Episode 990: Fifty issues, ten personalities

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 990. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what

Zain 0:11

Look at that. Look at that. Look at that entry. What is up, Corey? What's going

Carter 0:14

going on? What is up?

Carter 0:21

That's why you're cranky. You had to watch the whole Ontario debate. Yeah, it was so

Zain 0:24

so bad. Corey, of course, was our resident debate watcher. and he was i watched it

Corey 0:29

it too carter watched it well

Zain 0:32

excellent carter was our resident debate watcher as well backing up cory uh yeah i'm so glad thank you for your service thank you for your service to both of you let

Corey 0:41

let me tell you something and

Corey 0:42

and i i think this is going to be a great episode because we can come in with the heat of three people who have not watched nor cared about the ontario election but

Zain 0:51

but then tuned in

Corey 0:51

in at the last minute i

Corey 0:53

think we have an awful lot to offer to the conversation out there it's gonna be

Zain 0:57

there's there's uh ignorance is bliss and the fact that we give our hot takes on something we haven't followed by the way uh spoiler alert carter you've probably realized this nothing going on in the ontario election uh a total miss a total miss all across the board yeah

Carter 1:11

yeah i think that the polls have moved like two points or something i don't understand but

Zain 1:15

but do you know where there is something going on steven carter it's

Zain 1:18

it's a maharaja banquet hall in edmonton carter that is that is where things go on all All the time. Now, did you want to give this another go to the audience about what's happening on May? What is it, Carter? Is it the 18th? No, it's the 19th. Don't

Carter 1:33

Don't fall into that trap.

Carter 1:34

Don't fall into that trap. I mean, I'm told that people have looked at the ballots already. Now, they have not counted the ballots, but they have verified the ballots. I got to tell you, every day we get closer to this actual event, I am getting more and more excited. more and more excited for the 19th of may the live show from the strategist podcast at the maharaja hall in

Carter 1:58

for only 30 dollars it's

Carter 2:01

it's unbelievable you can get your tickets at www.thestrategists.ca uh you can get a pillow at the same time we are really pushing the merch sales because we're selling out keep my track harder buy your tickets focus there's very few tickets left focus on where the profit marches oh yeah we don't make any money on the merch so yeah do buy the tickets to the live show the

Carter 2:26

the live show is very important to us but we also have the opportunity to do a contest guys so someone has already purchased tickets and

Carter 2:35

and they gave them back to us because they can't come now i

Carter 2:39

i don't know why they don't just say fuck it and just, you know, give the $62 to us, but it doesn't matter. They they've decided not to come to the event and they've given us the tickets and they've asked us to do some sort of a giveaway. So I

Carter 2:52

I think what we need to do is we need to give away two tickets, not more than two tickets, because we're not comping the shit out of this show. This shows a paid pay to play type of thing, but we have someone who paid for two tickets who can't use them. So we will give away two tickets to the the person whose

Carter 3:08

whose tweet we deem to be the best tweet about the ontario debate tonight uh and our takes about the ontario debate so you have to tell us which one of cory or i had the best take or zane zane could have the best take it could happen but most likely cory or i and uh and then you have to craft something witty and we expect a lot out of your our audience and we we expect really for you to craft this it's a 30 value right 60 for two tickets so we expect you to spend at least three hours working on it because your labor is only worth about 20 bucks an hour to us it's

Carter 3:42

it's above minimum wage so

Carter 3:45

so you want me to keep going yes

Corey 3:46

yes speaking of three hours having passed time

Carter 3:49

time jesus christ you

Carter 3:51

said i had 20

Zain 3:52

20 minutes at the beginning i

Zain 3:53

i said 20 seconds it's called a 20 second elevator pitch on the show i

Carter 4:00

was on me do

Zain 4:01

do you you want to clean up carter's mess

Carter 4:03

that was that was my bad my bad sorry guys uh

Corey 4:06

uh i i sure we'll do his contest just tweet you know maybe just any tweet apparently carter no hashtag not at the strategist pod strategist pod nothing like that just tweet

Carter 4:16

tweet it at the strategist pod i mean and

Carter 4:20

and it has to mention you or maybe maybe tell

Zain 4:22

tell them that maybe tell them that carter

SPEAKER_01 4:24

carter i said it right

Carter 4:25

i said that right up front don't

Carter 4:27

to do that qi

Carter 4:29

quality Play the tape back.

Carter 4:33

You've got the wizardry thing on the board now?

Carter 4:37

It's very good. What have you got planned

Carter 4:39

planned on the board today? You got anything on the board?

Corey 4:43

Yeah, I got one thing. Do you want to hear it right now?

Corey 4:45

Yeah, let's play it right now.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

know how you can tell a strategist from a non-strategist, Alison?

SPEAKER_04 4:52

If they're on TV talking about the campaign, they're not a strategist.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

What if they're on a podcast?

SPEAKER_04 5:00

then there has been let

Carter 5:03

me tell you something david is that david hurley i can't tell because he's so fucking annoying is that is that who he is because let me tell you something david fucking hurley naming the podcast after yourself how fucking arrogant how arrogant to name a podcast

SPEAKER_01 5:18

podcast after yourself we said we were the strategists because that's what we did that's what we do in fact

Carter 5:26

fact that's what we're doing right now who won an award i won an award fuck you david hurley fuck the curse of politics you know you spun off your own show because your first show sucked fuck

Zain 5:40

oh hey scott big fan um

Zain 5:44

scott's pretty good scott

Zain 5:47

jesus christ carter What

Zain 5:49

What did I do?

Corey 5:51

Came in a little hot there, bud. Corey,

Zain 5:53

Corey, do you want to clean up Corey's mess again?

Corey 5:57

Oh, man. Looking forward to kind of the crossover episode that will someday be organized. That will someday now

Zain 6:02

now not never happen.

Carter 6:04

June 2nd in Toronto.

Carter 6:06

I'm booking a live

Carter 6:07

show. Very good. Let's

Zain 6:08

Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, Defeating Demery. Guys, there's so much to talk about in relation to the Ontario election. And I know you guys have watched tonight's debate, but maybe let's talk about a few themes related to the current cadence of the election that I find fascinating. And that did have a

Zain 6:29

a through line in today's debate. And one of which that I'd love to discuss with you guys is this campaign, this three-way race, one might call it, between Doug Ford, Andrew Horvath, Stephen Del Duca, PC leader, NDP leader, liberal leader, in that order. It's been interesting to watch because Doug Ford and the way he behaves. And Carter, I want to start here, which is everyone knew what they were getting with Doug Ford in this election. His, you know, Ford Nation, you know, almost hokey, cliched, cheesy, kind of like, you know, dumbfounded at every turn sort of person. And

Zain 7:12

And it's seemingly interesting that the policy heavy liberals and the let's move this forward in a progressive direction NDP are not able to penetrate this. Oh, shucks. Oh, hum. Sort of like persona and personality. And we saw it in the debate tonight. But before we go into the specifics of tonight, comments on what you're seeing and how in the most Doug Ford ways that we've seen, he is so impenetrable, Carter. Talk to me about that. And let's talk about the strategy of how you combat that a bit, because I think it's really interesting. thing well

Carter 7:44

well ideas will not defeat uh

Carter 7:46

uh theater right and story right so doug ford is walking theater right he's got all of aristotle's elements of theater right in him i mean the man is walking spectacle he knows how to speak he's got a particular cadence to the way he speaks his language is like a song the way he speaks about now it's not a good song but not all theater needs to be good theater right some theater is going to be fantastic other theater is going to be forever ever plaid and that's okay sometimes you want to just go and see the theater that's you know easy and accessible doug ford is an easy accessible politician with a story that is simple and he repeats his story over and over and over and over again ad nauseum because he knows that the short simple story that he's telling people like to hear i mean if you if you've got kids you've read to your kids and when you read to those kids they want to hear the same story story every single night. Well, Doug Ford is our premier daddy and he's reading us the same bedtime story. No, you don't like premier daddy.

Carter 8:50

I thought you'd like, I thought you'd like premier daddy, but he reads the same story. And Steven, you know, Del Duca is coming in there and he's got ideas and he's got, and he's got no personality though. He doesn't have character. He doesn't have, you know, there's no passion behind the man. It's not like Doug Ford, by the way, has this great level of passion. But,

Carter 9:11

But, you know, compared to him, like Del Duca is like dead, dead, dead.

Carter 9:17

It's bad. So would you rather listen to the guy who's telling you about all these great ideas or would you rather have them woven together in a story? And we've talked about this in relation to Alberta politics quite frequently. If you have a story, people will understand your message better. They will understand your ideas better. And Ford has a story, the other two don't. And Horvath, oh, my God. I mean, she doesn't have any of the elements of story, you know, of story or storytelling. We'll

Zain 9:45

We'll get to the debate in a second. What we saw on that stage, Corey, you know, what's interesting about this race is that the polling has been pretty consistent. If anything, Ford's lead has grown by a point or two. And the progressive primary that many have been calling between the liberals and the NDP hasn't really had a clear winner. It's not like the vote coalescing is happening, at least as related to the polls. But I want to of go back to the same fundamental question I asked Carter, which is how do you defeat a guy that kind of just gets away with it, that just everything rolls off his back and he's able to do it in this, I wouldn't even say charismatic, but this ho-hum-oh-shuck sort of way. What do you kind of see happening here? And I want to get into the strategy of how we contend against something like that.

Corey 10:25

Yeah. I mean, how do you defeat a guy like this? It's starting to feel a lot like the Liberals and the NDP just won't.

Corey 10:32

There has been perhaps a bit of a tightening of of the polls that some pollsters have seen but you're right it's fundamentally the same election there's not a lot of change we're now into this thing for a bit and people people

Corey 10:43

people aren't really tuning in it's actually fairly difficult if you're not in ontario to find coverage of the ontario election good point yeah and um that's not always the case right as much as we make fun of y'all for being the center of the universe the reality is often it's much more of a show it's something that the rest of us are tracking more than it is

Carter 11:01

is right now yeah

Corey 11:01

yeah it really just does not feel like there's any kind of burning platform. There's no desire or case for change out there. The

Corey 11:10

pandemic and the response to it wasn't

Corey 11:12

wasn't perfect, but it wasn't perfect anywhere. People have managed to turn the page on that by and large mentally, even if the disease is still here with us. And it just doesn't feel like any of these hits are sticking. It's one of those things that it feels like people

Corey 11:26

people are searching for the issue that's going to bring Doug Ford down. and i they can all read polls they all know affordability and housing are super high

Corey 11:34

high on that list we'll

Corey 11:35

we'll talk about it during the debate but but

Corey 11:37

but boy did they find ways to shoehorn in the idea of a home ownership into like all sorts of wild issues yeah

Corey 11:44

but it's just it's not it doesn't it feels like it's slipping in the mud it doesn't feel like it's really getting there and part of it is uh there's something about doug ford's personality that well not impressive is not Not deeply offensive. Now, I know a lot of people will disagree, but

Corey 11:59

but I think I think really you've

Corey 12:02

you've got your partisan blinders on. And let me give you analysis from a few provinces over here. He seems fine. He seems like the boss of the company you worked at. That was pretty good, but never going to be a Fortune 500. You didn't really worry the next paycheck was going to clear or not, but you didn't fucking think you deserve the Nobel Prize. This is the vibe that Doug Ford carries out here. And I think some of the attacks that they throw at him is

Corey 12:27

is their passion on these issues and their wonkishness. It hits him and it falls because he's just not that guy to have that conversation. And to use that boss metaphor again, it's like if somebody came into his business and said, you could be changing all of these things. You could move your advertising online. You know, you could buy another truck through this lease and it's cheaper and all of that. And he's just like, yeah, I know. But like, it's working. And I don't really want to mess with

Corey 12:53

And this is the energy he brings to all of this.

Corey 12:57

And boy, I got a lot to say about that debate. But I feel like if I say any more and give any more examples. No,

Zain 13:01

No, I'll let you get in there, Corey. But I really value what you said here with not impressive, not offensive. And I think, Carter, to round this out before we jump into the debate itself, there's something to be said about our models of leadership that this does question against, right? Because you see the other two parties trying to compete with, well, you'd see that they would argue in a partisan way, that they would say that they're competing with impressive. I don't think anyone dispassionately is saying that Del Duc or Horvath aren't necessarily impressive. But they're certainly trying to pick up with intellectual, perhaps even earnest, perhaps even more aligned with people's interests and views. And none of those things, the cocktail of things I just mentioned, Carter, are able to beat this person who's not offensive, nor very impressive in that sense. And I find that a fascinating case study in what we call, quote unquote, leadership in that sense.

Carter 13:54

Well, he reminds me so much of Klein.

Carter 13:56

And one of the reasons, I mean, talk about not impressive. I mean, Ralph Klein is a not impressive, was not impressive person. He was. I mean, he was a mess of

Carter 14:06

of a human being. He really was. He was a mess of a human being. And we can can get into that later at some other point, but he, he was a mess and, but he has a couple of really great things going for him. And the great things that he had going for him is that when he made a mistake, he said he was sorry.

Carter 14:22

And he had his finger on the pulse of who he called Martha and Henry and Martha and Henry were, you know, just the average person getting through life. And I think that Doug Ford really has his fingers on the pulse of those people. I don't think that, you know, Stephen Del Duca or Andrea Horvath have this sense of, you know, being connected to people, right? I mean, and again, I don't want to get too far into the debate, but through every piece of it, you just see them as different than you. And there's a ton of science into us wanting to vote for someone to represent us who is like us. And that like us piece can be a million different different ways. It used to mean, you know, like us, you know, white male, but it also means like us, something we can see in ourselves, because he's getting elected by more than just white males. I'll tell you that.

Zain 15:15

Boyd, you wanted to jump in here before we move on to the debate?

Corey 15:17

Yeah. One of the other problems I think that the NDP and the Liberals have, despite the fact that they're constantly keeping each other in check and making it difficult for

Corey 15:25

for each other to break away. And certainly my sense is the Ontario PCs are doing whatever they can to keep those scales We talked a little bit about that is

Corey 15:35

I find this is generally a disease of oppositions, but they they have no ability to calibrate. Right. Everything is an outrage that Doug Ford

Corey 15:42

Everything is an outrage. And then nothing's an outrage as a result. There's this old political

Corey 15:47

political cliche voters go back to all of the time. I fucking hate it. You know, it's just like the I want you to say something nice about your opponent right here on the stage. and then everyone in the crowd sort of claps because yeah we want we want to see that you're doing something nice i

Corey 16:02

hate it i just hate it i mean what what a waste of debate time like let's talk about contrast not not

Corey 16:07

not things about like well they seem to really love their kids because they also all play this game where they try to say something that's

Corey 16:14

that's kind of like a backhanded compliment like

Corey 16:17

i love how the time he got that dui he didn't skip bail you know like those kinds lots of compliments.

Corey 16:25

there is something when everything that the man does is outrageous, it makes it hard to actually calibrate what's the real outrage. When everything he says is accused of being a lie, it makes it hard to identify the real lies. And I really felt that during the debate, there's not a single thing that

Corey 16:44

Doug Ford said that they did not swing at. And I think that's

Corey 16:47

lesson that other political parties watching should be very careful about, Because if you swing at everything, if everything's an outrage, if everything's a lie, the

Corey 16:54

the public will start to tune you out a bit. They'll just say, well, they say that about everything. So, I mean, maybe this highway is fine. Maybe he's actually created all of these jobs. I don't know. They're saying he lies about everything. And I know that one wasn't that much of a lie. So you

Zain 17:09

you got to watch out. Now, Carter, let's jump into the debate here. Did you think it was a microcosm of how the NDP and the liberals have been running their race, to Corey's point here, that they're taking big swings at anything, which allows Ford to kind of moderate and just keep the bar low? And as long as it isn't as crazy as they say, he just hops right over it. And in addition to that, it doesn't center a focal point of your attack, either on an issue or an item, to Corey's point. Did you see the microcosm of the campaign play out today on the debate stage? Let's get into that analysis. I

Carter 17:42

I saw two opposition leaders contesting the role of being the opposition leader. Yeah.

Carter 17:47

Neither one of them were contesting the role of becoming the premier.

Zain 17:50

And why? And is that because they attacked each other during that conversation? Oh,

Zain 17:54

Or was it more than that, Carter? You

Carter 17:56

You can attack anybody you want to attack. But, you know, Del Duca jumped on every fucking grenade. Like, he was out of control. I mean, You could hear him mumbling away and talking about all the lies during other people's debate periods. What are you talking about, man? Give them a moment. Let Doug Ford, if he's such a bad guy, let him at least dig his own grave. But he's jumping on everything. He's not letting Andrea Horvath speak, which is just the worst thing you can do. You have to afford an opportunity for everybody to be able to speak. And, you

Carter 18:35

you know, he looks like such an asshole. And

Carter 18:37

And how do you do that? He was he was and everything was contested. Every single utterance. Right. Well, I breathe oxygen. No, you don't. There's like 75 percent nitrogen in there, you dickhead. You know, like, fuck, just calm down. Like, not everything needs to be contested. Figure out your important points and look like a fucking premier. Neither one of them did. Neither one of them looked like they were even interested in the premier's job.

Corey 19:04

give me your top line. There's so much to that. I mean, the sanctimony from everybody besides Ford, and even Ford to an extent, but mostly the others, was so over the top. And that can work, actually, if the government is just absolutely floundering, and that's the feeling of the public more generally, right? They just want to take a round out of the fellow. But

Corey 19:22

But if that's not the vibe, and that's not the energy out there in the province, then it actually has quite an off-putting effect, because it just

Corey 19:30

just starts to be like, let the guy talk, right? Right. Like, holy fuck. The crosstalk in that debate was just wild in the first half. It was I mean, the moderators looked like they were ready to start flipping tables and punching people. And I don't I don't blame them. It was one of those things where we started to to yearn for the return of the sad trombone. And I think I think

Corey 19:50

think it did none of them any favors. But the person that helped the most was Doug Ford, because he seemed so.

Corey 19:57

his veneer cracked a couple of times, but he seemed kind of like calm and affable and like, well, shucks. And, you know, that whole persona we were talking about just

Corey 20:06

seemed quite steady relative to histrionics across the board and different flavors of histrionics, by the way. They were each such

Corey 20:15

such interesting little models of angry opposition leaders. And I just don't know that any of them are going to work.

Zain 20:24

Carter, how would you have prepared? If Del Duca was your guy, the guy that many think is now marginally, but certainly according to some recent polls outpacing the NDP, it's going to be a gain for his party. This guy's probably the closest competitor to Ford in terms of securing the premiership. let's say you're working for the liberals, Carter, what would you have told Del Duca tonight as strategic advice heading into this debate? Would you have told him, pick your spots, only swing at those? He's already started to give some advice in regards to allowing Andrew Horvath to speak and the impression that that would give. But what additional advice would you have given him playing a bit of Monday evening quarterback, so to speak?

Carter 21:03

Number one, you're only wrestling with the premier. You're not wrestling with the greens. You're not wrestling with the NDs. just leave them alone um

Carter 21:10

um number two uh no repeats on your stories right like how many times did we hear about his daughters i

Carter 21:16

i mean it made it sound like the only reason he's running is to get his daughters a better fucking school system like like

Carter 21:21

like come up with a few other anecdotes that represent how other people are feeling how others put your focus on other people's families other people's families matter your daughters don't right

Carter 21:32

right i mean it's just not something that

Zain 21:34

that matter pick up on that carter i and this is such a micro point but in the political storytelling we talk about you know we see this in state of the union speeches we see this in debates we see this and you know just last week i was in the rural area of whatever and i ran into john i

Carter 21:47

i ran into phil i ran into phil came up to me phil

Carter 21:50

me told me a story well

Zain 21:52

well does that work better than my daughters like or my family both of them

Carter 21:58

both of them suck phil came up to me this is the first time i've ever heard of the fucking issue was when phil came up to me you've

Zain 22:03

you've done this this before. You've scripted a former premier. You've scripted a mayor with these sort of lines.

Carter 22:10

Never done those types of lines. Never did the someone came up to me line. Always said, you know, the reason I ran, the

Carter 22:16

the reason I ran

SPEAKER_01 22:18

is because I wanted to make a difference with the school system.

Carter 22:22

are three reasons why I chose to become the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, Zane. I'm really glad I got the opportunity to discuss it with you today. Number one, our education system. Number two, our economy. Number three, our healthcare system. You know know what the amazing thing is all three of them are linked if

Carter 22:35

if we take care of ourselves and our friends and our families through the health care system if we have a great education system then you know what we have an we have an economy that can lift the the entire country of canada whatever i don't know i made that up no no that's pretty good but this these are the things that you need to do you don't say well i was walking down the street and bob came over to me and bob mentioned that he's handicapped and holy shit we treat the

SPEAKER_01 23:01

the handicapped people like shit you wouldn't even fucking believe it so now that i know about this fucking issue i'm coming up here to the microphone and i've got the fucking microphone i'm gonna ask us i'm gonna say hey guys did you guys know about fucking bob did you know about bob because bob is fucked he's fucked hey he's like bob is fucking handicapped and you know what we don't do enough we don't do enough who is the character character

SPEAKER_01 23:29

don't know he happened this

SPEAKER_01 23:32

this thing's happened to me

Zain 23:34

oh my god i was like your first answer was so good that i thought it was scripted by a professional like like hurley and then this i don't know this this

SPEAKER_01 23:48

weird it was like experimental i mean don't just discover the fucking issue you because someone came up to you i'm

Zain 23:55

i like i like that guy good quick what advice would you have given del duca today so carter you had some good pieces of advice there right first

Carter 24:03

first good stuff there

Zain 24:04

there yeah yeah only the premier secondly not not a big swing on everything what was what was your other thing just the

Carter 24:09

the third one was only pick three issues those three issues are the ones that matter don't hit don't try and hit everyone and bring like cory mentioned her affordability came into a bunch of different answers yeah like i would have said it's about affordability it's It's about families, and it's about the economy. I don't know. Whatever the polling is, but make it about three things. Don't try and answer everything. And then you can build an answer about education around the economy, right?

Carter 24:37

right? As Doug Ford did, by the way, we're going to make sure that the education that these kids get is the education they need for the economic opportunities that we've created. Hogan,

Zain 24:47

Hogan, what would you say in addition to that? It could be anything from the scripted lines to the pugilism, when you fight, who you fight, with what you say anything else to add to what advice you would have given del duca if you could do it again after you saw it today yeah

Corey 24:58

yeah so carter has made some good points here i think one of them that's tied to it is this idea of focus right yeah

Corey 25:06

message discipline is not called message discipline because it's easy it requires you not to swing at certain things it requires you to turn all of your answers into the things that actually change people's mind and make them more likely to vote for you and this really did feel like the kitchen sink to opposition we've mentioned that that in a couple of different contexts now the other thing that i think del del duca really struggled with in my eyes is who

Corey 25:28

who the fuck are you and i don't mean that as like a human being but who's the character that i'm seeing right here who's the guy you're trying to be is it is it kind of the calm i just did this for my kids and i agree i think talking about yeah and i would just hate to be his

Corey 25:44

his kids there like i think kids deserve a certain amount of privacy uh

Zain 25:47

uh if they're if their parent is in politics to begin with but uh

Corey 25:51

uh is it that guy or is it the guy who can't stop interrupting everybody just to say that they're wrong or like who's your who's the character you're trying to be because it felt really ping-pongy and as a result certain things felt really staged or really over the top and there was one moment in particular in the debate uh that i think about where he threw this just really angry charge at ford and the funny thing is i can't remember the charge it's probably in my notes here somewhere but

Corey 26:16

but it was just like delivered with this he thought this was the line and this is the line that he wanted people to clip and the silence after it but

Corey 26:24

but it was delivered in such an over-the-top fashion that i was actually stuck sitting there being like wow

Corey 26:29

wow that felt like it came out of nowhere uh right rather than the actual subject and content of the line so i felt that there was this strange perpetual mismatch between what

Corey 26:38

what he was saying and the various characters he was taking on at different points i I think his base character and who he is, is a guy who's just kind of peevish about all of these things. But at certain times, he tried to be the dad. At certain times, he tried to be the outraged crusader. And it

Zain 26:55

This is interesting. I'm going to keep it with you, Corey. How important is it when you are such an unknown to choose a conventional template

Zain 27:03

to fit into one of those holes? I'm kind of hearing you say that this guy, here's a more charitable way to say what you said. This guy had too much texture. sure he had he was like playing one version of this and then he had like this different note that he could hit and then he could swing this like he was doing a lot of different things but like how important is it to like fit into one of the conventional okay i get it right away molds it's when people don't know you it's not about that it's about discipline still

Corey 27:28

so people are if they so there were a lot of people noting afterwards that on google trends the searches for him del duca went way up as

Zain 27:36

as a result they've

Corey 27:37

they've seen this as an evidence he won i

Corey 27:39

i don't know i mean another read is who the fuck is this guy right uh and it's not great if people don't know who your name is when you're going into an you're at this point in the election though

Corey 27:47

though i do take the point that it's

Corey 27:49

it's interesting that people are trying to react and respond to you but

Corey 27:52

what i'm saying is just as there's a way to be disciplined on message there's a way to be disciplined on persona and ultimately what he came off as was a

Corey 28:02

a guy with 100 issues and five personalities and what i needed to see was three

Corey 28:07

in one personality and i needed to be be brought back to that to understand who the liberals are and he had a couple of lines in the can that were okay like we're

Corey 28:14

we're not fighting the 2018 election here andrea right that's okay line because the ndp did keep bringing it back to his time when he was uh you know with the liberals in the government but

Corey 28:25

but um then he himself kept defending these records and going back and trying

Zain 28:30

trying to talk about

Zain 28:31

these cherry picking so

Corey 28:32

i don't know like

Zain 28:33

like he's just gonna pick

Zain 28:35

Carter, we asked 100 issues of five different personalities. Is that how you saw it?

Carter 28:41

He's exactly right. I mean, he was all over the place. No one, you know,

Carter 28:45

know, he didn't have a through line. I didn't understand who he was better at the end of the debate than I did at the beginning of the debate. He

Carter 28:56

bland white toast, and that's not what you want your premier to look like. so you know he has to be a character and give us a reason to root for him um i can't how many times have i talked about story and character and you know making sure that we can see others people other people in the story he always brought it back to him and his family and he never really brought he never really brought us into his drama and

Carter 29:24

and with that i just felt like i

Carter 29:26

i wanted to like him by the way like i really wanted to like him because i really don't want to like doug ford and every time these guys let us down um

Carter 29:34

um and and leave doug ford out there as you

Carter 29:38

you know kind of untouched as they do like ford got stronger today i don't know if he won the election today i don't know if he'll even be called the the winner of the debate by whoever judges these things but ford got stronger today because he didn't get hurt yeah

Zain 29:54

cory jump on this and then and and dovetail with with some comments on Horvath and what you saw with her performance tonight.

Corey 30:00

Yeah. In some ways, this is true of any election, but it's a casting call. It's who do you want to play the role of premier for the next four years, which is why story matters. It's why character matters. And it's okay to be an unconventional choice, right? Where somebody says, oh, that would be a very interesting choice for the character of Batman or

Corey 30:18

or whatever it is, right? You can break the mold and that can be very effective. You could

Corey 30:23

win awards that way to continue the metaphor, right? But

Corey 30:26

the character that he was playing was ultimately a bit unappealing. Spencer from our kind of Patreon Discord was

Corey 30:35

was saying that he looks like Bill Hader doing an impression of Lex Luthor. And that's actually

Corey 30:43

funny. yeah i just just land okay oh

Zain 30:47

that's very funny but

Corey 30:48

but uh then there's the other characters that were there and who are they trying to be and i worry that after four elections andrea horvath is too comfortable with the opposition leader role right doesn't seem to be running for premier most of her attacks really seem to be against uh del duca again right talking about the the liberal record there it was such a strange debate because if you're watching it with And,

Corey 31:12

you know, my knowledge of Ontario politics is below an Ontario politicos, but it's probably in

Corey 31:17

line with the average Ontarian. It was just so funny to watch when somebody is observing.

Corey 31:24

You've got this moment where all of a sudden Horvath is attacking Del Duca for the Liberal record. And then all of a sudden Ford is attacking Horvath for supporting the Del Duca Liberals. And, you know, it was just like, who gives a shit too? It was all last election. But really

Corey 31:39

really great evidence that practice does not always make perfect, because I think the more time she's in that role, the less she knows how to escape the role of opposition.

Zain 31:48

Carter, what are your thoughts on Horvath and what you saw today? Yeah, go ahead. You've got something to say. I

Carter 31:54

I can't believe she's been the leader that long.

Carter 31:56

I mean, she's not good. She's not a good politician. She might be a great person, but

Carter 32:01

but she's not a good politician. she certainly did not um

Carter 32:05

um do well in the debate um you know she would she had lines that i know she wanted to get in because she used them two three four times trying to get them all into the into the debate she

Carter 32:16

she leaves me with less of an impression and frankly i can't remember the leader's name for

Carter 32:21

for the green party gory

Corey 32:23

oh yeah um um mike schreiner schreiner

Carter 32:27

yeah i mean And Schreiner sounded more like a new Democratic leader than she did.

Carter 32:31

He really articulated why he was doing things. I mean, they had the people line. He was all in there. This was the most left Green Party I think I've ever seen. And it really left no space for Andrea Horvath to shine. Not that she seemed the least bit interested in shining. She really was auditioning for the role that she currently has. And that's leader of the opposition.

Zain 32:59

Carter, what would you have advised her today specifically around the

Zain 33:04

pugilism and the fight? You know, and I think there's something to be said here with maybe this debate, certainly,

Zain 33:10

but with debates overall, where if you are one of the opposition parties or you currently aren't the incumbent, you have the dynamics of you're down in the polls. You probably know from a campaign perspective, you need a big moment. So you can't just do tidy, you know, Fringe Festival monologues to the screen and just, you know, wait for your next turn. You need to get in it.

Zain 33:30

How do you kind of break through? What advice would you have given to Horvat today on breaking through? Would it have been to, you know, would it have been to get into the mix more? Would it have been to just wait your shot? We're giving you one or two really good lines and you get those in and that's all that matters. That's the entire judgment of the debate. Nate, what would you have told her in terms of, you know, listen, you're third place. You may even lose opposition leader. What advice would you have given her today as she were to take that stage, Carter?

Carter 34:00

I think I probably would have asked her to take one issue and really own it. Let's make housing affordability or affordability in general, and

Carter 34:10

and then link that issue to education,

Carter 34:12

education, health care, and other things. I would have really guided her away from, you'll be able to use your Ontario health card, not your credit cards type of shit. No one wins in a debate by having those types of canned lines. They win the debate by being someone that people can relate to. And that was her great weakness is that she did not, you know, she was trying to, you

Carter 34:37

you know, score a knockout punch in, in, in something where you don't actually hit the other guy. so stop just try and be yourself try and be stronger give your voters a reason to vote for you give the people who voted for you last time a reason to come back um because i'm not i'm

Carter 34:57

what what is it she's trying to be or who she's trying to what she's trying to impress us with because nothing impressed me today with her

Zain 35:04

great i want to move it on to ford for a second it. And in the lead up to this debate, one of the loudest conversations in this election was not about affordability,

Zain 35:14

affordability, was not about these highways, although that certainly has featured. It was about binders, Corey. It was about binders. It was the fact that Doug Ford would purposely break the rule, bring his binder to a debate. And the other leaders were showboating prior to saying, saying, listen, I'll show up today. I'll show up without a binder. And Doug Ford literally showed up with his binder, with his notes. If you haven't been following, leaders were trying to dunk on each other for who would or would not bring binders full of notes and key messages. And the other leaders were trying to ultimately indicate, look at this guy. He doesn't know anything. He needs a binder on stage to remember his own policies, to defend his own record, to paint his own vision for the province. What

Zain 35:58

What did you think of that, Corey, both from an attack and what that could mean from the conversation perspective, and then also what we saw with Doug Ford today, indeed bringing his binder, and then we'll get into the substance of the Ford dynamic today after that.

Corey 36:12

Yeah, so what's the charge, really, when you get down to it? He brought a binder. Are they saying that he's too stupid? Are they saying that he is controlled by his team? Feels to me that they're saying he's too stupid to capture these

Zain 36:24

these things. That's the subtext.

Corey 36:26

subtext. I think a lot of people would read into it.

Corey 36:28

Do they really think that's a particularly compelling argument? How many people do you think watching in the province of Ontario have gone to major meetings themselves with their boss, maybe with a board or whatnot, and brought notes? Who gives a shit? It's not a pop quiz. It's not who can cram the most and who can throw at the most statistics. This is 2022 for fuck's sake. We can look up everything in the goddamn world in 30 seconds on our phone. Why do I need to keep that trivia in my brain if I'm the premier of Alberta?

Corey 36:55

When you think about the charges that they had related to the binder, I

Corey 36:59

I think this speaks to a fundamental challenge. They just dislike him. So they're willing to knock him down and they try to take him down a peg. But

Corey 37:06

But are they actually thinking about the accusation they're making? And are they actually thinking about how that accusation may land with swing voters?

Corey 37:13

The binder thing would have been fine if it were a candidate that

Corey 37:17

that was broadly suggested that wasn't actually in command. Stephen Carter was actually running the show. Stephen Carter was putting every thought into his brain, right?

Corey 37:28

Then, yeah, maybe the binder and look, you can see the strings on Doug Ford. You can see the hand up Doug Ford's back. But that's not actually in

Corey 37:38

in itself even enough. You've got to explain why that's not good for the good people of Ontario. You've got to make a charge that actually changes the way I think about that government or not. and and i think that's that was what was so lacking about that and it is one of those petty distractions that comes when they really dislike somebody when they start to believe their own press

Zain 37:57

press when they hate

Corey 37:57

hate him too much to actually get focus and perspective on these things because yeah it's easy to to be shitty about that kind of stuff and yeah maybe even he shouldn't be breaking those rules but what's your charge why is your charge and is it actually going to change a single vote vote in the province of ontario carter

Zain 38:16

carter yeah you're shaking your head you want to jump in on this binder talk uh and and and talk about you know doug ford bringing a binder and more specifically to cory's point like what the opposition were going for in terms of trying to flex that they wouldn't uh and and in in advance of this debate well

Carter 38:32

well i was just going to say i i hope there's politicians in alberta listening to this because there's a number of things that we've been talking about that are lacking in our alberta politics as well but this is another classic case of of politicians trying to win the day by taking a simple attack on someone and missing the broader picture oh i'm gonna make it sound like he's dumb well

Carter 38:51

well okay if he's dumb but he performs well like

Carter 38:55

like what is it what is it you're trying to suggest i mean this is a dumb guy who did a good job and beat me because that's what that's

Carter 39:08

like fuck guys this is he can't be the premier because he brought a binder a

Zain 39:16

reading beats a smart person memorizing is that is that i don't

Carter 39:19

don't understand what they're trying to get across i mean oh

Carter 39:22

oh if he's going to bring a binder i'm going to bring a binder too because it makes it easier and i can get more of my statistics across or whatever but this playing of a game this momentary i won look at i won because i attacked him on something you didn't win you lost track of what's important you're trying to become the premier you're not trying to become the gotcha guy

Carter 39:41

gotcha guy doesn't become you're not trying

Corey 39:43

you're not trying to win jeopardy you're not trying to keep it all in your head can i tell you something about being the premier of any province

Corey 39:49

get a lot of fucking binders you get binders on binders on binders that are full of all of the facts that you need when you're in a cabinet meeting and you've got to determine whether this is the proper course of action or not you've got briefings on those binders ahead of time the irony here is the actual role is a pretty binder heavy role which i know is not the point And I'm not sure that's how the public would perceive it. And I don't think they would dismiss the attacks because of my views on this matter. But

Corey 40:13

But it's just, it's silly. It's, you know, find

Corey 40:16

find a charge around that and

Corey 40:19

and see if it sticks. But I, you know, focus group. But I think what you'll find is most Ontarians don't care if he's got a binder.

Corey 40:25

And having a binder is not like indicative of a great lawlessness, right? It's just, it's not. not your

Carter 40:33

your best case scenario is you're going to appeal to people who are already voting for you right

Carter 40:38

right and that's not what these games are about the election is not a time to just appeal to people who already like you or already dislike the other guy it's about finding the swing voters the people who aren't sure where to go and grab them and that didn't win a single swing voter no one thought oh that's my issue you know what i was really pissed off about how many binders

Carter 41:01

binders they with women very

Zain 41:04

nice that's a new reference no no 2012 reference let's uh let's get a decade old reference that's nicely done um hey cory um before we get into specifics of ford talk to me about the strategy of preparing a leader and and as i ask it i suspect you may not have been in this situation uh who you know is ahead and is going to be ganged up on um

Zain 41:26

um who who you know is a little dark. I should have asked Carter this. God damn it. But you know, for example, if you're team forward, that most of the shots, despite the progressive infighting between the liberals and the NDP, which he may have measured as either momentary and he would have hoped would have taken longer than shorter, but you know you're going to get ganged up, but everything's going to come back to you. How do you prepare for

Zain 41:50

for a gang up style debate where everything's about you? Is there anything special in your preparation, your storytelling, your pivoting that you think they need to think about you

Corey 41:58

you starve it of oxygen you don't afford the dramatic moments you don't give them the two people yelling at each other you allow it at most to be one person who's yelling on the other person who just looks calm and like oh you

Corey 42:08

know and i think that doug ford did a pretty good job of that today again

Corey 42:12

again there were a couple of moments where his cool kind of snapped around health care but just in the most marginal sense uh generally speaking he

Corey 42:20

he he uh he did what you would recommend a leader do in that point which is not create a

Corey 42:25

a moment that could then live on besides the debate in

Corey 42:28

fact if there's conversation about the debate i think it'll be about kind of crosstalk and scrambling angry attacks but i it

Corey 42:36

it's going to be meta analysis it's not going to be about the nature and substance of the attacks because they were too varied and they were too over the map and the

Corey 42:43

the targets were too unclear and stephen

Corey 42:45

stephen made a point earlier about uh del duca not

Corey 42:50

or i guess it was horvath not being clear who she was attacking del duca also i think you could could argue the same you

Corey 42:56

need to stay on target for these things because um it's easy to get lost on the way there and and

Corey 43:02

and you know doug ford i

Corey 43:05

don't want to be misunderstood it's not as though i thought he was a great genius on stage and if you listen to the substance of his words they

Corey 43:12

they were i mean he contradicted himself about jobs literally in the same answer that he gave

Corey 43:17

he talked about 300 000 and 500 000 in different directions at the same time it didn't make any any bloody sense at all but

Corey 43:23

but he said it calm and he said it not looking too perturbed by everything that was going on around him and if you watch that debate on mute you you would be pretty sure he won and if you watched it with the volume on and

Corey 43:35

and you just didn't speak a lick of english you would be 100 sure that he won just the tone and the way he carried himself and all of

Corey 43:42

which is not to say that he had the best ideas out there but he probably had the best presentation of his ideas.

Zain 43:49

Carter, is that frustrating to you from someone who, you know, and I know we talk largely strategy here and not much policy, but as someone who cares for policy, who's passionate about certain issues, does that frustrate you that at the end of the day, presentation is still king? Or are you just like accepting it and you're like, this is what it is, you know, that Ford can win while contradicting himself in a statement with the less intellectualized or perhaps well thought out answer over people who obsessed over this education system, for example, let's choose education. And he could still, he could still come out ahead. Like, does that frustrate you? Or do you, are you just one of those folks? It's like, learn the game folks. That's what it is.

Carter 44:26

Listen, if the voters wanted to make it harder on us, they should make it harder on us. The voters should ask for a higher level. The voters should be trying to reach, you know, Nenshi style debating every time where he comes up and he knows everything and he's able able to put it into really good soundbites and he's able to pound it you know that's that's the level frankly that that we should all be demanding but most voters didn't watch the debate tonight most voters will go you know like uh i was reflecting on we were looking at some of the stats when we put together uh the gone deck uh you know the the award-winning presentation that i won in nashville a couple weeks ago did i mention that i won an award international award international award but the statistics were unbelievable because at the end the the website Website visits on the last day was like 90,000 visits, right? 90,000 people visited the website on the last day. If you added up all of our website visits, we don't have enough people visiting the website. We have fewer visits to our website than we had voters.

Carter 45:27

So people aren't getting the full information. They've chosen to remain less engaged. They've chosen to take one fact and make their decisions. So if they're choosing that, then my job isn't to force them to make a different choice. My job is to recognize that choice and then give them the one fact that they need. That is it. You know, oh, how dare you say that? Is that

Zain 45:49

that what people mean by meeting voters where they are? Exactly.

Carter 45:52

Exactly. That's what it is, because where the voter is, is understanding one thing that makes them tilt to your voter. No, that's not everybody. There's hyper engaged voters for sure. Sure, but the less engaged are the ones that make the decision.

Zain 46:07

Corey, you wanted to comment on this. I'll let you get in. Yeah,

Corey 46:09

Yeah, you asked, is it frustrating to see a debate where it's not really about policy? Look,

Corey 46:14

Look, I don't think anybody comes out of that giving their best policy game forward there. I was saying on Twitter, and I sort of mean it, like I would love to see a debate format almost where after each round, a

Corey 46:25

panel of experts comes out and explains exactly how every single fucking answer given by every single party leader was either overly simplistic or total bullshit and they were all guilty of it you know this was i

Corey 46:37

i i have realized that i just sort of dislike debates my wife makes fun of me all of the time because every time there's a debate on afterwards i'm like that was fucking terrible i hated that and she

Zain 46:47

she says you say that every year every time and

Corey 46:49

and she might be right but

Corey 46:51

but it's because the the format is really it's not about the conveyance of information it's not about the conveyance of communications messages even it It is really just about the

Corey 47:02

the most engaged people in a conversation coming together and trying to score who won and who lost, and then the meta-conversation that sort of spills out of it. It's very annoying. These entire things are very annoying, but it's not as though, oh, this is so tragic, but for Doug Ford, this would be a brilliant conversation about policy. No, I mean, the smoothing over of every single issue by every single party into the blandest, plainest

Corey 47:25

plainest terms was unignorable. horrible. And

Corey 47:29

And that's how debates are going to be forever unless we ask for a change. And I actually don't see people clamoring for a change here.

Zain 47:38

Carter, would you ever propose... Let's just use this for a second to jump on. Through all the campaigns you've been through, through all the leaderships you've been in, is there a format you've liked the most? It doesn't have to be a debate format. Is there a format of conversation, idea generation, oxygenating the ideas that you've liked, that you feel like can both do that, what I'm saying, while simultaneously do what you said earlier, which is meet the voter where they are. Have you found a more healthier or useful form of bringing these ideas forward in your time that you'd like to experiment with?

Carter 48:15

What I'd love to do, and I haven't seen any of this, but what I think we should do with debate eight formats is we should do um so let's say there's three liters or four liters up there everybody gets 15 seconds or 20 seconds so we're going to talk about education now you've got 15 seconds do your soundbite okay

Carter 48:31

okay and then the next round is you got 90 seconds and then the third round on the same topic is you've got three minutes yourself don't repeat yourself and

Carter 48:42

and that's the task you have to have three fucking minutes of thoughts original thoughts on the topic that

Carter 48:49

that That would fucking kill politicians because politicians don't have three, you know, three minutes of non-repeated thoughts. And you know what? When you got your three minutes, you get your three minutes and we will leave your mic live even if you finish early.

Carter 49:04

Right. And no one else's mic goes on.

Carter 49:07

And that's how the debate would be run. So here's your 15 second soundbite. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Doug Ford's good at that. here's your you know 90 you know your your 40 30 second whatever more detailed explanation but then i want to hear the three minutes because those three minutes are actually going to matter and that's where i think most politicians would fail is in the three minutes uh please explain to us the you know the electricity system and what's wrong with the power generation model that we have in the province of alberta in comparison the power generation model that we have in ontario Thank you very much. Let's hear it.

Carter 49:42

Because I'll tell you something, most

Carter 49:44

most of them would fucking die.

Zain 49:47

Corey, I want you to comment on Carter's dream debate scenario.

Zain 49:50

Yeah. That's interesting. Carter, I appreciate you just yes-ending me and just giving me something, because I do find that interesting. Corey, I'm giving you the easier job to react to that, but do give me a reaction. Carter

Corey 50:01

Carter is underestimating politicians' ability to fill time and say absolutely nothing for for three minutes at a time so you would actually need to hold them people would be able to judge

Carter 50:10

judge that they'd be able to judge that well

Corey 50:13

well it would be pretty

Corey 50:14

amazing it would be pretty amazing that i i can almost imagine that it's like at the same time on the left side of the screen it's actually showing you a transcript of what they're saying so

Corey 50:23

so you can be oh that'd be so good

Corey 50:25

they've literally said nothing for for 30 seconds now that would be kind of fun yeah um that

Corey 50:30

that would be an interesting interesting format i would enjoy that format

Corey 50:34

but can i ask you

Zain 50:34

you um sure go ahead cory if you've got a comment there well

Corey 50:38

well i'll only that this

Corey 50:40

was interesting to me because it's not as though i even found the 15 second sound bites not that they got those very often because people kept talking over each other but

Corey 50:49

they were pretty basic like i think this might have been the most cliche laden debate i've seen in a while i i mean there was a certain point there where uh schreiner and schreiner was the worst for this by the way mike schreier seemed like a nice guy seemed affable seemed

Corey 51:02

actually care about the issues also seemed like he had the acting chops of the owner's kid in a locally produced rv commercial like just just not a lot going on there the overdramatic pauses the word salad that came out

Corey 51:14

out at some time

Corey 51:15

carter and i texted each other at the same time when he said care people first

Corey 51:20

the fuck is that he's

Corey 51:23

he's talking about new New solutions to old problems and investing in people like these are just the most tired things ever.

Corey 51:29

ever. You know, Del Duca saying you got to show up for a job if you want to keep it. I mean, that's not even the best version of that, because the best version was from the what the 11 election federally, where it was you don't ask for a promotion if you're not showing up for work. Right. Yeah. Ford is already the premier. And don't get me started on the value of question period or lack thereof. but yeah

Corey 51:51

yeah it was like um we're talking about wouldn't it be great if we could elevate it to three minutes i

Corey 51:57

i would i would take a competent 15 seconds which i think i was robbed of with this debate but

Carter 52:02

but i think that that's also the point right like you know some people will watch those 15s and be like oh i got what i need and then the 90s and it doesn't need to be you know maybe even just a 90 second follow

Carter 52:13

follow-up right without people jumping on each other i don't understand where where we thought that the jumping on each other made for better television. It doesn't. I mean, are we watching Big Brother? Is this what we're trying to watch? Like, even

Carter 52:26

even Big Brother's got better editing. Like, come on. This is bullshit.

Zain 52:31

Carter, have politicians gotten better or worse in your mind in filling time?

Zain 52:36

I'm curious if it's just the same.

Carter 52:39

They've always been this way. Because what used to happen was the town hall. and

Carter 52:45

the town hall was brutal and

Carter 52:48

and and someone would ask a question about whatever and the person at the front of the town hall would just you know lather

Carter 52:54

lather on for a minute and a half and say i hope that answered your question and go to the next guy you

Carter 53:02

never answered the question yeah no i want

Zain 53:03

want to talk about a topic that um it's going to have ramifications it's certainly going to have ramifications for ontario but this will have ramifications for the alberta election as as well, which is COVID. So COVID was brought up quite often. And when you look at Doug Ford's historic lows, or at least the lows of the last year or two years, they happened during the peak of Ford shutting down playgrounds, looking like he had no idea what he was doing with COVID, zigging and zagging. But now with the grace of time, with the grace of forgiveness and people moving on, COVID itself, people are kind of powering through. It's not the top rated issue. It's moved significantly lower in the rankings.

Zain 53:45

How do you strategize COVID as an opposition party? How do you ensure that that emotional nugget that people felt frustration with their premier, his cluelessness, his aimlessness, can be packaged up and redistributed in May and June of 2022, not January of 2021? What do you think, Corey? Well,

Corey 54:03

Well, so packaged up is exactly the phrase here. There's a basic truism in

Corey 54:08

in politics, I think is fair to say. I suspect Stephen would agree with me here, which is you're

Corey 54:13

you're always trying to tell a story, right? And maybe a year ago, COVID would have been the story. But if it's no longer the story, then you've got to think about how it becomes a proof point in the story, if you're going to use it at all, or you just let it go, you move on, you pick the next thing to talk about here. And

Corey 54:29

And so if you want to talk about like,

Corey 54:31

like, again, this is where like attacks are confusing and I'm not really sure they knew what they were driving towards, because when Del Duke is talking about you didn't allow people to go to playgrounds for shame, sir, is the attack on Ford that he is that he hates freedom. him like is that where we think this is going like what the fuck is this yeah

Corey 54:50

yeah it doesn't actually seem to build up into a case about the man that might change votes again it's one of those things it's

Corey 54:57

it's something you know people didn't like and

Corey 54:59

and you want to hit him with it but you haven't thought about what this actually tells about his candidacy or yours but

Corey 55:04

but so you've got to ladder these things up you've got to ladder these things up to bigger points if they're not the point themselves so

Zain 55:10

so carter corey saying you kind of you kind of use this as a proof point How would you have suggested the opposition leaders, NDP and liberals here, to be clear, would have waged and used COVID and the emotional sort of resonance that that had to the population at that time now? Like, how would you bottle that up and deploy it now, Carter?

Carter 55:30

Well, I think that, first of all, always project forward, right? And when we're dealing with issues, we can deal with the micro, we can deal with the macro, or we can deal with the process. So let's go through what those mean, right? Right. So the process is the way that you did things. Right. The process was broken. And we tend to do that when we agree on the issue. Right. The issue is COVID bad. We all agree COVID bad. So the process would be something we did. Like you fucked up the

Carter 55:56

And the micro is you didn't let our kids go to the playground. Right. Okay. That's interesting. I would have gone for the macro, which is in every

Carter 56:06

every government's term, something comes and challenges them. And it's never the thing that we think it's going to be. And so for the people who are electing us on June the 2nd, they are electing a government that will have to deal with an unforeseen, unknown challenge. And Doug Ford was presented with his unforeseen, unknown challenge, and he failed at a macro level. He had more people die in the province of Alberta per capita than any other province in Canada. And now he is trying to go...

Zain 56:36

Yeah, you said Alberta, but keep going. yeah

Carter 56:37

okay well you know i live in alberta what do you want this is a good it was a good spiel but i'm sorry and this is why he's not suited to be the the premier not because it's going to be the same problem even even look at the ways you know he's addressing more people in ors he's solving the last problem what's the next problem because we can't count on him to solve that problem you know and then throw in something like climate change you know real emergencies that are are happening today that we know he doesn't have the skills and capacity to deal with. Macro, micro, process. Corey,

Zain 57:11

Corey, I want to come to you on this to react to what Carter said in his framework. Carter,

Zain 57:14

Carter, but before I do, Carter, explain to me just so I can understand the difference between process and macro here.

Carter 57:22

Macro is the whole issue, right? So the process is how you got to that issue, right? The process is you needed to listen to your scientific, what do they keep calling it? the scientific technical panel or something like that um

Carter 57:34

um you know the table i forget

Carter 57:37

yeah yeah but that group needed to be listened to right or um the pro they went after process a couple times with you know the the scientists were recommending x and you should have gone and you did y um the micro is the you know the going to the playground the macro is the whole fucking issue the issue was wrong that

Carter 57:56

that issue was projecting now we can project our response to that macro issue forward

Carter 58:01

forward word to the next one.

Zain 58:03

Corey, I'll frame it slightly differently for you, but react to what Carter said. And if you were giving advice to the Alberta NDP here, for example, who are going to have to do a similar version of that against Jason Kenney, bottle up that emotional truth that people felt and deploy it at a time where its salience or perhaps its priority in the public's mind might be less than it was. What advice would you have for them, especially in line with Carter's framework work that you're hearing too. Yeah.

Corey 58:30

Yeah. Well, so I really liked that framework. I've never heard you use that before Carter, but I'm for sure going to steal it and pretend I came up with it and just

Corey 58:37

just say that you stole it

Corey 58:38

it from me. Um, and

Corey 58:41

it's a great example of laddering up an issue and taking a small issue and making a bigger point. I'm still not entirely convinced that's the big point that that's going to save the day for them. Uh, a lot of people have noted that affordability was really the, the secret theme of this. It was so funny watching this debate because the way they shoehorned affordability of housing into all of these various answers, like if there was a drinking game, I would not be able to record tonight. Horvath managed to turn knee surgery into a conversation about housing. Schreiner turned COVID-19 into housing. Ford turned education into learning how to look at a mortgage into housing. I mean, just really fucking wild shit here because they can all read the polls and they can all see affordability is super high. They can all see the idea of affordability of housing in particular has become a major pain point in Ontario. And maybe there's a way to take some of those micro issues and even the matter around the playground and tell that story. And I haven't, it's, let's call it half-baked at this point. But what if you said, like, let's take that binder thing too. Let's take all this fucking shit off the shelf here. the

Corey 59:48

man can't pivot he can't capture an issue he can't lead he is constantly reacting and he's reacting too slow so just as he decided that he needed to shut down um you know playgrounds with knowledge that was a year out of date he is reacting to a housing crisis with information that's a decade out of date you can't have the slowest man in the school you

Corey 1:00:09

you know running the show here and so i so maybe that's the story you need to tell and maybe that's how those things ladder up in the context of Ontario.

Carter 1:00:17

He's doing a proof point, right? COVID reactions is your proof point. Everybody agrees it was bad, and now he's projecting forward on whatever the issue is of the day. If we couldn't trust him to do COVID, how can we trust him to do housing, right?

Carter 1:00:31

right? He doesn't understand what needs to actually happen.

Carter 1:00:35

We need a new government because we are in crisis, period, and we will constantly be in crisis as long as Doug Ford is the leader.

Carter 1:00:43

like that too. good

Carter 1:00:44

yes and this is

Carter 1:00:45

is good but in that we could work together you know yeah

Carter 1:00:48

yeah do you have to show your chocolate i

Zain 1:00:51

yeah you don't want to try that uh we love you carter um

Zain 1:00:57

have to show no i it's i'm pausing because i like where you're going i'm just trying to think of it from the practicality perspective do you have to show as someone Someone waging that charge against a Doug Ford that

Zain 1:01:11

that you could be that crisis commander for that you could be that person that like, do you have to introduce your own leveled up proof points? Or is it just about nailing the issue to the other guy in in a way that that appeals to the moment? Like, I might be asking for someone to do too much, but I'm curious where the other side of I and by the way, I am that crisis leader comes in. Yeah.

Corey 1:01:35

Yeah. So, I mean, one hour mark. Good to talk about the ballot question. But, you know, your point is a good one, because if it's a total heads up election, all

Corey 1:01:43

all you need to do is knock down the other guy or

Zain 1:01:45

or gal. Yeah. Right.

Corey 1:01:46

Right. Now, if it is not a heads up election, you've got to make it clear that you are the answer to the ballot question and not or the best answer to the ballot question relative to the other options people may have. So

Corey 1:01:55

So an example where it would go seriously off the rails for you is if your polling showed that everybody trusts the NDP on housing affordability, nobody trusts the liberals on housing affordability, and you spent all of your time beating

Corey 1:02:08

beating the tar out of Doug Ford on housing affordability. All you're doing is siphoning votes to Andrea Horvath in that

Corey 1:02:16

right? So a lot of this is really dependent on the information. And the reason, I'm not even saying that the affordability is the issue. I'm just noting that they seem to think it's the issue based on the way they keep trying to pull people back to it. And if that's the case, then there are ways to tell that story using the other pieces that are out there without feeling so scattered and without feeling like you don't actually have a way to tell a cohesive story here. And storytelling is like the challenge in politics. Carter says this, I say this. Every presentation is a story. Every campaign is a story.

Corey 1:02:48

This is something that I think that there are lessons to be learned, but we

Corey 1:02:53

we just don't have enough information to say definitively what these people should do in this case.

Zain 1:02:58

Carter, I want to talk about the final thing I do on most debate-related episodes, which is post-game, Monday night quarterbacking for each of these teams. Let's do this quickly. Del Duca, what are you doing today? What message are you putting out from that debate? Is there anything you're clipping? And we'll do the same with Horvat and Ford.

Carter 1:03:14

He's got to say, I'm the only person who was actually out there trying to show exactly how we would make the

Carter 1:03:23

lives of families better in Ontario. um and and he's got to just try and take that i don't think it matters but i think that the last two weeks or three weeks of the campaign here uh yeah i guess it's probably closer to two um i'd be making sure that i was doing a lot of events that really showcased the commitments um and showcased him as a leader because you know what did not come through is that this is a man that could be prime minister or i'm sorry premier and the only way that we can get him to the place where he can be the premier is

Carter 1:03:54

is if he actually um

Carter 1:03:55

um starts to behave as one and i would i would change up his body person i would make sure there's a new body on him that is you

Carter 1:04:04

know understands what his body language is saying and uh corrects between events boy

Zain 1:04:11

duca what do you think yeah

Corey 1:04:12

yeah so i got the sense from the debate i know what he's going to clip which is things

Corey 1:04:17

things like the the attacks where he was trying to throw out like you you didn't show up 82 percent of the time him for

Carter 1:04:22

for question period. Again, the job's not question period.

Corey 1:04:26

Maybe I'll just detour here for a minute to say that would be a mistake because you've got another person on the stage who's been there longer than you, who has shown up more than you, and that's Andrea Orpah. She could easily say, you know me. I've fought for you since 2004 as an MPP. I've been NDP leader since 2009. I always show up for you. So if you want to make the election about showing up, she's the better answer, right? Especially when you consider the liberal record that he's trying to run from, uh from the from the win government i

Corey 1:04:53

also think that he's going to be trying to clip things on education and you know the concerns that he has with his own kids i

Corey 1:04:59

i think that's a bit of a mistake too what

Corey 1:05:01

he should be clipping on though in my opinion is anything

Corey 1:05:05

anything that suggests that doug ford does not have command of the issue that actually matters to people right so i would be clipping it to make it look like i was much more focused and disciplined than i actually was i would clip Clip everything where you held him to account on housing, every time you tied it back to housing. And I would make sure there was kind of a steady, consistent presentation

Corey 1:05:26

presentation by yourself in those

Zain 1:05:27

those clips as well. So

Corey 1:05:29

me, it's less about what and it's how much he

Zain 1:05:34

Carter, what do you think about Horvath? What does she need to do post-game to round out and make

Zain 1:05:43

make the best of what she did on that stage?

Carter 1:05:49

i imagine that there's going to be a lot of work for her in the future um you know she's got to plan her resignation as as ndp leader um that's

Carter 1:05:58

that's going to take some work uh yeah good

Carter 1:06:02

yeah i mean and then she's got to think you know how

Carter 1:06:05

how do i go out with a bang um that's not like the little pop that she did with uh with the debate today i mean she she fucked up pretty hard and And I don't think that there's much upside for her. The only good news for her is that Del Duca didn't have an opportunity to take advantage of it. And the people, the good people of Ontario may see it differently.

Carter 1:06:25

If you're looking for someone to vote for that's

Carter 1:06:28

that's not Ford, I don't know how you choose between those two lesser lights.

Zain 1:06:33

Coy, give me your take on Harvath. What does she need to do after tonight?

Corey 1:06:37

Well, so listen, I thought the start of the debate for her was pretty rocky. She came in very

Corey 1:06:42

very aggressively. she there was she was as much guilty of the cross talk as anybody in the first bit but she got her footing and i i think ultimately i she came to the conclusion she was not helping herself and so she found a much steadier tone and a a much uh more pointed without getting without mismatching the tone that she needed to hit a presentation of her facts in the second half so i do think she's got things she can clip on she um she just needs to find

Corey 1:07:11

find the clips that make her look the most i think premier like and

Corey 1:07:14

and uh and for her perhaps

Corey 1:07:18

well perhaps in this environment for her it's you

Corey 1:07:21

you you've decided or you've put your chips into we're all gonna try to tear down doug ford and

Zain 1:07:26

and i'm just hoping on the option people come to i

Corey 1:07:27

i don't know i i have

Corey 1:07:29

have a little bit more

Corey 1:07:30

more difficulty understanding where she's gonna go with this one to

Carter 1:07:33

gonna go straight to her resignation cory

Corey 1:07:35

cory can i stick with you on this what is ford doing tonight

Corey 1:07:38

i don't know celebrating i i think he got through this debate in just fine shape and if you can imagine an overall strategy of keeping people disinterested in it something that was so unwatchable i guarantee you they lost a quarter of their viewers before they hit the 30 minute mark um that's that's great that's totally on strategy for you and if the analysis coming out of it is even mixed to the point of was this a good performance by the others did they not do what what they needed to do, no knockout blow, all of those things that you can anticipate coming out of a debate like this,

Corey 1:08:10

you've won because you're leading. And as long as the situation remains unchanged, you will be premier with a majority government

Corey 1:08:17

in not too much time.

Corey 1:08:18

Carter, Ford, your thoughts?

Corey 1:08:20

Hookers and blow, baby. Hookers and blow.

Zain 1:08:25

Jesus Christ. Okay. Well, that's a choice.

Zain 1:08:28

Let's move it on to our, over under our lightning round. Carter, we do it for you and we always give you a second chances. Stephen Carter, your one sentence of advice to each of these leaders, we're going to start with you and we're going to start with Doug Ford. Going forward, going forwardward, what do you need to give Doug Ford? What is your one sentence of political strategy advice to Doug Ford? Carter?

Carter 1:08:50

Keep doing what you're doing. You're relating to people and you're making the issues simple. Do those two things to the end.

Zain 1:08:56

Corey, your one sentence of political strategy advice to Doug Ford is?

Corey 1:09:02

They hate you, Doug. I mean, your opponents, not the people of Ontario. So you just keep doing you, because whenever you do something that just irritates them, they turn it into an attempted soundbite, and it's doing nothing but you favors. So just keep being you.

Zain 1:09:16

one sentence, Corey, what are you giving them for strategic advice?

Corey 1:09:21

don't know. I think you've got to take a breath. You've got to decide who you want to be in this campaign. You've got to test to see if that has any kind of resonance with the people of Ontario, and you've got to stick to it.

Corey 1:09:34

The fact that you were leading in searches after the debate, I know it could be one of those metrics where you get feeling very good about it, but the reality is you were the most unknown candidate. You are a cipher to these people, and

Corey 1:09:44

and what you you presented to them today was

Corey 1:09:47

was confused, and you need to get a much clearer image in voters' heads as to what it means to vote for Stephen Del Duca.

Zain 1:09:54

Carter, Stephen Del Duca's one sentence of political strategy authored by you is?

Carter 1:10:00

I'm going to steal Corey's line from earlier.

Carter 1:10:02

You need three issues and one personality for the rest of the campaign.

Carter 1:10:06

People need to know who you are, and they need to know what you care about, and you need to be much more clear.

Zain 1:10:12

Less certainly seems to be more Andrea Horvath, Stephen Carter Your one sentence strategy for her That does not involve a resignation letter Carter, go Get

Carter 1:10:20

Get a slab cake, people like slab cakes And you can have them decorated In different ways

Corey 1:10:30

He's wrong, get cupcakes You can send cupcakes home with people So much more expensive

Carter 1:10:38

the NDP They don't have that kind of money at least a cupcake. You're supposed to eat the cake with people eating the cake.

Corey 1:10:45

cake. You're also going to show up at an NDP event, Steven, be serious. Oh,

Carter 1:10:49

Oh, when they leave, they always show up when they leave. They always show up.

Zain 1:10:54

Our final question. We're going to, we're going to dip a bit into Alberta for some prediction time. Carter, you know, we do record our live episode at the Maharaja banquet hall on Thursday, the 19th. The question I have for you, Steven Carter is,

Zain 1:11:09

do you think the UCP leadership results come

Zain 1:11:13

come out before Wednesday evening? Do we get them before the Wednesday evening when they're officially supposed to come out? This is our foray, our dip into Alberta politics, a teaser, if you will. With Stephen Carter prediction time, yes or no, do we get the UCP leadership results before they're officially due Wednesday evening?

Carter 1:11:33

No, we get them Thursday morning.

Zain 1:11:37

What a twist. bold. What a twist. Corey, do we get them early? Do these leak? Do these come out? Do these strategically find their way to the ears and the eyes of Albertans prior to Wednesday evening? Yes or no? I

Corey 1:11:49

I don't believe so. I think we will find out when we find out.

Zain 1:11:54

Find out when we find out, and we'll talk about that finding out the Maharaja Banquet Hall in Edmonton on Thursday. And that's a wrap on episode 990 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, As always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Corey 1:12:31

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Corey 1:12:41

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Corey 1:12:44

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Corey 1:12:51

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Corey 1:13:02

and yes we do know that last one is a bit of a leap in terms of price points, but it does make $20 seem a lot more reasonable, doesn't it?

Corey 1:13:11

As little as $6 a month, you know what to do.

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