron O'Toole, I wouldn't pick it up and run with it because of all of the things that we've said about not wanting to take on like this kind of crazy

Corey 1:16:25

crazy shit that turns people off partway through the campaign carter

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

carter i'm going to change my question midstream because cory made it better if you were aaron o'toole would you pick up and run with the ryerson uh university rename as part of the culture war on the right i was thinking about it initially from the left as a victory but i like cory's phrasing would you pick it up if you're aaron o'toole and start you know hammering on this one as part of what's happened into society etc etc etc what

Carter 1:16:52

what did i just say i just said if you're aaron o'toole don't go back and try and win back your base you have your base this is what i just said it's sometimes like you don't listen to me at all this is what i just sometimes like i'm in a closet and it feels like it's plus 40 and i'm just trying to power through a

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

a bunch of questions sometimes that's what it is moving on to my next one Oh, but that was funny. Okay, okay.

Carter 1:17:17

overrated, underrated. Okay, I'm

SPEAKER_02 1:17:19

they happen, they happen quickly, which is what the audience likes. No, it's good. I'm following now. Stephen Carter,

SPEAKER_02 1:17:24

you for showing up. I really do appreciate it. Overrated, underrated. Aaron O'Toole's studio. He does the morning announcement from a studio. He does the live call-in show in the evening. If he has special announcements like today on Afghanistan, he will do that from his little virtual studio or space that he set up. in Ottawa, overrated or underrated as a campaign tactic from what you're seeing thus far?

Carter 1:17:49

I think it's underrated. I quite like it, actually. I think that it presents a professionalism and it kind of, you know, it certainly doesn't model the, you know, the press gallery in Ottawa or anything like that. But it does. I prefer it much, very much to the human backdrop. You know, the 28 disinterested people that stand behind the leader these days. So I think it's pretty good. I actually quite like it.

Carter 1:18:19

It's a nice new tone.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:20

Corey, you know, on day

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

day one, Corey, we talked about how will O'Toole shift from bunker-style Biden studio space to actually campaigning. He seems to have made the transition okay, but I want to hear your thoughts. Is a tactic overrated or underrated on the O'Toole studio setup?

Corey 1:18:39

I think it's underrated. And we talked about this on day one as well. If he could find a way to be out and about, but also manage to connect with a lot of people from this central location, that could really work to his advantage. And I think we're seeing that. We're seeing that perhaps this tactic is going to be applied outside of COVID settings. Now, obviously, we're in a COVID setting, but he's using it in a sense that you could use it in basically any campaign.

Corey 1:19:02

End of the day, you go, you do your, you know, Aaron O'Toole unplugged. Look at me, I've got my top button undone. I'm so relaxed, that kind of thing. I would be surprised if we don't see other campaigns pick this up in the next bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:14

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for the next one. Scale of one to 10, scale of one to 10, the scale has to start at one, there's no zero in the strategist number board. Scale of one to 10, the damage the manipulated media tag has done to Krista Freeland. Maybe I would say not in this election, but the trajectory, the candidate, it the future leader that sort of stuff will this haunt her um give me that that one to ten mark for for what you think one being not at all ten being this could be something that that she's associated with quite readily and quite often i

Corey 1:19:48

i actually believe it'll be forgotten pretty quickly in the context of the campaign but i suspect it will be brought up if she has i suspect

Corey 1:19:55

suspect she does leadership ambitions right it'll be pointed to uh by critics at that point i'm gonna say a four i I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world, but it's one of those things that's going to be in

Corey 1:20:06

in the Wikipedia article, so to speak. It's just going to be there. She's going to have to deal with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:12

Carter, Corey's giving it a four. What are you giving it?

Carter 1:20:15

I think it's probably a bit bigger than that. I'm going to say eight because she

Carter 1:20:23

she allowed her personal brand to be impacted fairly significantly. significantly and i don't think it's going to be just forgotten in the rest of this campaign i think it's going to track with her i

Corey 1:20:34

i think that the reality is we're going to see twitter doing this more and more and she will not be the only politician who has this tag which will minimize its shock value right now it's basically

Corey 1:20:43

her and donald trump right right that's not great so bad yeah not great company but um you're going to see more politicians tagged with this as it goes on carter

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

carter i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you the final question first who had the best week uh if If you were one of these leaders, who would you want to be? Who had the best week from when we recorded last on Sunday to when we record now, Thursday night in a closet?

Carter 1:21:08

Annamie Paul. She's now the cover of her own Green Party webpage, and I think that that's pretty great.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:19

I was going to beat the shit out of you for that, but that was pretty funny. Corey, who would you want to be who had the best week?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:29

You said Jagmeet Singh on Sunday.

Corey 1:21:34

I mean, I think this is actually part of what's working for him so well is that everybody is talking about these two battleships beating the shit out of each other. The Tories seem to have the sturdier armor, but they're not actually moving anywhere. And meanwhile, Singh is just continuing to rise in the polls. It's fucking unreal. The guy is a legend. this is really good for them it'll be interesting to see where it goes oh

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

oh my god he's doing a he's doing a point every couple of days here i mean that stuff will track to your point cory we will spend time on it uh on sunday but for now we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 938 of the strategist my name is zane velgey with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time

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