Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 996. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what
Zain
0:10
what is going on? Well,
Carter
0:11
Well, I'm a little bit upset that we haven't hit the production values of the January 6th committee. So I'm assuming that Corey's going to reach
Carter
0:19
reach into the unlimited joke budget and produce the show a little bit better next week,
Carter
0:23
you know, so we can hit the January 6th committee level. We
Zain
0:25
We promise, let me tell you something, Carter, we promise those production levels at 10,000 subscribers. Oh.
Zain
0:31
so far, the subscribers are letting us down, okay? We are going to hire the executive of CNN, ABC, NBC at 10,000 subscribers. We hire all of them, Corey, and they will produce their show. That is what we've guaranteed to this audience. Yeah, not a guarantee. But
Zain
0:46
I like them. 10
Zain
0:48
Why are you always tempering us? Yeah. Why are you always tempering us, Corey? I mean, we'd be bigger than Canada land. It'd be
Zain
0:55
or would we carter who else do you want to get it out of your system who else do you want a sharp elbow at the beginning of the show it seems like it's uh it's not happening
Zain
1:03
every just get it out i have
Carter
1:04
have nothing but love in my heart
Zain
1:06
insert insert for everybody okay no one in particular really
Carter
1:11
really needed a little bit of guidance and direction last time but i was there for him you know canada
Carter
1:18
canada land that's good continues to take up all the money in the independent media area i guess now we're media if duncan kinney can be called a journalist surely i can't you
Carter
1:28
you know like it's it's all
Zain
1:32
cory did i just make a big mistake there yeah it's great okay
Zain
1:36
uh guys you know listen this is a thursday patreon episode and we have promised a
Zain
1:41
a couple of things to our our patreon subscribers number one uh we would try to record uh at least a couple episodes a month i think we've been more than fulfilling that. In fact, I've told Corey many times I don't want to show up on Thursday. These fuckers have had enough. But here I am again on a Thursday recording. But secondly, Corey, we've also promised that some of those episodes will be special. That
Zain
2:05
That some of those episodes will be gift wrap in
Zain
2:09
gift wrap. They'll be gift wrap in special itself. Yeah,
Corey
2:12
Yeah, it's not just that stuff that you get at shoppers on Christmas Eve. I'm excited that you're
Carter
2:18
you're listening to my two suggestions that i made this week right that we do an in-depth dive into proportional representation you know that was one of my big ones i can't remember what the second one was but it's very important um so i'm excited we're going with
Zain
2:30
with the second one carter yeah we're going with the second one because let's move it on to our first and only segment our first segment do you smell what the rock is cooking guys we are going to do a
Zain
2:43
a deep dive This was not one of my suggestions.
Carter
2:45
suggestions. On the UCP
Zain
2:48
is what I knew
Zain
2:51
We're doing a deep dive on the UCP leadership race. And as we know, there are some real candidates running in this race. And let me just read you some of the candidates, okay?
Zain
3:02
We know about Travis Taves, Stephen Carter. We talked about Travis Taves at length last episode. Danielle Smith, Corey, of course, corrected me. Said, listen, Zane, Danielle Smith was the first to go. So we know about Danielle Smith. just today, Stephen Carter Brian Jean officially announced with his
Zain
3:18
campaign rally, he's already
Corey
3:20
already been on the
Zain
3:20
the list but his branding and everything came out we of course know about Todd Lohan we're now hearing Lila Ahear earlier this week has announced that she's running for the leadership race, we're hearing rumors of Rajan Sani leaked memo we've got leaked memo, we might address that at some point
Zain
3:43
Carter yeah she's in also part of the list of candidates that might run but none of those candidates Corey
Zain
3:53
well Bill Rock is Bill Rock exactly
Zain
4:00
what we're going to do over the course of the next however long it takes is we are going to design a campaign for the underdog of underdogs Mayor
Zain
4:09
Mayor Bill Rock and for that that corey i'm
Zain
4:13
i'm air is such a stretch for
Zain
4:18
please lay lay it out for the people who is one bill rock who is one william the bill rock uh
Zain
4:27
uh mayor of where for how long corey give us some baseline facts and then carter we're gonna talk about the rock pathway to victory corey
Zain
4:35
we're gonna talk about the rock brand okay we're gonna talk about the brock policy we're gonna talk about how he rocks your world in this ucp leadership race but cory first give us a sense of who bill rock is all
Corey
4:47
all right well first of all i think we need to let everybody know that in preparation for this we were allowed to read exactly one article called what
Corey
4:56
what was it like the fifth unheard candidate or something has entered the race so rural alberta
Zain
5:03
alberta gets a voice that needs to be leadership right we also rock
Zain
5:05
the fifth and least known contender to register cory
Corey
5:08
cory that was the lead of the article the fifth and least known contender i
Corey
5:12
i did also cheat and look up the wikipedia article for the the town that he is mayor of so he's mayor of amisk alberta um
Corey
5:21
um i i've traveled this province a lot i've hit all four corners i've gone to all sorts of towns i had never heard of amisk alberta this is this is a deep cut for the alberta heads out there like this is this is not Not somewhere that you're immediately going to be able to place on a map, even if you live in the province and have kind of, you know, an OKG census geography here.
Corey
5:44
Amisk has a population, I'm quoting from Wikipedia here, In the 2021 census of population conducted by Statistics Canada, the village of Amisk had a population of 219 living in 86 of its 105 total private dwellings, a change of 7.4% from its 2016 population of 204.
Corey
6:06
uh it goes on can i just it gives me the land area can i just and the population here's
Corey
6:09
here's what i like about amos
Zain
6:10
amos cupboard and carter i'll let you go in a second cory thank you for some incredible stats sir if you go to amos.ca uh of course the official website of the village of amos you will see that the village of amos has an address the entire place has one address i like that i like that a lot cory carter you wanted to jump in about about some special facts here made it
Carter
6:30
it sound like no one could ever find this place on a map and the truth of the matter is It's just on Highway 13. It's just northwest of Hugh Endenden, which
Carter
6:39
which is right by Czar, Alberta, you know, out by Buffalo View. So it's not that hard to find this place.
Corey
6:49
Listen, it is actually not so far from Hardesty, is my understanding, which is a location that Albertans would know. Yeah, but if you do Hardesty,
Carter
6:55
Hardesty, then people might know where it is. But the Czar and Hugh Endenden.
Corey
7:00
this is this is germane for our conversation to come when we talk about the brand
Corey
7:06
what was his name bill rock
Carter
7:10
christ we've already got the slogan right we've already got the slogan if you don't do the slogan no carter don't
Zain
7:14
don't let's look carter what what what at a time what at a time no no no
Zain
7:22
bill rock i got
Corey
7:23
got a little bit distracted talking about amos galberta which i may or may not be pronouncing properly here uh the other thing that we know is that um he uh he ran for the wild rose he placed third with 21.5 of the vote uh
Corey
7:41
uh that was in 2015 he uh stepped down from nate hoarder's constituency board to run in the leadership and
Corey
7:48
and he uh doesn't believe the other candidates have been standing up for rural alberta when it comes to pressing issues such as rural rural crime, health care, and getting a, quote, fair deal.
Corey
7:58
Rock also recalled how Kenny, during his bid in 2017,
Corey
8:03
brought up a 17-year-old working at an ESSO station in the nearby town of Hardesty to support his family, while
Corey
8:09
while speaking about the importance of getting pipelines built, and then said he's never come back of
Corey
8:14
talks about rural crime, talks about the size of the oil industry and the importance of it, and he talks about ambulance wait times. That's basically it. That's what we know about Bill Rock. But I think that's enough. Oh, yeah.
Corey
8:26
I think that's enough to create an
Zain
8:28
an idiot. I think that's plenty. You know, especially when you add on, Carter, that the Amos convenience store has a 4.3 out of 5 star rating on Google reviews, including this lovely review. Quaint and cozy, love the bathroom wall of beautiful handmade and uplifting quotes, three stars. So, Carter, you know, we've got...
Zain
8:48
I have questions. It's true. That is a real review. you uh carter uh based on that and some of the other facts corey's throwed uh at the table um anything else you want to add as baseline fact to um to when bill rock his candidacy where he's from and of course the mayorship no i
Carter
9:04
i mean i just want to throw in that that anybody without social media accounts uh who doesn't uh who
Carter
9:11
who doesn't register on any on any information um that jumps into the the leadership race that's my kind of candidate so
Carter
9:18
i am looking forward to this because anybody who can start at one or two percent i
Carter
9:22
mean this guy's not even there right like he might be at
Carter
9:24
at point one percent that
Carter
9:26
that i can't believe this guy hasn't called me because
Carter
9:29
because those are my those are the candidates those are the type
Zain
9:31
type of those are your people those are your people get it
Zain
9:34
uh cory cory we're starting the bill rock campaign from scratch on this show where should we start because as much as i can jump around their brand and the path and all these things Where is the natural place for us to start, Corey?
Corey
9:48
All right. Well, I actually think Mr. Bill Rock here hasn't done a terrible job of feeling his way to the starting line, which is to say he's got to have a reason to exist that
Corey
9:57
that separates him from the other candidates. He's got a wedge to them. He's got to create his own ballot question here. And so he has talked a bit about wanting to be a voice for rural Alberta. I don't think that's enough. You can't necessarily win the leadership with that alone. Certainly it would hold you back. try to be premier. We do need to think about the fact that if Bill Rock were to win, he would become the premier of Alberta. But as a starting point, he's identified a niche that he believes he can serve better than the other candidates in the race. And that is a
Corey
10:28
a smart starting point. Has he made the right decisions here? Has he gotten to the right starting point?
Corey
10:35
I think he's limited himself. I think he thinks the province of Alberta might be a little bit bit more rural than it is you know two-thirds of us live in two cities and then there are other major population centers beyond that so i think bill rock might be making his box a little bit small but our first step here has got to be you
Corey
10:52
know take deciding in marketing we call this do we want a red ocean or blue ocean strategy red ocean is i can be better than the other candidates on their grounds blue ocean as i can find new turf i feel our friend bill's going for blue ocean so So
Zain
11:06
you are you in agreement? Blue Ocean is the right call, Corey?
Corey
11:10
Yeah. Well, look, I think that the reality is without much of a track record, besides for being mayor of a town smaller than I think the three square blocks around me where I'm currently sitting in Calgary, that's absolutely the right call.
Carter
11:26
Yeah. I mean, I think that also the voice
Carter
11:28
voice of rural Albertans, I would just drop rural and just say the voice of average Albertans, the ones that have been left behind. Well, you see,
Carter
11:36
you know, like he's got he's
Carter
11:37
he's got great capacity to jump in and actually do something.
Carter
11:42
know, he talks about ambulance wait time. We just had a woman die in
Carter
11:46
in Calgary because she was near us, guys, you
Carter
11:50
who was attacked by three dogs in her own backyard, who
Carter
11:53
who waited for 30 minutes for an ambulance. This is not a rural issue. It's an Alberta issue. And Bill
Carter
12:00
Bill can say, you know, it's it's bad in the cities. It's worse in rural Alberta. We know of what we speak. And he could come in on that particular issue. And he can also come in on fair deal.
Carter
12:11
The fair deal panel hasn't been implemented properly.
Carter
12:14
From that side, he could come in really hard on fair deal, not just a fair deal for rural Alberta, but a fair deal for Albertans. No one else is talking about it. There was a panel that was done. We were supposed to get a number of different changes. We haven't seen anything. Jason Kenney's dropped the ball on it because he
Carter
12:31
he wanted it as a cudgel to beat upon Justin Trudeau, but that's
Carter
12:37
that's not enough. People in Alberta actually wanted to see that change. So I think that you could do a few policy positions that Bill
Carter
12:44
Bill Rock could really stand out from the rest because he's talking about things
Carter
12:48
things that really impact Albertans. He's not afraid to fight against the former party.
Corey
12:54
feel like we're adding more meat to the bone, Corey. For sure. So building on that, I think Carter is given
Corey
13:00
given a pretty good foundation here where he can say our problems in Amisk, Alberta are Alberta's problems. We're feeling them more acutely because of where we are.
Corey
13:10
But we're talking about ambulance
Corey
13:12
ambulance wait times. Stephen's given an example of really fucking dystopian. We're talking inner city Calgary. A woman was killed by three dogs and couldn't get an ambulance for for
Corey
13:20
for 30 minutes here.
Corey
13:21
you can certainly talk about the economic considerations you can certainly talk about a police presence uh to to urban residents as well and so we start to see a bit of a policy basis where he can he can talk about these issues in a way that i think is um you
Corey
13:37
you know sincere the other thing is who he is now i know he is the mayor but everybody else on that list that you've mentioned is a politician like a let's even just call them for the purposes of this contrast career
Corey
13:53
involved in the game
Corey
13:54
game of thrones drama in downtown edmonton not
Corey
13:57
not working for you meanwhile whether
Corey
13:58
whether you're in amisk alberta or
Corey
14:00
or the community of capitol hill in calgary what's
Corey
14:04
you need somebody who actually has to deal with these issues on the ground and you know what as
Corey
14:08
as the mayor of a village he's
Corey
14:09
he's got to understand policing he's got to understand the economy he's got to understand um
Corey
14:14
um you know traffic zane to the point you made about um
Corey
14:19
you know the the convenience store nearby, the convenience store.
Corey
14:23
Think about how all of these things hit the road when you're the mayor of a small town. You don't have a big staff like the mayor of a big city does. He understands these issues. So I
Corey
14:32
I mentioned this in the context of when we're talking about building the Bill Rock brand.
Corey
14:37
The Bill Rock brand can be not
Corey
14:39
not the voice for rural Alberta, but a voice from rural Alberta that can be a voice for all of us. Now,
Zain
14:45
Now, Carter, let's talk about that brand. Are
Zain
14:47
Are you going with something like Mayor Bill? Are we doing the Mayor Pete thing? Are we doing a fighter leader winner, the Patrick Brown mayoral campaign? Last time we've heard someone try to port themselves from mayor to a different office. What is the Bill Rock brand here? What do you think, Carter? I
Carter
15:03
I think you got to dump into the opportunity of being around from that area of Hardesty, Alberta, right?
Carter
15:09
right? Hardesty, Alberta, the refinery, the products
Carter
15:12
products that are coming out of there were mentioned in the article. and i think that you know bill
Carter
15:16
bill rock can really jump into the slogan hard as a rock um i think hard as a rock no
Carter
15:25
i think hard as a rock someone who's going to stand up for your stand up straight hard hard
Carter
15:31
artistry is a rock and you're going to stand up straight you're going to fight you know you're going to you're going to penetrate your
Carter
15:37
your ideas are going are going to penetrate all
Carter
15:40
all albertans and can
Carter
15:42
can you stop just
Zain
15:46
did i say okay carter they're not all first drafts have have potential you know i mean you spring this on i'll come back to you i'll come back to you this is a 30 second time out carter i'll come back to you uh cory
Zain
16:03
uh you cory you're gonna you're gonna go with the the abbots community hall for 30 seconds just kind of spend some time there uh by
Zain
16:11
by the way perfect five-star review uh cory uh tell
Zain
16:15
tell me what the what the brand here is carter's going straight to slogans because he's a he's he's got the simple mind uh and he really wanted to get his his joke out there before any of us could carter you had very limited competition just so you know
Zain
16:29
very limited it was very bad cory cory seriously talk about the brand here what what would you you position a mayor of a village in? We've seen the mayor, like we've seen candidates lean into mayor. I actually find this is an interesting question for him and his brand. Like, would you lean into mayor? Would you go in with first name? Would you go last name? What are you thinking from that perspective? And then let's talk more broadly about brand, including, of course, slogans,
Corey
16:52
slogans, Carter. We'll get there.
Corey
16:53
Yeah, you know, I would lean into mayor because I think, well, listen, this is my first reaction. I'm curious to hear Stephen's thoughts once he gets his mind out of the 10th grade here but uh there
Corey
17:04
there is there is a kind of a version of this you can do where you could say listen alberta needs more amisk alberta needs more of these foundational alberta values that built you know that built this province and i've i've had to deal with these issues on one scale um and with the help of all of us working as a team relying on the
Corey
17:23
the the rest of the ucp caucus i'm sure we can deal with these issues on uh on a broader level too and it's time for some simple down-to-earth values governing this uh this province again
Zain
17:37
carter what do you think what's your what's your take on the brand overall here as it relates to his mayoral title would you lean into it would you remove yourself from it what do you think i
Carter
17:46
i would i'd remove myself i mean it's a mayor of 200 people it's not something that i'd be jumping into i
Carter
17:52
i would be going with the but don't
Zain
17:53
don't you think don't you think mayor has like this interesting interesting cachet as to what Corey's saying here, like telling the story of my town through the province. Like, don't you think it kind of holds that bit of cachet, like the Mayor Pete thing? Because when you look at Mayor Pete as compared to the United States, it's actually quite similar to the scale we're
Corey
18:12
Equal ratio, maybe. Yeah,
Zain
18:14
Yeah, exactly. Isn't the ratio similar? Isn't that the same? Yeah, but it's just,
Carter
18:17
to me, he's an everyman. To me, he's a person who serves this community. I wouldn't lean into the Mayor Pete's. I'd lean into you
Carter
18:26
know the rock piece you know bill rock is the person who's the the rock in his community he's the person you go to when you've got a problem the fact that he's the mayor doesn't really matter the fact oh i
Corey
18:37
i like this let me build on this carter let me pitch you something here can i finish he's the every man who's okay because it was so good i got excited and i want to talk more about it so taking his praise he's the every man who serves his community and him being mayor Mayor is almost like it spills out of that persona. You know, he was the guy who stepped up to help his community. He doesn't define himself by being mayor. He defines himself by being a community. He's
Carter
19:01
He's the person that parents go to when the school closed down. He's the person that people go to when their relative is taken away in a hospital, in an ambulance, and it takes 14 hours there and back for simple medical procedures. He's the person who everybody goes to. He's the rock of his community. community and
Carter
19:18
and the rock of his community is someone who knows everything that's going on and is able to help everybody he's
Carter
19:23
he's hard he's hard he's hard and he's willing to stand just
Corey
19:28
just stop him now god
Zain
19:33
god i was like wait this is going this is going too far uh
Zain
19:35
uh and then of course carter thank you let me tell you one other
Carter
19:37
thing hold on one other thing and
Carter
19:39
and this goes back to my time in university of calgary university best campaign i think i've ever seen implemented uh
Carter
19:45
uh person named named Ashley Alexander, chose to run for, I think, VP Finance and
Carter
19:51
and used the picture of a woman,
Carter
19:54
unbelievably attractive woman, and won in a landslide. Controversy ensued when Ashley Anderson turned out to be some white dude.
Carter
20:04
he just stole someone else's photo. My thinking is Bill Rock just chooses to use the Rock's photo.
Carter
20:12
Huh? Who's with me? You
Corey
20:13
You know, you have peaks and valleys. I'll give you that.
Zain
20:17
Yeah, Carter, come on. This is a serious episode about a serious candidate who's in last place, according to this article. Who's barely started, according
Carter
20:24
according to this article. Okay, so
Zain
20:25
so step one. Where have we landed? Yeah, where have we landed? Can I take some stock? Where have we landed, Corey? Yeah, a voice from rural
Corey
20:33
rural Alberta who's a voice for all of us. The issues of Amisk are the issues of the province, just on a more intense
Corey
20:39
intense scale, an accelerated scale. our problems are alberta's problems but we feel them more acutely was what i said and um he is the everyman who serves his community he is i
Corey
20:49
fucking hate how cheesy it is to say he's the rock of his community but let's give it to carter and
Corey
20:55
and uh his service his titles his honorifics like mayor that's
Corey
21:00
that's not important to him he's just a guy who cares passionately about where he lives you know uh
Corey
21:05
uh whether it's rural crime whether it's health care whether it's getting a fair deal he's
Carter
21:10
fight let me just jump in here because you guys are are walking away from all my cheese um you can't walk away from the cheese on this because the only way you're going to get coverage is if you embrace the cheese big name right interesting
Corey
21:24
so this is i think we're jumping to tactics but i'm if
Carter
21:28
don't have a big part of your uh strategy that you're going to make some of these cheesy choices and i mean sure don't just run a picture of the rock and a picture you know as as your poster but you know mention
Carter
21:40
mention that some people have to mistaken you for the rock and you're on you know that's your opening line in your speech i'm not the rock i'm a rock in my community and
Carter
21:54
embracing the taste in
Carter
21:57
it's so good write this shit down this
Carter
21:59
this is how you win elections okay you
Zain
22:02
no you know what let's talk talk about this we are saying you know often yeah
Corey
22:07
no no no what do you think we've been doing for 20 minutes here let's
Zain
22:10
let's talk a fucking 20 minutes oh god um
Zain
22:16
don't know if i'm commenting about how long or how short it
Corey
22:18
it is to be totally honest uh
Zain
22:19
uh it's unclear to me too
Zain
22:21
talk to me about cheesiness like we often as as practitioners in this space try
Zain
22:27
try to perhaps get too creative versus leaning into effective? We've had this version of this discussion in the past. Where does cheesiness kind of fit? Because we are not the audience, right? The three of us are not the
Zain
22:40
the audience for Bill Rock's campaign. So I actually want to seriously address Carter's point here. What is your take on it?
Corey
22:47
hold the thought about audience because we did sort of immediately jump to the niche we thought he could fill. But it is worth understanding what kind of, the landscape that he's playing in and who's the membership and who's potential members of the the ucp as well before we go way too far down the road even where we started was probably step two not step one but um is
Corey
23:10
there a place for cheesiness yeah i like there's been a number of candidates who sort of steer into the skid and i you know i think where people get into trouble is when they're trying to be cool and fail or when they're They're trying to be funny
Corey
23:24
funny and fail a
Corey
23:26
little bit. Like, if you're trying to be funny and fail hard, that becomes funny again almost, right? And that's maybe what Steven is going for here. Like, he just, I love
Carter
23:35
love the, give me your rule here. What's your rule on
Carter
23:38
Yeah, I mean, Jyoti
Carter
23:40
her first brochure has got her as a comic book character in
Carter
23:45
in multiple panes of the brochure. Now, it's not cheesy, but
Carter
23:49
but it is cheesy, right?
Carter
23:50
right? She's a comic book character. We cast her as a comic book character, and we made it a comic book looking like. On May the 4th, she does a whole Star Wars thing with her kid, and they have a Star Wars Darth Vader toaster.
Carter
24:06
We feature that in the video.
Carter
24:10
Even the face paint that was just done, you'll note Amarjeet Sohi in Edmonton lost the bet to the Avalanche mayor. He just puts on a jersey.
Carter
24:18
Jyoti Gondek made sure that there was face paint included. And I have from a very reliable source that it was her who wanted the face paint thrown
Carter
24:26
thrown into the deal. We've never seen another mayor do face paint as a result of a of a of a bet law. So there's there's there's there's reason to grant. She did this bike thing where she dressed up as some character from Mad Max or something like that. Like it was unbelievable.
Carter
24:45
Some people can embrace the cheese and make it work for them. And I think that if you've grown up with a name, Bill
Corey
24:52
Bill Rock, you can embrace the cheese. You have to embrace. So to that to that point, Elections
Corey
24:59
Elections Alberta, when you register, you've got to provide a certain amount of contact information, you
Corey
25:05
you know, and it's like Danielle at Daniel Smith. That's a Brian Jean at Brian G dot com or whatever they are. Right. And would you like to take a guess as to what Bill Rock's email address
Carter
25:16
is? Please tell us.
Corey
25:18
rockpile.one at icloud.com that's pretty pretty
Corey
25:23
pretty tell me tell me you're not
Corey
25:25
he knows but like if your
Corey
25:27
your email address is rockpile you're
Carter
25:29
you're all your supporters
Carter
25:31
going to be are going to be rockpile they're going to be the rockers we're going to you know we're going to jump the rock pile they're going to be the rock pile right
Carter
25:39
we're going to go break some rocks in calgary we're going to go break some rocks in edmonton let's go you
Zain
25:46
okay so we've got we've got a bit of a brand we've got a bit of policy i'm gonna park audience i'm gonna park tactics i want to stick on brand for a second carter because you've you've talked about bill rock getting up on stage and saying i'm the rock of my community talk to me about strategy here carter what does his brand strategy have to be because there's it's one thing to say that about yourself it's another thing to have others say it about you who
Zain
26:14
who does he need to have this be said like who needs to say this about bill rock and like let's get into a bit of like his path here carter because how does he scale this how does he scale some good lightning in a bottle that we may have captured cory how does he scale this carter what's his caucus strategy does he need caucus does he like make any appeals to what let's get started on this part of the process he
Carter
26:39
he doesn't want any single caucus member right
Carter
26:42
right he doesn't want to have any association with anybody that's currently there he
Carter
26:46
he wants to jump into this thing and say i am going to bring in as many people as possible because
Carter
26:51
because i am you know i'm
Carter
26:53
i'm coming from outside i am an outsider you know i'm from amps amos
Carter
26:58
rocks are outside yeah i mean
Carter
27:00
rocks are rocks you don't have rocks in the house you have rocks outside the out and
Carter
27:04
and and so he's outside the house he's coming oh oh
Corey
27:07
except for curling oh my god how do we miss the curling tie no stop keep moving
Corey
27:12
moving you're getting distracted so
Carter
27:13
so anyways we we have all of these opportunities for you
Carter
27:17
you know bill rock to be an outsider the problem that i see and and this is where you
Carter
27:21
you know you're you're trying to take us is okay how do we get other people talking about him in terms other than that's right in terms other than and the fifth place out of fifth place can five candidates as Bill Rock. And
Carter
27:33
And that's before we've got Michelle Garner-Remple in it, before we've got Raj
Carter
27:37
Raj and Sonny in, before we've got Rebecca Schultz in.
Carter
27:41
There's going to be eight to
Carter
27:43
to 10 candidates in this race in no time. And
Carter
27:46
And we don't know the rules. But the rules that I'm anticipating, and I think Corey will
Carter
27:49
agree with me, a mid-September leadership
Carter
27:52
leadership contest, one member, one vote.
Carter
27:55
So the way that he needs to move, he needs to move so lightning fast. And he needs to to put himself in
Carter
28:00
in every rural publication around
Carter
28:04
His play can't just be rural, but his start has to be rural. At one point, I had a list of all of the various small town newspapers. There's like 200, 250. And the thing is that each one of them will let you write your own op-ed and drop it into their newspaper because they need content and they need an advertiser, right?
Carter
28:27
right? So you buy a $250 ad, you drop in your 550 word op-ed and you've got yourself the beginnings of your campaign.
Carter
28:36
So those are the types of choices he needs to make. How does he call, can he call every editor of those newspapers? Can he set up an ed board? By the way, the ed board is the reporter, the editor, and someone from the community. Like it's, it's unbelievable how much information can be, minds
Carter
28:52
minds can be changed at those levels very very quickly um
Carter
28:56
um and i would i would do that and then he's also got a play that he can make with school boards again we have 67 64 school boards across alberta um 10 of them are major you know 10 to 20 of them are major urban areas the rest are small rural get
Carter
29:12
get into all of those like there's tremendous opportunities with those small town councils small town uh rural places but he He has to move like he has to make a thousand phone calls in the next 30 days.
Zain
29:28
So, Carter, you're saying a lot of phone calls,
Zain
29:32
advertising, op ed, ed boards start owning the rural aspect of it. Don't seek anyone from caucus. Use that as a as like a marker of of your success. Corey, build on this. And I've got a more specific question I'll throw in as well for either of you to address. Corey, is he picking a lane in the Kenny versus non-Kenny sort of field? What is he kind of dealing with and dealing with the Kenny question? And how is he showcasing his conservative bona fides as a loose translation in terms of where he might stand on that spectrum, so to speak? He's got the wild rose marker. He's got rural,
Zain
30:07
so there's probably some expectation. But what else does he need to do on that front?
Corey
30:10
Yeah, so he's totally free to diss Kenny's leadership. He can talk about how he's made poor decisions on this, that, or the other thing. And he probably should when we start thinking about the space that he's looking to carve out.
Corey
30:22
So Carter's like, I don't see caucus. I agree. I want to go a step further. I think you use them as a punching bag, as a bit of a villain. They've lost touch. They've gone Edmonton. You're not going to get a single one of these people to begin with. You don't need to say they're bad because they're PCs or because they're UCP or Wild Rose. It's they've lost focus on why they're there.
Corey
30:42
You know, write the chair of caucus.
Corey
30:44
Encourage a caucus meeting in Amisk at that community hall. you were talking about, Zane, and say they need to come out and they need to understand what it means to lose your ambulance for 14 hours. They need to face the people of Amisk, the good people of this community and the neighboring communities and understand exactly what the consequences of their decisions are on this, on failing to get a fair deal, on rural policing and the crime that we've seen that's increased there. And of course, none of them will come. And you use that just as an example of how disinterested they are in the issues of the town of Amisk, just as they're are disinterested in the issues of the town of Banff or the city of Calgary or whatever it may be, because they have entirely got caught up in
Corey
31:26
in themselves and they're forgetting that they're there to serve people. And it allows you to make that message. And the endorsements you care about are
Corey
31:36
endorsements Stephen talked about, you know, the small town mayors, the school board trustees, the people who are fighting for these things because they care about them, not because they aspire to be Prime Minister of Canada someday, right? This is not about politics. This is about service. And that's what Bill Rock is all about.
Carter
31:55
I literally wrote that speech yesterday. What do you think of that, Carter? That's what Ginny gave at my campaign launch in Surrey. Good speech. You'd have loved it. Hey, Carter, let me
Zain
32:04
me ask you this, Carter. Let me ask you this.
Zain
32:08
You know, as another pull-out
Corey
32:11
-out conversation to the Bill Rock special
Corey
32:14
that we are... No, don't say pull-out. don't encourage him don't
Zain
32:15
don't hurt her as a pull-out conversation to the bill rock special that many are tuning into um uh perhaps
Zain
32:21
perhaps without choice uh
Zain
32:27
is what you get people um
Zain
32:28
um ken boson cool wrote a memo a leaked memo oh my god how did it leave i talked
Carter
32:33
talked to ken today he assures me he doesn't know how it got him he
Carter
32:38
he was shocked oh shock
Carter
32:39
shock they tell you tragic i would say do
Zain
32:41
do you You know, in that memo he wrote for Raj and Sonny, he said, listen, minister,
Zain
32:48
have a path to victory. I'm paraphrasing. You have a path to victory because no one in caucus supports you and
Zain
32:54
and no one in caucus supports you. That's a good thing, because if they would support you, they'd be part of the past regiment. That mean they support the past rather than supporting the future.
Zain
33:05
Well, Ken, I got I got some news. I
Zain
33:07
I don't think anyone in caucus supports.
Zain
33:10
Rock I don't think I don't think anyone is supporting Bill Rock I think there's another other game in town there's another sheriff in town he's also Mayor Carter that's Bill Rock and
Corey
33:19
Zane I want you to admit right now you forgot Bill Rock's first name for about three seconds there yeah
Zain
33:24
yeah but Mayor Rock works I gotta tell you that's why I'm a fan of Mayor Rock
Zain
33:28
Bill's a tough name to remember it's hard as a brown guy I don't remember a lot of your white name. I barely remember Corey and Steven.
Zain
33:36
It's really difficult for me. You guys all look the same, sound
Zain
33:39
the same. It's hard
Zain
33:40
to argue. But Mares? I recognize Mares. People won't know
Carter
33:42
know if it was me who made the rock joke or if it was hard rock joke or if it was Corey. It's going to be hard. Can
Carter
33:48
Can I actually have
Zain
33:52
Can I actually have this sidebar conversation with you, Carter? What do you make of what Ken Bozenkul said today about caucus support? Because we are talking about it and what more natural space to talk talk about that now what do you make of this that like you as a potential contender have very limited if no caucus support and that's a good thing like is that a saleable argument is that an argument worthy of making is that a true argument absolutely
Carter
34:18
mean would you like to be i mean travis taves rolls out his 26 24 or whatever mlas that are supporting him i mean in the immediate thinking
Carter
34:27
thinking is well that's just you know he's just got everybody that we don't like Like this, this isn't a popular caucus. You know, virtually everybody who's been a cabinet minister over the last couple of years has suffered tremendous slings and arrows because of the situation that they've gone through. I don't think that this is a popular thing. And I also, you know, I remember a little you guys may remember that I did a later a leadership race for the Progressive Conservative Party where we had one MLA endorsement and we won because,
Carter
35:02
because, yeah, Ken's not wrong. It turns out that people don't much care
Carter
35:07
care for these caucus endorsements. And on top of that, I think that caucus
Carter
35:10
caucus tends to be unbelievably
Carter
35:13
unbelievably lazy and the first piece of people to jump off the bandwagon if things start going horribly wrong.
Zain
35:23
sellable argument, like a valid argument or
Zain
35:26
or a stretch in your mind that like lack of caucus support is actually a good thing?
Corey
35:31
It's both. both it's sellable but it's a stretch the reality is it's it's an asset whether it's an asset that's worth what you'd have to pay for it well that's a question that you're going to have to ask as a campaign and as
Corey
35:43
as we were talking about on sunday if
Corey
35:46
if you are trying to run as the uniter then yeah having all of the caucus or most of it like travis taves does makes a little bit of sense but if you're playing as the outsider then
Corey
35:55
then then caucus results don't help you at all and then there's another simple more practical reality which is you're
Corey
36:01
you're not going to win the caucus fight it literally impossible with the number of endorsements that are already out there so
Corey
36:06
so can't win don't play can't
Corey
36:08
can't win don't play so it
Corey
36:10
it run a different strategy run one that doesn't require caucus run one in fact where having no caucus members might actually be an advantage i
Corey
36:17
i think that's what the uh boson cool memo was uh was
Corey
36:20
was suggesting right and uh and that's what what the bill rock memo will suggest when we leak that as well carter
Zain
36:28
carter okay so that memo that that got leaked was clearly for public consumption right oh yeah
Zain
36:33
course it was um first
Carter
36:34
first of all it was a page what would you like
Carter
36:37
come on it was perfectly very nice how much did you get paid for that yeah it was a fucking page man do
Carter
36:44
do some work get earn your dollars write
Carter
36:48
write more filler words words yeah uh
Carter
36:50
to be concerned he used to work at h and k not with us but before us he like he he knows how to fill pages what's your what carter
Zain
36:58
carter if if a rajan sony or let's say when i'm just gonna make this up pull it out of that bill rock uh
Zain
37:02
or your candidate that
Carter
37:04
that you were helping
Zain
37:05
what would your actual nuanced advice be right like that was very black and white hey you don't have caucus support and that is clearly unilaterally a thousand percent a great fucking thing what's
Zain
37:15
what's What's your more nuanced advice? Corey had a bit of a nuanced take. What would your nuance be to your
Carter
37:19
your client? I was just going to say, I was just going
Carter
37:21
steal Corey's advice, because Corey's advice was right, right?
Carter
37:24
right? You can't win the game. Don't play by those rules. Go
Carter
37:27
Go play by different people's rules. So don't
Carter
37:30
don't seek out the endorsement of MLAs. Instead, seek out the endorsement of party presidents, or seek out the endorsements of average Albertans. Okay. If I'm Bill Rock,
Zain
37:44
that's where I'm going to go.
Zain
37:45
Let's play that game for Bill again. Let's go back to Bill Rock. What is another rule or what is another game Bill Rock is not playing but is devising a different game or devising a different metric that you would encourage him to do, knowing everything we now do
Carter
37:59
do over the last 30
Zain
38:00
30 minutes about Bill
Carter
38:01
Bill Rock? You mentioned the rural Albertan media. I mean, I think that it's just as easy, just as open an opportunity to go after the
Carter
38:09
the Alberta municipalities mayors and the rural Alberta municipalities mayors. There
Carter
38:15
There are tons of politicians in any
Carter
38:18
any province, right? Right. I mean, any place that's got three levels of government, I mean, there's there's three
Carter
38:23
three levels of politicians and
Carter
38:25
and the most politicians that exist are
Carter
38:27
are the municipal level. I'll tell you something. Those
Carter
38:29
Those municipal politicians, they used to be the backbone, the
Carter
38:32
the backbone of every every ruling party in
Zain
38:39
might say they were the rock.
Carter
38:40
rock. They were the rock of the ruling party. So good.
Carter
38:44
Man, you should be a strategist, too. we should get you into this gig anyways
Carter
38:49
anyways my point being that that bill's already got um
Carter
38:53
um the beginnings of his strategy right go out and bring in all of those pissed off reeves um a bunch of pissed off reeves can make the world shake right they each one of those reeves like up
Carter
39:06
up to about 5 000 people i think is a reeve right like the mayor for amisk is kind of weird because it's it's only 250 people. Normally, you'd see a reeve in these municipal
Carter
39:16
municipal regions. So go and find them all. Go and bring them onto your team and remind them of how funding has been cut, how the rural
Carter
39:25
rural areas aren't getting the promised funds that they're due.
Carter
39:30
And then you can even go into the bigger centers and make the exact same argument. Because
Carter
39:34
Because I'll tell you that rural politicians feel He's almost as angry at this government as the big city mayors and the big city groups. I mean, if
Carter
39:46
if he could start to really rally those groups behind him and start to show momentum, he could pick up quite a few supporters.
Zain
39:55
what other game is he altering the rules for or not playing? What do you think? Well,
Corey
40:00
building on what Stephen said and trying to steer us to how you would actually possibly win something like this if you're an outsider like Bill Rock, You've got to pull on.
Corey
40:09
What I like about what Stephen said is that culturally it ties back to the whole Reform Party movement in the late 80s
Corey
40:15
90s. The idea of you just go locale to locale. You have these these little dining table
Corey
40:21
table conversations with people and you just slowly grow, you know, moss on a stone for
Corey
40:27
for Bill Rock. Right.
Corey
40:29
And you can probably pitch this all as part of a strategy to sell memberships like, you know,
Corey
40:33
buy one membership for Bill Rock and sell two more. that's how we're going to get this done one
Corey
40:38
one for Bill roll
Corey
40:39
roll it on to two more we call it rock
Corey
40:51
I got this you figured
Carter
40:53
out how to turn it on or something that's
Zain
40:58
fucking stupidest idea we've
Carter
41:00
now we're on DQ we're doing just fine
Corey
41:06
but i think that you've got to talk about how you turn it into selling memberships and if you want to create this bit of grassroots groundswell then you've got to give
Corey
41:16
give it over to the grassroots bill rock is not going to be able to create the team bring in the organizers to to actually centrally
Corey
41:23
centrally manage all these memberships so he's got to become bigger than he is he's got to become a movement or a symbol and i think actually being a
Corey
41:30
a you know mayor
Corey
41:31
mayor of a village is is not a bad position to do that because he's not going to be seen as some calculating threatening guy
Zain
41:39
because of where he is carter
Zain
41:41
carter would you suggest that he wear the uh rock turtleneck and the gold chain of the fatty pack from the meme and dress up like that on the first day that'd be a good idea carter let's talk about the pathway to victory can we talk about the pathway to victory okay um but before we do that i want cory i want cory to maybe summarize a bit So, Corey, where have we been? We've learned a bit about Bill Rock. We've learned a lot about his village of Amos.
Corey
42:06
a bit of a,
Zain
42:06
a, where do we land on brand? Like, give me a bit of a flavor of where we kind of landed on brand. And I'll mention a few of the other things related to tactics and strategy that I have on the board. Bill
Corey
42:18
Bill rocks in every man. He's the rock in his community. And he is a voice from rural Alberta that is going to fight for all of Alberta. The problems they have in Amisk are the problems they have in Calgary. And as somebody who's had to deal with them there, he wants to take that to
Corey
42:36
to Edmonton. He's tired of politicians getting wrapped up in their own things and forgetting who they're there to serve. And we've seen rises in rural crime. We've seen rises in urban crime. We've seen rises in urban poverty. We've seen rises in rural poverty. We have seen wait times for ambulances go up in small villages, and we've seen them go up in big cities. People are losing focus on what matters, and it's because they have just become corrupted
Corey
43:01
corrupted by a system. And we need some small-town Alberta values to get this province back on track.
Zain
43:06
Nicely done. So we've added that to some of Carter's suggestions and both of your suggestions, focused on rural media, op-eds, advertising, move lightning quick, look at endorsements of others, not so much caucus. Reeves is what Carter has mentioned and others to kind of create hell, change the metrics on those traditional metrics. Corey kind of said, you know, be the stone in the grassroots, so to speak, right? Allow that ability of voice to come out. So we've got a bit of a framework. right um
Zain
43:36
um now carter we have to get
Corey
43:39
get to the pathway of victory what
Zain
43:40
what does it look like how are you working this right um whether you want to talk about team selling structure tactics for media splash and and consistency in the airwaves moving from you
Zain
43:54
you know let's just say it's eight to ten let's just say ten candidates enter carter right it's a number you gave yeah let's let's just say he's ten of ten how do you move from ten to eight to six to fourth to second like what does it look look like or what does it need to look like uh
Zain
44:07
uh we know it's a long shot uh
Zain
44:09
but we we're gonna we're gonna try it and carter what's what's the building blocks the
Zain
44:14
the building blocks for a pathway to victory he
Carter
44:17
he uh he has to get hard in a hurry and he has to explode right away no
Corey
44:25
no let's too far again
Carter
44:26
again um so what i'm looking for is speed um he really needs to i'm
Carter
44:32
i'm not even joking why are are you laughing yeah
Corey
44:35
yeah he needs because i could see where he needs
Carter
44:37
needs speed he needs to be out in in a hurry he needs people to be aware of his name in a hurry because if this thing's over in september um
Carter
44:46
um if he's suddenly gaining momentum in august that's when the the the thing cuts off it's over so
Carter
44:53
so he needs to go in a significant hurry that's
Zain
44:57
that's it okay so assign the candidate a test let's start here assign bill rock you are managing bill rock's campaign what's the task you're giving Bill tomorrow, June 10th, which is tomorrow. What is Bill doing June 10th onwards like
Carter
45:09
like a religion? He's got to have 10 money calls a day. He's got to have 10 civic calls a day to other municipal leaders, and he's got to have 10 media calls a day. He's
Carter
45:18
He's got to pick up the telephone and work the phone as hard as anybody has ever worked the phone in Alberta politics, because there is no other option for him. There's no kind of another day where everything can be reworked. Everything has to happen in June. Um,
Carter
45:35
Um, so he's got less time than Michelle Garner, Rempel, Rempel Garner. Uh, he's got less time than, um, you know, any of the other candidates that are going to be coming out into this thing, because
Carter
45:46
because he's just, he's really got to get his name out there and he's got to be known. Uh,
Carter
45:51
Uh, like we had, we had six months, um, before we had to have Jyoti Gondek's name known own in the uh in in that in that race we had six months uh bill rock's got three
Zain
46:06
cory let's talk about team and let's talk about team from an effective perspective right you could build out a full campaign team and it could have nine strategists you could have three communications people because everyone wants to do strategy and communications right uh
Zain
46:18
uh but what is bill rock and what does bill rock actually for
Zain
46:22
for a campaign team right it's going to probably start lean but how How does the rock pile start and how does it grow, Corey? Yeah,
Corey
46:28
Yeah, I mean, he basically needs a strong Reddit community because he's not going to be able to organize it in the time he's got. This is building on what I said, but to an extent, he needs to surrender his campaign, let it become a grassroots movement, allow himself to become a symbol, allow
Corey
46:42
allow himself to become a meme. Because I think that's your only chance to get the membership numbers that you're going to need to finish this thing. And to Stephen's point, to do that, you need to get in the media. You need speed. speed. You need to be out there. Stunts have to be on the table. We talked about saying the caucus should have a meeting right here in Amisk and face the community. Well, maybe ambush the caucus chair with a couple of cameras, whatever the case may be, right? The idea is you need to make sure that you are unignorable for a news cycle or two. You need to get a little bit of buzz. This is a true conservative. This is somebody who's actually fighting for these values. And I think there's actually a bit of a we talked about if you can't if you can't win don't play he
Corey
47:25
he has as far as i can tell no real social media presence it's
Corey
47:29
it's almost unheard of in 2022 for an aspirant for a job like this but
Corey
47:34
but that's a real opportunity too people
Corey
47:36
people can pour whatever they want into the idea of bill rock they don't know him they only know if
Corey
47:40
if they google him as much as we know which is the size of amisk the amenities of amisk from amisk.ca which also talks about the quality of the water they have Which is very good, apparently. And that there's a couple of news articles saying he cares about wait times. He cares about fair deals. He cares about rural policing.
Corey
47:59
especially if you allow yourself to be whatever anybody else needs you to be. But that requires your campaign organization being focused on not
Corey
48:09
not holding things tight, but letting things loose and letting these materials be available, making Bill Rock available to random, you
Corey
48:17
you know, podcasts and bloggers and all of that. And I just hope that you can catch lightning in a bottle. Yeah, I think
Carter
48:23
think that Corey's right. Carter, how many... I think Corey's right about the loose... How many shots?
Zain
48:27
Well, talk to me about the virality. Yeah, I mean... I'm not going
Carter
48:30
going to let you
Zain
48:30
you go past this, Carter. No,
Carter
48:32
No, but if he has a loose community of people that are actually doing the work and he can stay rock hard for the whole campaign, I think it's
Zain
48:40
just going to be in a really good spot. I just hate you so much. Okay, can we compromise? Can we go Bill Rock stoned hard?
Zain
48:47
Because I feel like that's pretty funny. I
Zain
48:49
feel like we've expected rock, but then we go stoned. You know what? That's
Carter
48:53
good. I can wrap
Zain
48:53
wrap my head around that.
Corey
48:54
that. That's not bad. It's
Zain
48:56
By the way, did we land on a slogan? Yeah.
Corey
48:59
Yes, Bill Rock stoned hard.
Carter
49:02
up with it carter
Zain
49:03
carter carter i actually need to cory mentioned something interesting i don't believe
Zain
49:08
and it's almost like the big sin of marketing which is like you got let's try to go viral let's like it's you know it's like that client who comes to you it's like okay so like i only have eight bucks yeah
Carter
49:19
i want to go my strategy
Zain
49:21
strategy is to go viral instead my strategy is to go viral uh because i can't pay to
Zain
49:26
to get this scene by anybody so let's just go viral instead right Right, Carter?
Zain
49:30
Corey's giving you that brief. Corey's giving you that brief right now. I mean, it's not even, yeah,
Corey
49:34
yeah, it's not just consultants. It's anybody who works in communications. You know what would be great for this? It would really help this event if we went viral.
Carter
49:44
Carter, what the hell are you trying to do? Listen, let's be honest. Let's talk about it. Let's be honest about the chances of Bill Rock for a moment.
Carter
49:50
You know how all the videos that are produced in the world, one
Carter
49:53
one of them out of like every, you
Carter
49:55
you know, I don't know what the number is. Let's say 500 million. uh,
Carter
49:59
uh, go viral, that
Carter
50:00
that is Bill Rock's chances of winning this leadership.
Carter
50:05
for him, you know, to come into this race and think otherwise would be, you
Carter
50:08
you know, there's a certain amount of, um,
Carter
50:11
um, like if, if Bill Rock was on the phone to me tomorrow saying, Hey, you know, I, I understand you're pretty good, really good at underdog campaigns. I'd like you to run my campaign. What do you think my chances are? It
Carter
50:21
It would be the same as Corey Hogan getting tomorrow's viral video video out
Carter
50:25
out of this podcast right
Carter
50:27
right which could happen because my hard rock stuff's been fucking could hard as a rock and rock that's some good stuff but no
Carter
50:35
no it could happen you
Carter
50:37
you don't know um
Carter
50:39
but anyways i think that the point is that uh he
Carter
50:42
he doesn't have much of a chance so you may as well swing for the fence there's
Carter
50:45
there's no way that he's not gonna why are you gonna okay
Zain
50:48
okay so how are you swinging for the fences carter talk to me of course that stunts are on the table what stunts i literally
Carter
50:53
literally would come up with stunty headlines like um
Carter
50:57
it's time for a hard rock in in a soft place um it would be you know you
Carter
51:05
know like things like that it's time for it's
Corey
51:07
it's gonna have a barbecue uh
Corey
51:09
uh where they're gonna put like i don't know the most salmon possible on it so that everybody can smell what the rock is cooking and
Corey
51:17
what he's cooking is
Corey
51:20
lower Lower ambulance wait times, a better economy, and
Corey
51:23
and proper funding for policing. Now it's Zane's turn to look like-
Carter
51:32
you'd have to do stuff like that. There's no way. You'd
Corey
51:35
You'd have to. I mean, as dumb and cheesy as it sounds, how
Corey
51:37
how else are you possibly going to, with such short period of time, get any kind of recognition or notice that you're in the race? Just
Carter
51:43
Just be like, oh, I'm going to be the guy who drinks the cranberry juice, right? or whatever so
Zain
51:51
so talk to talk to me about this let's say one of these shots works right like this is theoretical we're like but uh so carter if you wrote virality into a strategy right a client would probably say okay sure like you're gonna try and you might say you know i'm gonna take 10 hits at virality right carter
Zain
52:08
carter let's say on number seven you actually hit something yeah it
Zain
52:11
it actually works right one of the stunts work what's
Zain
52:15
what's next right so yes and what's next because Because there needs to be another page in the plan to say, as soon as we hook them, here's what I'm going to do. Here's my quick pivot. Here's what I'm going to use with that oxygen, that attention that it got me. Here's what I'm going to do. What does that look like, Carter? Because I want to talk about that next step. Should virality be successful? Let's put it in the plan. What's next? What's next in the
Carter
52:37
the path? You know what? You steal from the guy who did the ocean spray cranberry juice thing. He became viral for a minute. And then he leaned into it. got
Carter
52:47
got Ocean Spray to give him a whole bunch of money. And everybody was doing the Ocean Spray virality thing. And you just hope that you're viral enough to get you to the election.
Carter
52:57
And the good news is this is such a short election with such a small audience that you very well could just sustain your virality to the moment of the election. I think it's a bigger problem that your virality comes too late in the game than
Carter
53:11
than it is that it's too early in the game and you can't just sustain it because
Carter
53:15
because i don't think there is a next step after viral where
Carter
53:18
where is the ocean spray guy today he's
Carter
53:20
he's gone right viral means uh disposable um
Carter
53:25
um so you better be viral i mean if he wins if he if he threw some uh hook or crook he was able to pull it off then you'd have to figure out your next step you don't actually have to fill figure out your next step until he wins because
Carter
53:39
because the next it just it just doesn't matter the time frame's too short and if he actually hit viral he should just roll
Carter
53:46
roll with it cory
Zain
53:49
cory jump in on this yeah
Corey
53:50
yeah so there is there's one other um thing we haven't talked about which is to enter this race he's going to need 75 000 so as much as you might want to go viral
Corey
54:00
viral alone on memberships you're going to need to probably have a bit of a viral fundraising campaign as well uh where you get a lot of small donations and maybe you even and make a play i'm not interested in yeah
Corey
54:11
i'm not interested in these 43 000 donations i i want to get this you know i'm capping myself at 500 at a time or something to that effect that
Corey
54:23
will allow you to again reinforce that brand that you've got and maybe you can get the 2022 equivalent of you remember when
Corey
54:31
when rand paul was getting money bombs or
Corey
54:34
know one of the pauls there uh ron paul i guess uh where they would just drop a bunch of money uh you know trying to raise as much on a day try to find the equivalent there carter
Zain
54:44
carter what else have we not covered as part of a campaign we've done brand we've done message we've done loose positioning on policy we've done pathway to victory we've talked a bit about tactics what else do we want to jam into the audio memo that is this episode for the bill rock campaign well
Carter
55:00
well i think that you you actually brought, or Corey brought some of it up with the $75,000 entry fee. Money's going to be super hard. You're going to need to raise a bunch of it. I think that there is a lot of money available in rural Alberta. You just need to go and find it.
Carter
55:19
go out and remind people of how much money they made being gas ranchers,
Carter
55:23
you know, or find
Carter
55:26
find the people who got got the money in the in those communities and
Carter
55:29
and really really start banging on it because if
Carter
55:32
if you don't raise the money you're not going to get in and you're not going to make
Carter
55:35
make the splash so even
Carter
55:37
even even the opportunity to go viral is going to cost like
Carter
55:41
like you can't go into this race without a quarter million dollars minimum in
Carter
55:45
in order to be competitive in this race it's going to be 300 or 750 and uh But in order to win this race, it's probably going to be 1.25.
Corey
55:56
Yeah, look, that'll be your first viral moment. If all of a sudden you pay your entry fee, people will, you
Corey
56:01
you know, it'll be like the record scratch sound. People's heads will turn and they'll say, holy fuck,
Corey
56:06
how did Bill Rock become the candidate who's actually paid their entrance fee first?
Corey
56:10
first? And then you say, yeah, I did it because I've got the support of Albertans, you
Corey
56:14
you know, from across the province who are as tired as the people of Amiskar. with,
Corey
56:19
with, again, you go through your list of issues there, hospital wait times, crime, whatever it is.
Zain
56:27
I want to talk about one more thing, which is in this virality strategy, I want to round this strategy out and then kind of zoom out from it for a second.
Zain
56:35
Does there need to be like a moment of seriousness to kind of look truly viable, right? Because the virality is like, this guy's trying to take a bunch of shots to get attention. But suppose he gets it. What's his serious moment? Like, what's his every man's serious moment to say, OK, there's something here. Like, what are you scripting for a Bill Rock in that regard to say, oh, you know, OK, we got his 15 seconds and I paid attention to those 50 seconds and I don't hate what I see or I actually like what I saw. What are you kind of doing in that regard?
Corey
57:03
Well, I think that is what we were talking about at the start. Right. The idea that there are certain issues that will resonate with people that he can talk about. And they are they
Corey
57:12
they are meat and potato issues. When you talk about things like,
Corey
57:16
you know, if I'm Bill Rock, I'm saying this is a legislature that gave itself the
Corey
57:21
the right to honorifics for perpetuity while
Corey
57:24
while hospital or while ambulance wait times went through the roof. This is a legislature that
Corey
57:29
decided that they wanted to fund a
Corey
57:34
that was interested in giving or running billboards in downtown New York when
Corey
57:39
when there were boys in Hardesty who
Corey
57:41
who were getting themselves in the lives of drugs and despair because nobody was paying attention to a growing drug crisis. right like i think that there's actually contrast you can do there and i think if you want to get people's attention and
Corey
57:53
and you want to tell that story about a type of conservative candidate the almost the bulworth candidate who tells you the
Corey
57:58
right and this is how it is that's
Corey
58:00
that's what you're shooting for there and so if you get that 15 seconds it's got to be i'm
Corey
58:04
i'm glad i've got your attention we've got serious issues those
Corey
58:07
those serious issues are amplified in a community like mine and i'm going to fight for all albertans to fix them i'm not going to get distracted by the stuff that these career politicians have allowed themselves to get distracted by
Zain
58:17
clear crisp and ready for that moment carter if you're zooming out from this strategy session that we've had and you're advising bill rock what would you tell him the ceiling is in this race
Zain
58:28
is the best case a leslin lewis style scenario that he's the leslin lewis of the ucp leadership race is it lower than that what what are you kind of pinning someone who's everything we've known everything we've been able to construct with some assistance what's the bill rock ceiling here that There is no ceiling.
Carter
58:45
And the reason there is no ceiling is it's a roll-up, right?
Carter
58:48
right? Let's go with our 10 candidates piece, right? No one's going to get 50% plus one on the first ballot.
Carter
58:56
If there's 10 candidates-
Zain
58:58
- You believe that? You genuinely believe? This is like Stephen Carter analysis where you're hypothetically saying this.
Carter
59:04
this. No, I mean, the odds of someone getting 50% plus one on the first ballot in a ranked
Carter
59:09
ranked ballot or whatever
Carter
59:11
whatever words we're using, that that will make the uh proportional
Carter
59:16
proportional representation guys lose their mind um
Carter
59:21
odds of them getting 50 plus one on the first ballot are so unbelievably
Carter
59:26
unbelievably low just based on our history just
Carter
59:29
just take a look at what happens in the traditional leadership
Carter
59:32
leadership i mean we've
Carter
59:33
we've seen the conservatives have you know eight or nine candidates and you know it takes seven
Carter
59:40
seven six six six, seven ballots to get someone over the top. There's usually only two candidates left
Carter
59:46
when it's getting to the end. So all
Carter
59:48
all you need to do is be above the guy, one person below you and pick up those votes. So
Carter
59:53
So if I were Bill Rock, if I
Carter
59:56
I was running that campaign, I'd be aiming for the middle. How do I get Bill Rock to fifth?
Carter
1:00:02
fifth? How do I get him to a surprising sixth or a surprising rising fourth.
Carter
1:00:07
Andrew Wilkinson, I think, was in fourth
Carter
1:00:09
fourth place in British Columbia when he started his roll ups.
Carter
1:00:14
he did great because everybody kind of liked him and they thought he was a decent guy and they just moved their votes to him.
Carter
1:00:21
That's all you need.
Carter
1:00:23
So if you can just be a decent guy that everybody likes, you can get all of those roll up votes from fifth, fourth or fifth.
Carter
1:00:34
Fourth why not be those guys cory
Zain
1:00:38
cory what do you think you know do you buy what carter's selling here in terms of the bill rock ceiling yeah
Corey
1:00:44
yeah i do i mean look let's let's just be real for a minute here and steven said this as well needs a fucking underline after we've talked for over an hour about this guy this is like the
Corey
1:00:56
darkest of dark horses the most long shot of candidates he's not going to come out of nowhere and get 51 of oh he's not going to come out of nowhere and win this by any scenario
Corey
1:01:04
scenario except for that one time out of 500 million that stevens talked about you know the lottery ticket shot here but if it's going to happen it's going to be um you know it is going to be that rock gathering moss like just going down the hill and capturing more and more and more and more and you you wouldn't even want to get into first place because then everyone's going to have that moment where they say what
Corey
1:01:25
what the fuck are we doing we're not going to vote for this guy who was the mayor of a town of 200 you need to be in fifth or sixth place or fourth maybe uh going into the votes and the roll-ups where everybody thinks of you still as as somebody who yeah you know like he's mr rock goes to edmonton like he's just this guy who's gonna fight for the boy scouts right and
Corey
1:01:45
and and then before you know it that that whole ah shucks demeanor and those small town values capture you and you roll up and everybody loves you and and
Corey
1:01:53
and maybe uh you know uh
Corey
1:01:56
brian jean drops off the ballot and they all hate taves
Corey
1:02:00
and you know smith is already off the ballot and they come to you like that's your best case scenario your
Corey
1:02:04
your best case scenario is actually not being in first place going into this thing because you will not win if people give more than a moment's thought to should we give bill rock this job we're
Zain
1:02:14
we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our final segment are over under in our lightning round steven carter we do it for you we do this entire show for you steven um how much should one uh bill rock or the campaign to elect bill rock pay for the advice in this episode carter um
Carter
1:02:31
um i think that they need to become the 1500 sponsor uh per month uh we
Carter
1:02:37
we then we will be able to take the shit out of them for
Carter
1:02:40
for every live show that we do as well and i bet and that we're going to do a couple live shows associated with this leadership because um we're heading to amish we're heading to amish for a live show that'd be amazing oh
Carter
1:02:52
my god book the community hall boys let's go let's go it
Zain
1:02:57
it may not be available but the convenience store bathroom which has got those beautiful sayings three stars might be available cory cory
Zain
1:03:06
cory how much is the value uh the advice in this uh in this episode worth to the the campaign to elect Bill Rock. How much
Corey
1:03:12
much would you pay for it? I'd pay $6 a month to be able to listen to it regularly for about three months. And then it goes into the archives and to get the archives, you need to spend $10 a month. So that's probably what I'd pay.
Zain
1:03:24
That sounds about right. Corey, in a field of 10 candidates, predict for me, where does Bill Rock end up? In a field of 10 UCB candidates, where does Bill Rock end up?
Corey
1:03:35
smart money has to be on Tenzin. I
Corey
1:03:37
I mean, I don't think he's actually going to get in. He's not going to pay $75,000 and be in the race.
Zain
1:03:42
Sounds like a lot of doubt for someone who's been advising Bill Rock for the last 66 minutes. Carter, Bill Rock, 10 candidates. Where does he place?
Carter
1:03:51
Eight, Zane. I'm going to pick eight because
Carter
1:03:57
wrapped my hands around the hard rock right off the bat, and I'm just excited to know. know?
Zain
1:04:07
As I always say, eighth is a stone's throw to first. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 996 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we will see you next time.