Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 994. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's
Zain
0:11
Carter, you are back. I had to cancel three
Carter
0:12
three meetings. You canceled three meetings. Were
Zain
0:15
Were they all in a chicken suit outside of a constituency office? Is that what you call a meeting these days, Carter? Because you had been away for a while, and we're wondering what you've been up to.
Carter
0:24
Yeah. I was, uh, I was standing in a chicken suit outside of Dairy Queen in Surrey, uh, you
Carter
0:30
you know, spinning one of those signs business went up, I think 11%. So things really working out for me. Wasn't the suit, wasn't
Zain
0:37
wasn't the sign. It was your spinning. I've seen you spin. Uh, we've seen you do it. I've seen you do it on this podcast. It's, it's, it's part of your, uh, it's part of your repertoire.
Corey
0:45
repertoire. Uh, Corey, how are you been doing?
Corey
0:48
I've been good. I've been good. I didn't have to rearrange meetings i just took lunch at a different time so i've got that going on apparently um i've
Corey
0:56
i've got the ability to adjust on the fly more than steven carter nice to see you both uh i can't help but note this is not our usual sunday night time or monday night backup time so this
Zain
1:07
this is fine this is a time and that's as best as we're going to do for this audience honestly i think that's fine right
Carter
1:15
i mean really if people haven't been following along they know that we're this is the most consistent we've ever i think
Zain
1:20
think this is incredible
Carter
1:21
incredible stint is insane so and and now
Zain
1:25
you know what happens now right carter cory thinks we're going to be this consistent going forward and and he is in a world of hurt because he does not know my summer schedule and he is going to be really pissed off by it no
Carter
1:36
no i had to talk him down this weekend i had to call him and call him i i spoke in my calming voice i don't have a calming voice it turns out but i thought i did and uh i was incorrect i'm
Zain
1:46
i'm glad you brought that up because Because, Carter, you know, we don't talk about other podcasts on this show, other inferior podcasts on this program. But I do want to give a shout-out to this podcast's own Stephen Carter, who will be appearing on West of Center. And, in fact, Carter, you know, West of Center is a CBC podcast hosted by Kathleen Petty. They generally don't release previews. But we've actually been able to go deep into the state media and get a preview of a Friday show that you're going to be appearing on. Corey, can you play that? quickly for us this is of course a quick preview of stephen carter who will be on west of center uh this week with janet brown and and david hurley uh cory go ahead please let
Carter
2:27
let 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 after yourself we said we were the strategists because that's what we did that's what we do in 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
3:03
oh hey scott so
Carter
3:05
so anyways i think friday friday might be a bit more challenging than i was thinking i didn't remember it that way I did not remember it
Zain
3:14
that's why we played the clip, Carter.
Carter
3:16
I'm not going to lie to you. I think I've been invited because I did that clip. Because I think that Kathleen Petty is
Carter
3:23
is not a nice person, and she wants to see what will happen if the two of us are together. It's going to be brutal.
Zain
3:29
brutal. We're going to tune in on Friday. Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, free-range chicken shit. Carter, we have to talk about it because no other Canadian podcast, Ken, no other Canadian podcast would troll. their own audience for as long as we're going to stephen carter we have to talk about the chicken suit we have to talk about the chicken suit for those that that don't know what the fuck we're talking about carter explain to me what the chicken suit is what it was and i'm going to actually use this as a as a launching off point to talk about uh political tactics but for those that don't know what i'm talking about lay it on us well
Carter
4:05
well i mean the chicken suit is a is a person in a chicken suit life-size well not life-size a human-sized chicken suit when the uh the chicken was dispatched to go and ask doug ford why he didn't want to to debate uh i think everything was doug ford yeah and uh needless
Carter
4:23
needless to say it was a interesting strategy that we get to talk about because now there's a life-sized human being going around and stalking uh doug ford on behalf of the ontario liberal party um
Carter
4:34
so let's fill it let's
Zain
4:35
let's fill in some details i i trusted carter too much with that cory cory do you want to fill in i don't know what you're thinking
Zain
4:41
like it's a thing now that it's just a thing cory please
Zain
4:46
please that's what we do here yeah help us out here the
Corey
4:48
the ontario liberal war room last week released a video um on social media of somebody in a chicken suit um going around to constituency offices of local candidates saying local candidates to chicken to meet they're all hiding right now and um and the video had had production values you would expect from something that includes the words chicken suit in the title and
Corey
5:11
and on top of that um the person couldn't now i'm just nitpicking but they were doing the chicken dance but they weren't doing the chicken dance they couldn't even do the chicken dance right uh but it did seem to be one of those things that immediately drew the entire internet's criticism because i you know you had supporters of the ontario liberals saying please stop this is embarrassing you had opponents of the ontario liberals saying this is exactly what we mean when And we say, you aren't serious so much for Del Duca's purported. I want to campaign on issues. And then you had just the general public trying to hide from such cringeworthy content. Pretty,
Corey
5:47
typical thing to happen, I think, in the last week of a campaign for people to lose all perspective. But that's maybe your point, Zane. Like, there's a lot you can pull out of this. It was not their finest hour.
Corey
5:59
Might have been their least fine hour of the day.
Carter
6:03
Carter? So how is that different than what I said? It's exactly the same. I mean, fundamental details.
Carter
6:07
details. Who put it
Zain
6:07
it out there? Why it was put out there? What the video showed? These are some of the things we like to do on this show, Carter.
Carter
6:15
No, it feels like a lot of different things. Yeah, no, we are
Zain
6:17
are moving the show in the wrong direction. I agree with you completely.
Zain
6:19
you know, okay, I have to ask you this. Talk to me about the tactic. And talk to me about the tactic from a campaign that's clearly behind, right? The message they're trying to send is show up and debate us. What are you afraid of? Stop being so chicken to debate us. Stop not showing up to community debates, candidate X, candidate Y of the PC party. What do you make of that tactic? And it's clearly, you know, a reference to some West Wing episode, I believe, in the latter seasons, Carter. But
Zain
6:48
talk to me about the tactic. Talk to me about its efficacy and what is it trying to do and give
Zain
6:54
give me your perspective on it from a strategy lens.
Carter
6:58
What is it trying to do? I think what it's trying to do is generate some sort of outrage about the PC's choosing not to debate. It's designed to get
Carter
7:12
get some attention on a topic that
Carter
7:16
the liberals think they can win on. Except the
Carter
7:18
problem is that no one gives a shit if people show up to debate. I mean, if
Carter
7:23
if there was a debate in your local community, it might draw 150, 200 people. But it's not going to actually change
Carter
7:29
change the outcome of any election because
Carter
7:31
because most human beings, especially the less engaged human beings, don't actually go to a debate. So and on top of that, no one's voting question is, I wonder if this candidate debated all
Carter
7:44
all the other candidates. Because if they didn't debate, then I don't want to be anywhere near them.
Carter
7:48
So I think that, you know, it's this fundamental disconnect between a party who thinks that they've got something that they can win on versus
Carter
7:57
versus something that is actually a winning issue. you.
Carter
8:00
So going out and putting, first of all, the fact that you had to put some poor human being into a chicken suit to go to these events, I mean, that's just sad.
Carter
8:09
There's a volunteer who feels less about themselves today, right? Who feels like they're a lesser person
Carter
8:17
whose dignity was attacked by their own team, which
Carter
8:22
which was upsetting, I think, for everybody. But, you know, in terms of a winning strategy, there is no winning strategy from
Carter
8:29
from putting a volunteer into a check.
Zain
8:32
want I want to actually hang on that question for a second. But, Corey, I want to get your take on this, because if
Zain
8:38
if that if what Carter said was the point of the tactic simply to call out one of the parties for not sending local candidates to debates, there was many ways to do it. You weren't inside that liberal war room. room none of us were thankfully but what do you think the conversation there was like around why this would be a good idea like you know give me a sense of how people may have triangulated towards this as being a tactic because i i agree with carter but i think there's more here that they thought they would be getting whether it was a sense of virality or people chuckling or trying to make a point uh with sense of humor what do you think they're trying to go for in a in a perhaps even slightly deeper sense so
Corey
9:16
so there's two answers to the question first let's let's talk about the
Corey
9:20
chicken suit, the history of it, because it's not a West Wing thing. The West Wing episode you were talking about, I'd never seen. Carter sent the clip around earlier today. But
Corey
9:31
that in itself was a reference to something that actually happened in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. So there was a situation where George
Corey
9:43
George H.W. Bush was not agreeing to the Commission for Presidential Debates terms.
Corey
9:49
terms. And so it looked like maybe he was going to try to avoid the debate. And Clinton organizers started showing up in chicken suits, almost the same as the plot of that West Wing episode, in a sense, right? Why are you chicken to debate? Why are you chicken to debate? And so you can see a pretty clear through line through to this actual Ontario liberal uh war room tactic right the uh tactic itself went viral
Corey
10:15
viral in 1992 standards people were showing up in chicken suits of their own volition at a certain point
Carter
10:19
point to events and
Corey
10:21
and it was being covered on the news and the and the you know the media was tracking it both in the background and the campaign was getting reports on it the
Corey
10:27
the bush campaign tried to reciprocate by sending people in duck suits to uh bill clinton's events because he was ducking the draft and i think that's It's basically when the originality of this concept died and it's been fucking dead for 20 years as a result. But so they were looking at that. And as students of politics, I suppose, they said, boy, we got this thing. People aren't talking about the fact that the PC candidates are not coming to debates. They're they're ducking it. And I'm sure somebody said, well, you know, and I would bet money they referenced the West Wing episode instead of the actual history in 92. I'm
Zain
11:02
sure this is a way
Corey
11:02
way you can you know, that was brought up that you could bring attention to to the particular issue and they move forward. But they
Corey
11:10
they this is a perfect example. And now let's be clear. Let's be charitable. The war room's job is not to drive the campaign message day in, day out necessarily. It's to pull up dirt on the others and and, you know, take these elbows to them. But still, it was a little unfocused and it certainly had an awful huge opportunity for backlash, as we saw. I think that if they had just tested it with normal people in their orbit, they would have seen they had a dud, like a total fucking dud. I guarantee you there were people in that war room watching it who kind of cringed watching it, right? And somebody should have spoken up and said, it's
Corey
11:45
it's kind of trash content, guys. Let's not do it, right? And, man, I want to take this in a million ways right now, but there's two things I want to say off the bat.
Corey
11:53
In the war room, somebody should have caught it. The whole reason why planes have co-pilots is in case it doesn't work unless somebody speaks up and says, what are you doing? You're going to crash the plane. That's
Corey
12:03
reason we put two pilots in a plane.
Corey
12:05
Same with war rooms. And the second is talk
Corey
12:08
talk to somebody outside your bubble because that bubble gets really pretty severe, pretty thick by the time you hit the last week in a campaign. And,
Zain
12:15
And, Carter, this is what I wanted to talk about is the efficacy of these tactics, why we are in – why we have still, you know, despite the creativity of digital, still have such a tiny toolkit, why campaigns really haven't – and you might disagree with this. From a tactical perspective, like
Zain
12:32
like necessarily innovated the next viral thing, there isn't one every election. We kind of go back to safe and comfort, even on the digital side of the types of campaigns we create. But before I get to that, you know, Carter, I want to test this with you. How
Zain
12:45
How much of this was to do with the fact that Del Duca was behind and looked desperate? Like, had the Ford campaign done this, a campaign out in front that was winning, that was sending their candidates? Could this have been seen as folksy or charming? And this is a conversation I was having with someone that we both know, and I'm not going to out them on the podcast if you think their analysis is terrible. But they were ultimately saying, you know, if Ford had done this, I think he'd gotten away with it.
Zain
13:10
I think he would be totally fine that people would have seen it through a lens of, you know, everything he does is is is funny. He's not taking himself too seriously. How much of this in your mind, Carter, what's to do with Del Duca losing and this looking desperate?
Carter
13:23
I mean, let's be clear, the campaign that's in first place would never do this ever
Carter
13:29
because it's not a candidate. It's not a tactic that would be done by
Carter
13:32
by someone who's in first place. you
Carter
13:34
you know you you only do this when you're in you know like there's there's an old school of thought that says the campaign that goes to negative campaigning first is losing i don't think that that's necessarily true anymore i think that most
Carter
13:44
most of us load up our compare and contrasts right off the bat um and and try and and you
Carter
13:50
you know brand the other person the way we want them branded even if we're being uh positive or
Carter
13:56
or even if we're in first place but
Carter
13:57
but there's no need to do this tactic if you're in first place um
Carter
14:02
you know doug ford never does this because he's in first place um stephen
Carter
14:07
stephen del duca uh looks like the exact wrong person to do this right like there is no folksy charm that could get away with it there's no ah shucks you guys know that you guys knew we were going to be bringing a chicken out at some point um i think i promised a chicken for every house you know or every pot or whatever a chicken in every pot you know like somebody he could have have made a joke about it and it could have been folksy except steven del duca doesn't know how to make a joke he's not folksy so without that there i'm not sure that he can actually succeed um
Carter
14:38
you know to your point i
Carter
14:40
i disagree with the idea that um i
Carter
14:44
i disagree with the idea that ford could have done this better because ford would never have done it um but also
Carter
14:50
i just disagree with the tactic yeah
Carter
14:53
i think that you know your to your earlier point in your question why are we so bad at this because we're not recruiting the right people we don't recruit people from every day you know there's far too many people who are who are in
Carter
15:07
in the inside core that are constantly brought into existing campaigns that are just campaigners or they're young or they're true believers and if you've staffed your war room or you've staffed your your communications team with nothing but true believers, you are going to lose the next election because your true believers don't have anybody to check them and say, well, that's a fucking stupid idea.
Carter
15:29
That's why we have Corey here.
Carter
15:31
Right. So I can say to Corey, that's a fucking stupid idea. And we're not on the same page. Right. That's that you need to have that. I disagree moment. Corey brought it up earlier. If you don't have someone who's willing to say, you know, that the, your idea sucks, box, then you're going to go forward with every shitty idea. We see it a lot in the NDP. We see it a lot in the Conservatives.
Carter
15:53
Conservatives. And now we've seen it again in the Ontario
Zain
15:57
You know, Corey, what do you make of this? If your team is winning, everything kind of looks good. It's viewed charitably, positively. It can be viewed through like a folksy lens. If you're losing, you
Zain
16:05
you look like you're losing. Everything looks bad. It looks like you're desperate. Do you feel like this would have played differently had it been from someone like Ford or someone who who was looking like they were in a position of strength.
Corey
16:16
Yeah, of course. And it speaks almost to motive, right? In some ways, it's hard to pretend that you're lighthearted when you're clearly back up against the wall and there's clearly sweat on your brow. And do you think people see motive, though? Like they can sense motive
Zain
16:31
motive with a piece
Corey
16:32
like that? Yeah, for sure. You can tell that's not coming from a position of strength or lightheartedness. And it's just not going to carry through in the same way. But beyond that, I would say something One thing that I often talk about in the
Corey
16:44
the corporate communications world is that when you get down to it, you break into three
Corey
16:49
three categories, right? There's the message, there's
Corey
16:51
there's the medium, and that includes the visuals and all of the choices you make around there. And then there's the messenger. And people forget
Zain
16:57
forget about that third
Corey
16:58
third one a lot because the way a message is received will be very different depending on who you are, which is kind of your point, but I want to broaden it a little bit further than that.
Corey
17:07
What's your level of trust with people? What's your reputation going in? have you said things in the past that absolutely take you out at the knees i mean because del duca did literally the day before he would say no gimmicks and then his campaign
Corey
17:19
a gimmick of somebody in a fucking chicken suit right and that becomes very easy to throw back in his face as a hypocrisy so uh you've got to think about your own personal brand when you're communicating as well and you can only push that brand so far and
Corey
17:34
and it's something that politicians would do well to remember you can't just grab tactics off the shelf from the 92 election not
Corey
17:41
not just because it's not 1992 but
Corey
17:43
because you're not bill clinton right
Corey
17:45
and so who are you and what are the tactics that are available to you and to be charitable there are probably tactics available to del duca that were not available to bill clinton i
Corey
17:54
i was about to say around integrity but i think people would argue that point but yeah
Corey
17:58
you know the man had a lot of negatives bill clinton i mean and
Corey
18:02
there were tactics he couldn't use too you've
Corey
18:05
you've got to think about these things about the players on your team not just in terms of tactics you can't you
Corey
18:10
can't run a triangle defense or offense with um with
Corey
18:14
with uh with the absolute wrong set no
Zain
18:16
no i agree what do you think carter i mean is shack and kobe you
Zain
18:20
you you you used to be the robert horry of the podcast i don't know where you are these days you're more like the you're more like the caruso i
Zain
18:27
i feel and that's a compliment and you should take it yeah
Carter
18:30
yeah i mean i'm all defense all the time um no
Zain
18:34
that's just the way it works good try good try though hey
Zain
18:36
i mean you had like a 50 chance hey cory talk to me talk to me about this though talk to me about what what you heard from carter as it relates to war
Zain
18:44
war room staffing as it relates to why are we in this boot loop of dusting off old tactics and trying to shoehorn them like i i don't know how many times you've seen it i've seen it so many times we're like like didn't obama do that didn't isn't that from like 92 isn't that from like the didn't the federal liberal like why are we why are we stuck in this weird boot loop i'm curious to get your take on this we don't haven't talked about this that often so so give me give me your thoughts yeah
Corey
19:10
yeah well one of the reasons is people want to take successful tactics and use them and you're right we see this all the time we see this with
Corey
19:17
with campaign ads that are basically shot for shot of
Corey
19:20
campaign ad in you
Zain
19:21
know a different jurisdiction
Corey
19:23
country even we see this with well we saw this with del duca when he was talking about if you don't show up for work you shouldn't get to keep your job which was just a remix of jack layton's famous if you don't show up for work you don't get a promotion line around question period performance uh performance in the house and uh you even see this with andrea horvath right now and uh the way they're leaning on their their high watermark of the last election campaign dropping pamphlets all over ontario saying hey last election we almost won ergo we are the only ones that can win this time which by the way wasn't a very good tactic the first time when Tom Mulcair was using it. Certainly not going to work again in Ontario. But people see things they like and they want to repurpose them. And I actually don't fault them for that. I don't think that there's a need to be absolutely original on every single situation. But what's important is you deconstruct it with enough sophistication that you say, this tactic worked for these reasons and we have all of those reasons available to us.
Corey
20:22
I don't think that level of sophistication is going into it.
Corey
20:26
When Carter was talking about the war room in general, I
Corey
20:29
I think this is a bigger point about campaigns. War rooms get worse the longer the campaign goes on. They absolutely lose their minds by virtue of what they do, which is they have to sit there and be pugnacious little fucks. And ultimately, that makes them not able to view anything except through that lens. And
Corey
20:49
And it's important that the war room doesn't lose focus on its actual audience, which is the swing voters in Ontario. Ontario there's
Corey
20:55
there's no way you're telling me that they tested that with swing voters in Ontario they never would have done it if they did yeah
Corey
21:00
that thing had that thing had the by the way other big difference in 92 campaign 92 campaign those chickens were getting up in George H.W. Bush's fucking face this one I could almost feel the sweat coming through the screen I could almost feel them saying let's get this done
Zain
21:14
done quickly and get
Corey
21:16
get the fuck out of here before somebody comes outside and says what are you doing right
Corey
21:19
and so who's the real chicken in that
Corey
21:22
because they didn't go near anybody
Corey
21:23
anybody on these campaigns and that's pretty
Zain
21:27
ridiculous that's a really really good point cory carter you know i want to talk i want to leave it on this this conversation regarding political
Zain
21:33
political tactics for just one more round which is i
Zain
21:36
i want to talk to you about risk like campaign risk thresholds because to me going down and and looking at tactics that have worked in the past is is equally a question of risk management and de-risking yourself as it is tactics that have worked right no one can ever blame you for doing the shot by shot ad that worked for obama even if the circumstances were different versus
Zain
21:58
versus an ad that was maybe fundamentally different right
Zain
22:01
right fundamentally new or creative it's all on you it's your original concept so talk to me have we calibrated risk correctly in our modern campaigns carter um
Carter
22:12
um i think that when you see something like that and and you're calculating risk of the tactic um
Carter
22:19
you know i think that this is actually a really good example of miscalculating the risk of saying you
Carter
22:24
you know this isn't going to be risky because it was done in 1992 exactly right
Carter
22:28
right uh and it was done on the west wing um so obviously it must work because the west wing is the best political program ever so um except it
Carter
22:38
it was it it didn't work on the west wing It barely worked in 92. We're miscalibrating the risk because we're ignoring the actual risks. We're not evaluating the success probability properly. And that frustrates me because the success probability is everything. Yeah.
Carter
22:59
So what is it? You know, and again, at the beginning of this, you kind of asked me, why would they do this? What would the what's the outcome that they're expecting? And I think I stumbled a lot because at the end of it, I don't know what they're what they're trying to achieve. It doesn't make sense to me to try this tactic because the tactic is like, what is it you're trying to achieve? Are you trying to come out of third place and make your way to first? Because this tactic doesn't get you there. So what is it you're trying to actually do? And I do a lot of shifting of tactics, but I don't do things like this
Carter
23:29
this type of stunt doesn't make sense. There is no real upside. The stunts that I do, like
Carter
23:35
like we did the signs for the Jyoti Gandek campaign. We put them up four
Carter
23:39
four months earlier, whatever it was. Well, that was a stunt designed to generate name
Carter
23:43
name awareness. You can look at the tactic
Carter
23:46
tactic and equate it to the strategic outcome that you're trying to achieve.
Carter
23:49
What is this tactic trying to drive except some sort of a perverse
Carter
23:54
This is where war rooms go wrong. And Corey hasn't brought this up yet. I gave him two or three different chances to do it. So now I'm going to use his words, right? Campaigns in the last week campaign against themselves. And this is one of those things where the Liberal Party of Ontario or Ontario Liberal Party was
Carter
24:10
was campaigning against itself and therefore caused itself pain because it didn't have the right people in the war room or it didn't have the checks and balances that were required to come up with the best possible outcome.
Zain
24:22
Corey, talk to me about risk as we've as we end on this chicken suit conversation have we miscalibrated
Zain
24:27
miscalibrated risk on political campaigns as it relates to execution of tactics and creativity well
Corey
24:33
well you know that you asked that and i immediately thought that's fascinating because do you think they thought this was a safe tactic i
Corey
24:41
i actually don't think i
Corey
24:42
i don't think it's a good point even
Zain
24:44
as carter responded i was kind of being like oh shit yeah like this is like a risky tactic when you see it in the outcome but maybe someone convinced him like it's been done before so maybe it's defanged a bit maybe it's be risked a bit i
Corey
24:56
don't know but that's that's a fascinating
Corey
24:57
fascinating question and um if that's the case then they really did take that there's this old cliche in the consulting world right bitterly said by any single shingle whenever
Corey
25:09
lose work to one of the majors right they'll say well that's because nobody ever got fired hiring x name a big agency right that's
Zain
25:16
that's a safe option yeah
Corey
25:18
the safe option is the one that the person who's actually doing the RFP is just going to go with because there's no risk. So if their own internal corporate politics are such that the
Corey
25:30
the risk reward is more on the risk side than the reward, they go with the big agency. Big agencies can throw a ton
Corey
25:37
ton of resources at things. You're always going to have product delivered, even
Corey
25:40
even if it's garbage or even if it's very mediocre. That's kind of the criticism that's thrown at big agencies from smaller groups right uh
Corey
25:48
i don't really know that that's what's happening here i feel like
Corey
25:53
so i do i say a lot that in the last week campaigns run against themselves and there's a few reasons for that one is we've talked about like they lose perspective lose
Corey
26:01
no longer can tell a good idea from a bad idea because they just hate the other guys so fucking much right hate
Corey
26:08
hate them so much assume everybody else hates them so much but you know what if they did they'd already be voting for you and you're behind that's
Corey
26:13
that's just not the case and And you've got to kind of check that fundamental assumption. The other reason campaigns run against themselves in the last week, though, is they run out of things.
Corey
26:21
The pantry is bare.
Corey
26:23
Maybe they didn't pace themselves particularly well. Maybe it's a situation where they thought they did, but all of the things they wanted to do are no longer seem relevant after three
Corey
26:35
So you've got to find whole new things. And so people just start grabbing shit, right?
Corey
26:39
And they make the mistake of assuming that any action is direction and
Corey
26:43
that any action is beneficial to a campaign. Hey,
Corey
26:47
what are we going to do tomorrow? I don't know. The boss wants us to get out two pieces of content on the Ontario Liberal War Room. Any ideas? Well, in 92, there was Chicken George, or more likely in 2004, there was a West Wing episode, whenever the year was. Maybe we could do that.
Corey
27:04
Big mistake. Big mistake. Because it assumes that all action is additive, And that is just fundamentally not the case in politics.
Zain
27:11
Carter, let's assess a couple of actions that we saw this week. Let's stick with Ontario because there's another tried and tested. And I hesitate to say true tactic because its success is varied. But we saw it in the last episode we recorded. Did we not talk about Hail Marys? Did we not talk about last minute, fourth and 20 Aaron Rodgers style throws? Well, OK, I don't know if you'd classify the leaked memo strategy, Carter. as that, but we now have two leaked memos. We have one from the Liberals, which is a memo written by their pollster or by a polling firm. I don't know if it is their pollster, our good friend Dan Arnold, in a memo indicating how the Liberals can maintain forward to a minority. It acknowledges some truths about them being double digits behind, but there's a strategic play to maintain a minority. And then Corey, the NDP leaked memo is less a leaked memo. It's more so a, if I'm not not mistaken, a redux of the Mulcair campaign 2015 saying, you know, the NDP have the best opportunity to win in this riding. Here's what it looks like. It shows like a graph of red. It shows a graph of orange. If you collapse here, orange is going to take the day, that sort of thing.
Zain
28:27
I want to get your takes on this, right? Like these were released about a week before the election, maybe eight to 10 days. So in that timeline we were discussing last time we recorded It was 10 days before the election.
Zain
28:38
Carter, first, more generally, the leaked memo slash leaked poll strategy. Talk to me about this, and then let's get into specifics of does it move the needle at all in Ontario?
Carter
28:49
I mean, it very clearly was a media specific.
Carter
28:52
specific. I've never seen, I mean, I've seen stuff that Dan's written before. This is not the stuff that Dan normally writes. This is something that was written for the public's consumption, especially the media's consumption. So this leaked memo was always designed to be a leak. And it's actually a far more appropriate Hail Mary, I would argue, than the chickens. The chicken costume
Carter
29:17
costume Hail Mary doesn't work, but this one actually did. It got them the coverage that they were looking for.
Carter
29:24
The media fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Good for the media.
Carter
29:29
But I think that there's
Carter
29:32
know, did it work overall? Well, I mean, it forced the NDP to put out their own memo,
Carter
29:39
memo, if you will, or whatever we want to characterize it as. So
Carter
29:42
it must have worked to a degree.
Carter
29:46
know, all of this is trying to get voters to vote strategically. And there are a small subset of the voters that will vote strategically. Far more voters vote emotionally. emotionally you know like we're gonna fuck this you know we want these fuckers out of here is a far better uh message than you know change
Carter
30:06
change your vote strategically so that we can get rid of these guys you
Carter
30:09
you know people didn't vote strategically in 2015 when they moved to to rachel notley they
Carter
30:14
they moved to rachel notley so that they could show jim prentice and the pc party
Carter
30:18
they could send a message they could get the leadership they would show everybody buddy exactly
Carter
30:22
exactly what they were thinking it was emotional it
Carter
30:25
it had power behind it it wasn't weak these
Carter
30:28
these these memos at the end of the day pretty weak not
Carter
30:31
not a very good hail mary it's like throwing a hail mary from the from your own 20 yard line to the midfield mark it's
Carter
30:37
it's just really not going to get you over the over the end zone that's
Zain
30:39
that's pretty good carter nicely done pretty good no that's good yeah
Zain
30:42
that's good it's like a josh allen arm uh
Zain
30:44
uh overrated josh allen i will say say cory uh yeah me
Zain
30:51
give you a shake on the on the on this leaked mo leaked poll strategy it's
Zain
30:55
it's not the first time we've seen it and we see a version of it in every fucking campaign well there's local is fuck yeah yeah
Corey
31:02
yeah it's groundhog day right this is this
Corey
31:04
this is a bit of a thread for this episode i guess i don't even think it was a hail mary from your own 20 yard line i think it was a quarterback sneak from your own 20 yard line it's
Zain
31:15
carter what is that
Zain
31:16
You laugh. Now you have to tell
Carter
31:17
tell us what it is.
Carter
31:19
See, I would have gone with a quarterback draw to draw them back and then run through the holes that the make's in the line. But quarterback sneak is just running forward and trying to get an extra yard. Okay,
Zain
31:28
Okay, fine, fine. Keep going, Corey. He knew what it was. I'll cut that out. Don't
Corey
31:30
Don't worry about that. We'll
Corey
31:33
Yeah, cut it out. Insert
Zain
31:34
Insert the part where he talks about David Hurley. That's good.
Corey
31:39
Yeah, so we were having a lot of fun when that leaked memo came out. We do all know Dan pretty well. And, uh, I was, I was saying like, oh, geez, do you think, do you think people are going to lose their jobs over this leak? Oh, this is so horrible. There's a leak in the war room of this memo. Can you imagine? People must feel terrible around there. Just awful that this memo leaked. This should probably ruin their entire day. I mean, give me a break.
Corey
32:02
The reason it sort of worked is
Corey
32:04
is because insofar as there was a news hook, it was that they were behind, right? It was a concession that they were not going to win, which liberals in
Corey
32:12
in this case, which
Corey
32:12
which Which maybe was not, that was probably the first time the liberals had said that in any kind of quasi-formal sense. The whole world knew that. I mean, there has not been a poll that's come out this entire campaign that has not had Doug Ford in the lead, the Ontario PC's in the lead. I
Corey
32:28
I think the consensus is probably around 10 points today, fluctuates around there.
Corey
32:32
But it was the first time they conceded that they were not likely to win, right? And so that was the interesting news hook of it. I don't believe it would have worked if the leaked memo was we are for sure going to win. And it's because look at all of these strategic opportunities that might be there. So
Carter
32:46
So that news hook
Corey
32:46
hook was important. So when you think about the tactic, it was a good application of the tactic, I suppose, because there was a reason for the media to jump on it. It wasn't just falling hook, line and sinker, in my opinion, is
Corey
32:57
is because there was actually something to report that had come out of that, which was the liberal acknowledgement of
Corey
33:03
of what we could also plainly see with our own eyes already. ready the
Corey
33:07
leak is a little bit different and definitely had a lot of a me too energy to it to your your point
Zain
33:12
point saying yeah yeah you
Corey
33:14
see this a lot when one campaign thinks a tactic is utter bullshit and
Corey
33:18
and they almost call out the utter bullshit by doing something equally bullshit this is most commonly seen i think with polls well that's a
Corey
33:25
poll so let's release our own bullshit poll and then everyone says oh i guess you know that's when the
Corey
33:30
questions start coming and they're like well i guess polls suck right yeah and i guess we can have the i I guess, leaked memos suck conversation coming out of this as well.
Corey
33:38
But ultimately, I do agree with Carter. I think the machinations of strategic voting or not, people,
Corey
33:48
I've long held that people are better at intuiting this in their neighborhood than we give them credit for. They can tell by the number of signs that are out there. They can tell by the buzz in their neighbors.
Corey
33:58
Doesn't work airbombed from central campaign. And
Corey
34:01
know that local campaigns matter. matter. They're not that naive about politics.
Zain
34:08
Carter, talk to me about what happens here for Ford and give me a sense of, is this just smooth sailing? Like we've got, and I don't want to get into another deep dive on strategy, but there is something to be said around strategy or lack thereof. When you're T minus three, four days, soak time for the public is negligible unless it's a massive story. A lot of people have already voted. How do you ride the clock out effectively? I mean, I could have asked that question three weeks ago for Doug Ford because he's been doing it. But anything special to consider as you ride out the clock in, let's say, the final 72 hours, the final 100 hours of the campaign? Anything you need to do as a frontrunner that any traps to not fall into or any engagements to not take as we round this out? And then, of course, I'll get you to predict Carter.
Carter
35:02
Yeah. Well, predicting will be easy. I mean, I think that the
Carter
35:05
the big thing is just don't step on your own, on anything, right? Like don't make a huge mistake.
Carter
35:10
Because ultimately, you know, if, if we go with Corey's idea that at the end,
Carter
35:17
at the end, we just don't want to, you know, see a, you
Carter
35:21
you know, something where you screw everything up for yourself. Right. And
Carter
35:26
right now it looks like you're going to win the election. Don't Fuck it up is probably the best way to put it. And more importantly, all of those big numbers in the provincial polls
Carter
35:35
polls mean virtually nothing, right? You're going to be looking at 100 plus ridings. Each one of those ridings needs to perform to their maximum or their negative, you know, to minimum. If I were running Doug Ford's campaign, I would just simply drop him into his home riding and
Carter
35:51
and have him perform in his home riding.
Carter
35:53
Because there's nothing to be gained in the rest of the province except potential downfall. Oh,
Zain
35:59
Oh, interesting. So you
Carter
35:59
you just get to run out the clock
Zain
36:00
clock at home pretty much.
Carter
36:02
I would because who's
Carter
36:04
who's your big, I mean, Doug Ford is your biggest opportunity. No question. He's a good politician. People seem to like him. He moves around. We talked about why we thought that a couple of podcasts ago, but
Carter
36:17
he's also a liability. He's still a Ford brother, right? Like you never know what a Ford brother is necessarily going to say at any given time. And I would just simply say to if I if I was running the campaign call today, I would say this is now in every constituency's hands. The primary campaign has given you a 10 point lead across the province. It is now up to you to get your votes out on Election Day. Advanced
Carter
36:41
Advanced polls are over. So every campaign focuses only on GOTV for the next three days. I don't want to see a press release go out. I don't want to see an event. I just want calls being made, doors being knocked, people being pushed to the polls. That's all I want to see. And that would be the tactics that I would take when you're literally this far ahead. And I don't see any evidence to suggest that Doug Ford's not significantly ahead. Corey,
Zain
37:10
Corey, I like the way Carter answered that question. What would your message on the morning call, either today or tomorrow, be for the troops?
Corey
37:17
Yeah, there's a way to deliver that. I wouldn't go necessarily as far, Stephen, because, again, we're all about mitigating risk. I think we agree that at this point, you just don't do anything that's likely to draw radar.
Corey
37:29
And going totally to the mattresses might draw radar. So you've got to have, I
Corey
37:33
I think, the most minimal campaign schedule that you can say, no, what are you talking about? We're still doing events. Come on, TVO.
Corey
37:39
We're out there. Doug Ford went to four different phone banks today where they were talking. So you've got to have a little bit of that going on and you just pick the ones that are least likely to be controversial in any way, shape or form.
Corey
37:50
Similarly for your local candidates, you don't want any suggestion that a call was put out with 72 hours to go disappear.
Zain
37:56
That would be problematic.
Corey
37:57
I do think on the morning call with the campaign managers, the director of the campaign could easily say,
Corey
38:03
well, it's been a good campaign. It's been a long campaign. We are in a situation where we're 10 points up. Now you got to bring it home. I need you to understand campaigns are not one at this point with press releases. campaigns are won at this point by working the phones, getting your vote out. We are now in GOTV terms, folks. And I don't want to see you using your resources inappropriately or wasting your time when it's all about getting people out the door and out to vote. So it's the same message, but it's delivered in a way that
Corey
38:29
that is really more about what you need to do now to win and comes more from a position of strength than a position of weakness. It's we're there. We just got to deliver as opposed to don't fuck it up. And I don't think Stephen was saying don't fuck it up would be the campaign message but from the central
Carter
38:45
central point of view
Carter
38:47
go do your work from
Corey
38:48
from the central point of view you're still gonna have to do a couple things but just enough to keep a
Corey
38:53
a somewhat credible narrative out there that you're you're still campaigning i'm
Zain
38:57
i'm gonna i'm gonna make you guys predict at the end we're gonna leave that segment there carter you know alternative name for this segment was one flew over the cuckoo's nest party by flare lines but we didn't go with that just so you know it wasn't was
Corey
39:08
was not brought by flip i
Zain
39:09
i just I just want to let you know that we had that alternative one brought to us by not our sponsor, our sponsor, Flare. But it didn't
Carter
39:14
didn't go where you wanted it to.
Zain
39:16
to. It really didn't.
Zain
39:18
Didn't take off. Didn't go where it – didn't do it. Didn't do it, Carter.
Zain
39:22
Carter, on Friday, you're on West of Center with David. Talk to me about your strategy for how you're going to tackle that conversation.
Carter
39:30
I think I'm going to open with an apology, and
Carter
39:33
and then we see where we go. Let's move it
Zain
39:34
to our next segment, our next segment, Rules of Engagement. Engagement, guys. I want to talk about two
Zain
39:40
two leadership campaigns. I want to talk about the UCP leadership campaign and the conservative leadership campaign with the time that we have remaining, which is all the time. Right, Carter? Because this is a Monday afternoon.
Carter
39:50
Yeah, as long as we want to go. Hey,
Zain
39:51
Hey, Carter, here's the first topic I want to hit on, which is the
Zain
39:54
the UCP leadership race.
Zain
39:57
We don't really know the timeline yet. We don't know the rules. So I want to kind of play fantasy rules makers with you guys. You are the UCP.
Zain
40:08
What are the best set of conditions and rules that you want in place for
Zain
40:14
for the best, most advantageous, most useful outcome for
Zain
40:25
What do those rules look like? So start with a few pieces and we'll yes and and build with Corey and come to like the dream set of rules that this party may want to consider or build for their strategic benefit and upside.
Carter
40:39
think there's going to be three starting points or three big questions you're going to need to answer for your rules. The first is, are you going to do some sort of one member, one vote or
Carter
40:50
or some sort of kind of
Carter
40:53
of hybrid, if you will? So points usually is the way that we do them, right? Each riding gets X number of points, 100 points. And then those points are allocated based on how
Carter
41:04
how many votes are done with each. So the advantage to doing one member, one vote is it's very simple. And everybody feels like, you know, membership should matter, right? It shouldn't matter if there's a thousand members in a riding or a hundred members in a riding. Like every member gets exactly one vote and one vote only. It shouldn't be diluted just because you live in an area where there's more conservatives, right? Right. So that would be that's
Carter
41:30
that's that's your first question. Are you going to do points or are you going to do one member, one vote? And then then the second question needs to be, how long do we need to do this thing over? Do
Carter
41:41
Do we want to do it over a short period of time or a long period of time?
Carter
41:45
And there's advantages to doing it over a short period of time. Your existing membership gets a longer gets a better say in it. Right. Right. So you've got 60,000 existing members. If you go right away, then you're able to, you know, kind of push it, push
Carter
42:01
push it forward. If
Carter
42:03
If you want to grow your membership, then the theory is a longer period of time makes the most sense. Obviously, I've expressed in my bias. Let's do things quicker. I think that quicker is better for most leaderships. But then the third is, and this is something that's kind of unique to the PCs or
Carter
42:22
the old conservatives in Alberta, and that is the runoff.
Carter
42:26
Do you want to do a top three runoff or
Carter
42:28
or do you want to just simply do an STV or a single transferable vote or ranked ballot? Those are basically your choices. You're not going to do a leadership on PR because proportional representation sucks on every level. So what you should be doing is, you
Carter
42:45
you know, developing that question, those questions and then answering them. If I was to answer them, I would say weighted
Carter
42:51
weighted is better for
Carter
42:53
for the actual party. If you want to get the best leader to win the next election, it
Carter
43:00
it is better to do not to do a runoff, but
Carter
43:03
but to do a single transferable vote.
Carter
43:06
If you don't want to see those third place candidates coming from behind. Right. Right.
Carter
43:11
If you don't want to see, you know, Alison Redford was in second, but she was a long way behind Gary Marr and she won. Ed Stelmack was in third and then overtook Ted Morton and Jim Denning. These kind of preferential
Carter
43:24
preferential there are these these runoffs at the end do create some weird outcomes. So and
Carter
43:30
and I would go shorter rather than longer. Those would be my kind of answers to the three big questions that I have.
Zain
43:35
So you'd go shorter. Let's summarize. You go shorter rather than longer. longer you would go on the on the point based versus the one member one vote what was your choice carter um
Carter
43:46
um i would go points based and
Zain
43:48
and then what was your your third one was it was related to
Carter
43:52
length of time okay
Zain
43:53
okay so you already answered that one talk to me about talk
Zain
43:55
talk to me about membership cutoff and
Zain
43:58
and hold on before you waste a lot
Corey
44:00
lot of time on that that is
Corey
44:02
in the ucp bylaws okay
Zain
44:03
okay well cory let's jump to you so tell me what yeah tell me what your like dream set set of rules are and then let's talk about the the guardrails they have to work with it yeah
Corey
44:11
yeah so the first of all looking at the terrain as it exists in the ucp we've got a couple of things to go on one is the bylaws which would actually take a fair bit of effort to change and would be a bit dicey to do at this moment one of the things uh and there's not a lot about the leadership contest in the bylaws but the one thing that it does say is
Corey
44:29
is that you're eligible to vote as long as you're a member like
Corey
44:32
like it defines that for a candidate for leader for all of these things the membership cutoff is three weeks before 21 days right
Corey
44:39
so that's that's your situation there i don't know anybody who in their right mind would want to take that on at
Zain
44:44
at this particular moment um
Zain
44:46
you mean to fight that or change that yeah
Corey
44:48
yeah i like to fight that or change that because again the bylaws of the party you'd have to have like a sgm in between and then it becomes just a proxy fight that just gets really messy and and for what i think any marginal gain would be seen as crass calculation and when you
Corey
45:02
you know that there's already going to be questions in terms of is this a fair process just Best let that dog lie.
Corey
45:08
Length, easy. Agree with Carter, short. Got to be quick for a couple of reasons. One is if you are actually worried about the party being
Corey
45:17
being united or not, best not to let these things fester. Best not to let these things go on. Just
Corey
45:22
it. Just get it done. Before you can have any deep acrimonies and long-seated grudges beyond what you're already going to have to deal with. Because let's face it, they're
Corey
45:30
they're already in kind of a strange place. place. The point of conflict I have with my good friend Stephen Carter is on this point system.
Corey
45:39
It's got to be one member, one vote. When you think about where,
Corey
45:44
where, again, future criticisms may come,
Corey
45:48
here's the thing. If you put in a point system and somebody wins only because they have the cities but don't have as many votes as they do in rural Alberta, you've split your party in two. That's going to be everything that's needed for the Drew Barnes's of the world to go out and say, you
Corey
46:01
you know what, this party has lost its grassroots ideals. You could win the leadership and lose the party if you took that approach. The other thing is the default option is going to be one member, one vote. And
Corey
46:13
you know, it's not going to perceive as gaming one way or the other on that. You're just going to have to work within those lines. And that's what I think you
Corey
46:21
you got to do if you're the UCP board.
Zain
46:24
Carter, talk to me about the
Zain
46:26
the rules as it relates to how they promote the candidates in such a short amount of time like what does it look like if you're one of these campaigns and and when we talk about short how short are you thinking here like are you thinking by
Zain
46:40
by fall they've got a leader by the end of summer they've got the leader what what is what does short mean to you short
Carter
46:46
short means uh probably the second week and it's september um
Carter
46:50
um and the reason for that is i would want to give the new leader the opportunity so So, first of all, I think that short races are better, keeping in mind that, you know, you want a lot of candidates in this or you want good candidates in this. You don't want this to be Brian Jean versus Travis
Carter
47:08
Travis Taves versus, you know, Danielle Smith. You
Carter
47:12
You want there to be a number of candidates in there that could actually, you
Carter
47:15
you know, help bring the party together instead of breaking it apart. part.
Carter
47:19
Um, so the more candidates, the better, um,
Carter
47:22
um, and the shorter the campaign, then
Carter
47:24
then the more candidates you can get in, uh,
Carter
47:26
uh, cause it's just not going to cost as much, right? If you run a six or seven, I've been involved in two or three leadership campaigns that have been nine months plus.
Carter
47:37
there's payments that need to be made. You need a campaign office, campaign manager. You need all these different pieces. All of those pieces cost you real money. And that that that's really an obstacle to getting and keeping people in. But more important in this particular instance, the shorter race gives you another option for when you call your general. Right.
Carter
47:55
Right. If you don't call your general, like if you want to have an option of calling a snap after the election, you've got to have the leadership over in early September, the end of September at the absolute latest, so that that leader can come in and say, I need a new mandate. Boom. boom, we're going to the polls. And I think that's the only way that you can keep the party together. Because if it's Danielle Smith that wins, half the party is going to want to leave, right? And that half the party that's going to leave isn't given that opportunity if you go to a snap. Hey,
Zain
48:26
Hey, Corey, I'm going to clarify this point. Is it helpful for the UCP in a short race to have many candidates on stage to make this 15 rather than six? Like, talk to me about like scope and scale. And then I also want to talk about cost. Carter said it doesn't cost as much, but also like the entry fee in certain leadership races for example a federal one i think could be half a million dollars in certain cases so talk to me about what you feel like as it relates to what's a good visual representation for them on stage more or less and then like where would you set the entry fee for something like this so
Corey
48:59
so i think for the ucp i really like the idea of a lot of candidates i think we talked about this on the live show the more candidates there are i think the less likely that it splinters if there's just
Corey
49:08
candidates in a head up heads up fight and one One of them is clearly identified as pro-Jason Kenney or maybe urban, and the other is identified as anti-Jason Kenney or maybe rural.
Corey
49:17
You're going to have a bit of a problem, and it might be more difficult to keep the party together down the road. Maybe not an outright split, but maybe a lot of grumbling. Maybe your team's not together in a way that you need going into an election. So 15's a bit nuts. I worked on a campaign in the 2006 Liberal leadership. We won because it was the Dion campaign. I'll tell you, like there were so many candidates. It was so difficult.
Corey
49:44
Like, you know, like it was difficult for anybody to pay attention to anything. And it was lucky it was a delegated convention because I'm not otherwise sure how anybody would have managed it.
Corey
49:52
And there's no way the UCP is going to do a delegated convention. So I think you've got to keep it more around five or six. That's probably optimal in my opinion there.
Corey
50:02
terms of like the fee again knowing where the criticisms might come informs what i would recommend here
Corey
50:08
here which is just
Corey
50:09
just stick to what it was before i i'll have to look at what the 2017 rules were but it can't look like it's any more prohibitive than
Corey
50:17
than before or like that the challenge you have is that the the ucp board is perceived as a pro kenny board so you just want to run this thing as kind of as
Corey
50:26
as based on precedent and as clean as possible and so not
Zain
50:30
not not big numbers that's for sure.
Zain
50:31
Carter, entry fee and candidates on state, what's your take? More candidates good and entry fee relatively low?
Carter
50:38
Relatively low. I mean, I agree with Corey. You don't want to have an entry fee that is ridiculously high nor ridiculously low. So when I say lots of candidates, I don't mean 16.
Carter
50:49
I'm thinking six to eight candidates. Six would probably be better than eight, but four isn't as good as six. So how do you hit that sweet spot? Well, you probably regulate, late. Corey's exactly right. Whatever the fee was last time is the fee that should be done this time. I'm hearing rumors of something higher than it was before, something like $200,000. That would be suicide for
Carter
51:10
for the party. That would keep it... I mean, Danielle and
Carter
51:13
and Brian and Travis should have no problem raising that, but
Carter
51:16
but that kind of center-right candidate, the
Carter
51:20
people who would be seen like the Doug Schweitzer, now that he's dropped out, we can just pick on Doug, but But the Doug Schweitzer type may struggle with that. And that might have even been part of the reason why Doug Schweitzer dropped out. He
Carter
51:33
He sees this as a campaign that
Carter
51:36
doesn't make sense for him because he's hearing that
Carter
51:39
that it's going to be more constrained. It's going to be more expensive. It's going to be longer. Things like that. If you start hearing that, you'll start seeing people drop out. Hey,
Zain
51:45
Hey, Corey, talk to me about if the party nudges people to run in
Zain
51:52
in the sense of they want more than less on that stage. They want to showcase that they're not in that trap, as you mentioned, that binary.
Zain
52:01
Have you seen in the past that the party's been nudging people to run? And do you feel like that's going to happen in this case or silently? We may never see it or never hear of it. But talk to me about that a bit.
Corey
52:11
Yeah, I mean, parties nudging people to run is fine as long as it's a bit of what I would term like a neutral, broad based nudging. Hey, I really think you should run. It would be great for democracy just to have more choices. You hear that kind of generic language all of the time in leadership contests, in nomination contests more generally. So, yeah,
Corey
52:28
yeah, absolutely. I think they will do that because that's one of the few ways that they can manipulate
Corey
52:34
manipulate the race without being accused of manipulation, right? It's good for democracy to have more people involved. And
Corey
52:41
And in general, one of the things you want to do as a party, one of your responsibilities as a party is to support a range of options, right? right? A range of options for your memberships and a range of options for your party going forward. It's part of why Steven said the thing he said about why
Corey
52:57
why you want to run an early race. You run an early race and you have a range of options as a party. You can go right away if it's in your interest to snap. You can give yourself a little bit of time if it's not in your interest to snap.
Corey
53:08
And similarly, you've just got to be looking at all of the various things that are out there and saying, how do I make sure I have as many choices as possible? Carter,
Zain
53:16
Carter, talk to me about this three weeks in the UCP compared to the 99 days between
Zain
53:22
between the membership cutoff in the Conservative Party and the actual date of the leadership.
Zain
53:27
Talk to me about the difference here and what do you think the ramifications are going to be on the federal side now? Because we've seen quite clearly the Brown strategy was to say, ignore these existing members. Let me sign up as many new ones, sprint to the third. and now you can even see it in a strategy starting to walk back some comments that the base might appreciate oh i'm sorry social conservatives i didn't say i didn't mean you were monsters when i said that oh i'm sorry you know i'm a true conservative what do you kind of make of the dynamics there on the federal side right now well
Carter
53:57
well i mean and once the membership closes all of a sudden um you
Carter
54:01
you know you're now in a in a conversion mode where you're trying to convert everybody to your side and it's a i mean
Carter
54:08
mean it's it's tried and true to shift the way that you operate within that model um so you know this is a pretty standard play to do that i mean you're even watching pierre poliev's numbers come down now that the membership uh
Carter
54:23
uh you know that that's coming from some of the direct attacks that are being made on him um
Carter
54:28
as you're trying to switch over voters So I think that 99 days is far too long to have between the membership cutoff. Normally, you need at least a couple or three weeks between
Carter
54:39
between the membership cutoff and the vote just to make sure all your memberships are processed. You've got a logistics problem.
Carter
54:45
You know, who do you know that is a member? If we did everything online, then it's relatively straightforward. But many of these parties still work on a paper book method or paper and credit card method, paper and check method, paper and cash method. Um, all of which are, you know, I've seen, you know, tens of thousands of memberships handed off to the party office, uh, with two weeks until the leadership and they're expected to enter them all into the system and verify that they're allowed to have a membership. I mean, it's a fairly daunting task. So I think that 99 days is too long. I think that two weeks might be too short. So three weeks seems to, for me, hit probably the sweet spot, although I am reticent to give any
Carter
55:30
any credit at all to the UCP ever. Corey,
Zain
55:33
Corey, what do you make of this nearly 100-day lag between membership cutoff and the actual race?
Corey
55:40
Well, it was at the time a compromise, right, between camps that wanted an even longer cutoff. Basically, if you're not a member right now or imminently, you shouldn't get to vote. And those who wanted to run it to the end. And I think a great example that a compromise is not inherently good, right? Right. This is a
Corey
55:58
classic. You know, if you're in a situation where somebody is is beating somebody senseless and the other person is saying, stop hitting me. The correct solution is not, well, just half hit them. Right. Sometimes you've got to look at the merits of it and say, no, there's a there's a better way to do this. There's a right and there's a wrong. And we have to fight that distinctly Canadian urge just to say, let's split the difference sometimes. times so this does in some ways seem like the worst of both worlds because there
Corey
56:24
there are only so many people and they are of a very certain build who
Corey
56:28
who are going to join a political party this far out from the main event right
Corey
56:33
um and and so when the interest is coming it's
Corey
56:37
it's too late it's too late you're not going to be able to get that membership and steven's right we are starting to see some
Corey
56:42
some changes uh well abacus is tracking some changes in how people are perceiving the candidates particularly Pierre Poliev and his negatives going up the longer this goes on. And if you view a leadership contest, particularly a long one as a crucible, that's supposed to actually determine whether they've got the stuff to go the distance. Why
Corey
57:00
Why are you cutting them off? You know, the participants off so early when one of those really important inputs is, can they engage people? And that engagement naturally is going to grow as the campaign comes to a close, right? So three Three weeks logistically makes sense. 99 days, I
Corey
57:17
I don't get it. I don't get it at all.
Corey
57:20
And there's a bigger point here, I
Corey
57:24
guess, which is party membership for decades. I haven't actually gone into this in depth since about 2011 or so. But party membership has been declining for a long time. Fewer and fewer people are becoming party
Corey
57:35
party members. And that's a bit ironic because the individual party members probably got as much power as they've ever had. They're no longer filtered through delegates. I'm going to vote this way on policy. I'm going to vote this way for leader and this way for candidate,
Corey
57:48
And so, you know, we have decided somewhere along the way, intentionally or unintentionally, to allow parties to be run by these narrower, less representative groups.
Corey
58:01
And I don't know. I don't know why we want to be fostering that further by setting these really long, way-out-there deadlines. Deadline for the Conservatives is, like, Friday.
Zain
58:12
We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, how
Zain
58:17
how concerned on a scale of 1 to 10 would you be right now
Zain
58:21
if you are Pierre Polyev's campaign? You see, to Corey's point, your negatives are starting to track higher. Patrick Brown is making the shift. How would you – how
Zain
58:30
how bad would you feel? One is, hey, we're chilling. Ten is, listen, this
Carter
58:41
Well, I mean, if I was on Pierre Polyev's campaign, I probably would require frontal lobotomy. But this is to me a this is
Carter
58:49
is a real turning point. And if he's not doing well with existing members, you
Carter
58:55
you know, we'll start to see what the real membership numbers are in the coming weeks. And
Carter
58:59
if it starts hitting the numbers that were projected, keep in mind that a half million members was at one point projected,
Carter
59:04
projected, then I'd be shitting my pants if I was Pierre Polyev because
Carter
59:07
I'm not sure that Pierre sold many of those memberships. And the reporting that's coming out, granted
Carter
59:16
is that, you know, you've got a
Carter
59:19
a number of people who are reconsidering the Pierre Polyev train and whether or not it'll get them to the destination they're looking for. Corey,
Zain
59:26
Corey, how concerned are you if you're on the peer camp right now on a scale of 1 to 10?
Corey
59:31
I don't think I'm massively concerned because there is that baked-in 99-day advantage. But, you know, this is an interesting – this is going to be an interesting week. It's going to be a really interesting week.
Corey
59:42
week. And I'll tell you, one
Corey
59:43
one of the things that I've been sitting here thinking as I've been looking at the Conservative Party leadership
Corey
59:47
leadership coming once again to a head for the third time in X number of years here is that But there is this kind of trajectory where the more extreme voices in the party have more and more power, like we were just talking about. And
Corey
1:00:01
And maybe it's not in Canadians' interest that we keep allowing assholes to make all of the decisions about political leadership here.
Corey
1:00:08
mean, I am putting out a call right now for
Corey
1:00:10
for 100,000 reasonable Canadians to save this bloody country by buying leadership memberships in every party's leadership campaign, regardless of their politics. and don't vote for the worst
Corey
1:00:21
candidate or the most ideologically pure candidate vote for the candidate that you're like well they're a conservative but at least you know they seem somewhat reasonable well they're a new democrat but i think that they understand these economic policies a fair bit well they're a liberal but they don't seem entirely corrupt just so i get all three of them in and get their digs in here it's
Corey
1:00:39
it's not the craziest idea i do worry that we have created these systems where it's so repugnant for people to join the party and
Corey
1:00:46
and as a result we We are getting the leaders that we're asking for here. So
Corey
1:00:49
So let's just, you
Corey
1:00:51
Okay, well, let's fix this. Yeah,
Carter
1:00:56
presupposes that there's 100,000 reasonable Canadians. And I see no evidence that indicates that there's 100,000 reasonable Canadians. Corey, yes or no?
Zain
1:01:06
Good luck. I'm going to stick with you, Corey, on this next one. Yes or no, will the UCP have a short leadership race? and i'll i'll clarify that with the date before the end of october of this year oh
Zain
1:01:17
oh yeah for sure i
Corey
1:01:18
i i would guess maybe even by the end of september or first week of october carter yes or no they
Corey
1:01:24
they have a short leadership
Carter
1:01:24
leadership it's a smart thing to do it's the right thing to do it's the only thing that makes sense to anybody with a half a brain it will be over sometime in november
Zain
1:01:33
stephen carter the ongoing saga between uh west jet and flare airlines deserves its own special But I just wanted to get a blood oath to which of the two traveler – I should even – I said, is it our sponsor or is it WestJet, Carter? I'm testing loyalties. Where are you at and who are you with?
Carter
1:01:53
Let me tell you something. WestJet used to be a low-cost provider. Now it is the high-cost provider with no service. So I got to come in with our not-our-sponsor, Flair Airlines, who may
Carter
1:02:04
may not get you anywhere, but they're charging you less. So I appreciate that. Pretty
Zain
1:02:08
Pretty good. Corey, when I get to you, I'm charging you less. Have your loyalty shifted? And if so, we'll need to get rid of you. Corey, over to you. So
Corey
1:02:16
of all, not our sponsor.
Corey
1:02:18
all, if you're going to look at the case on the merits, you've got three, let's just call it three camps who have different views. Established parties such as WestJet, of course, they would love to strangle Flair and just leave it dead on the side of the road before it can get going anywhere. Their demands are deeply unreasonable, right? Right. Meanwhile, if you're Flair, of course, you'd like to be able to do what you want and break all of the regulations and play this New England Patriots. Oh, I just misinterpreted the rules bullshit. I'm sorry. I didn't know that you actually meant Canadian ownership when you said Canadian ownership are bad. Right.
Corey
1:02:50
Of course, the interesting part of here is the government regulator, because they've got to take a more nuanced approach here. They want the rules followed. They can't have people stepping over the rules, but they don't want to destroy competition. competition so
Corey
1:03:01
expect that you're going to end up with most
Corey
1:03:03
most of west jet's demands about no more subsidies for them don't allow them to fly don't allow them to sell any more tickets if you do let them fly that nonsense forget it they'll
Corey
1:03:14
they'll be given a transition period i suspect and they'll be told that they're on double and this time we mean at probation oh
Zain
1:03:21
my god core you literally just have to say you're with flair airlines that's all this question was for this was not for a giant explanation got stephen carter can you talk some sense into cory or what the hell i
Carter
1:03:34
can't talk any sense into cory we've been doing like a thousand episodes of this podcast we found out that i can't talk literally said
Zain
1:03:40
said we'll do a special on this thank you for that cory stephen's
Zain
1:03:43
stephen's got to go okay
Zain
1:03:45
stephen final question to you who
Zain
1:03:47
who will be the official leader of the opposition in ontario we know who's going to take the top job stephen carter as we round out this episode who will be the official leader of the opposition in
Zain
1:03:58
in ontario's upcoming election i
Carter
1:04:00
believe it's going to be the chicken cory
Corey
1:04:03
cory who will be the official leader of the opposition i
Corey
1:04:07
can't top that so i'm just going to hit the music we're
Zain
1:04:10
we're going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 994 of the strategist my name is zane belger with me as always cory hogan stephen carter we'll see you next time