Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is Strategist episode 1012. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what
Zain
0:10
what is going on? It is finally here, Carter, the day that
Zain
0:13
that the board of the Strategist Media Corporation, which
Zain
0:17
which includes Corey and I.
Zain
0:19
Does it include Carter as well? I'm on the board,
Carter
0:21
board, yes. Does it include Carter?
Zain
0:21
Carter? I mean, we'll
Corey
0:23
we'll see how this goes. We'll
Zain
0:26
This is the day where the board gets to grill you, Stephen Carter, on your document, your campaign debrief document.
Zain
0:34
It happens today. But before we do that, I
Zain
0:37
I want to see if there's anything you guys want to get out of your system, because this is going to be intense, Carter.
Zain
0:41
Corey and I are going to grill you. We're
Zain
0:42
We're going to try to make this debrief better. I'll explain all the rules. I'll explain all the conditions in a second. But, Corey, how are you doing before we jump into that? Because let's spend 45 minutes on bullshit before we jump into
Corey
0:53
Doing really well. Well, my diet has changed a bit. I'm not having any legumes because I guess you're not supposed to eat legumes and other types of nuts during November. That's what the kids are telling me. So that
Corey
1:08
over Carter's head, but Zane got it.
Corey
1:13
know, there's the broader question.
Corey
1:18
Are you going to be okay?
Corey
1:22
I'm fine. steven by the way seems to have uh disappeared as is his uh want at the start of these things and then of course there's the uh the bigger commentary about elon musk and the purchase of twitter which has just consumed me yeah
Zain
1:37
has carter uh anything you want to get out of your system actually no i'm not going to use that he's he's frozen yeah
Zain
1:44
he's gone now he's gone of course he is what
Zain
1:46
what and i have to say uh strategic move by steven carter to leave to leave uh a man who has never uh been a fan of accountability was never been a fan of owning up to his mistakes uh always trying to get in front of the parade that is going to cross the do parades cross finish lines i was gonna say parades that cross the finish line first but i don't think that's
Corey
2:16
they do i don't think you lose the parade if If you're in the last spot, I think that's.
Corey
2:22
Is that how the Calgary
Zain
2:22
Calgary Parade works? I suspect that is how it works.
Zain
2:26
one lose the parade? Can we check on that? Yeah.
Zain
2:29
Sadly, our researcher and intern Stephen Carter has left us or else we would be checking on that.
Zain
2:36
Corey, thank you for your very witty and disturbing remarks about no legume November. Thank you.
Zain
2:48
As we wait for Stephen Carter, we have seen a preview of this document, and I will say, before we jump into the segment, this document, this episode is for patrons, this
Zain
2:57
this document, the seven-page document that Carter has written, his election analysis, we will post on
Zain
3:05
on Patreon so people can read the whole thing in its entirety.
Zain
3:10
which is nice. Carter, long time.
Zain
3:12
time. What's going on?
Carter
3:15
My whole computer shut down again. Yeah, that's twice in the last three or four episodes, Corey. You'll be keeping track, no doubt.
Corey
3:21
Yeah. This is the 2022 equivalent of going to somebody's house and their VCR is blinking 12 o'clock. Yeah. Carter,
Carter
3:28
come on. I'm going to have to get Strategist
Carter
3:30
Strategist Inc. to buy me a new computer.
Zain
3:32
No, it's get your life together. You need to stop structuring these deals where you get paid on the back end on a victory, okay?
Zain
3:42
Carter, do you want anything you want to talk about before we move on to our first segment? i am really blabbering the point that's fine
Zain
3:49
let's move it on to our first segment our first segment sorry time sadness stephen
Zain
3:56
the campaign debrief is here we talked about this on a previous episode we talked about the structure of a campaign debrief how one does it we talked about note-taking during campaigns we talked about what a good debrief looks like what a good debrief isn't well we are here we actually took that broader concept and we applied at it, Carter, to your election in Surrey. And you have written a seven-page document. I was just mentioning this before you came back on. We're going to post this on Patreon, this seven-page campaign analysis and debrief from yours truly and ours truly, Stephen Carter, ex-officio member of the board of the Strategies Media Corporation, soon
Zain
4:32
soon to perhaps be an official member of the board. We'll see. One
Zain
4:38
But what we want to do with this is a couple of things. Carter, I want to talk to you first about process, how you wrote this, where this kind of, you know, did you have any other folks reflect upon you and reflect with you on this document? So we'll talk about that. We'll then have you give a bit of a voiceover to this document, because many people listening do not have it in front of them. So you'll give a voiceover about what
Zain
4:57
what went right, what went wrong, why you ended up in the place you did, which, by the way, to remind people, was fourth place in that three election with your candidate. it. And then Corey and I, in the spirit of a board and a CEO relationship, even though, Carter, one day you might be CEO, not today, still ex officio, we're going to stress test this thing. We're going to try to poke holes in it. We're going to ask questions. We're going to grill you, Carter, to say, did you get it right here? And is this where you're at with this particular document is this what uh this document um truly represents in terms of why you lost what went wrong what went right that's what we're going to do cory any questions carter any questions oh
Corey
5:41
oh carter froze again what
Zain
5:45
is going on with this guy my
Carter
5:47
my apologies to to the dozens of listeners
Zain
5:50
well dozen is right there's a dozen thousand questions.
Zain
5:56
let's walk, let's walk, have us walk through this. Give us a sense of it in a second. Carter, did you write this on your own? Was this a Stephen Carter seven-pager on your own? Talking to me about the process, how did this go down? I want to hear more about that.
Carter
6:10
I spoke to some suppliers. So I spoke mostly to suppliers. I did not speak to the candidate. I I wanted to go to people who'd done a number of campaigns before and, uh, that I could kind of, you
Carter
6:26
you know, get some, uh, get some of their expertise rather than my own, you know, just kind of guiding it. Um, and then I wrote the, I wrote the document, uh, essentially in one, in one go, um, based
Carter
6:39
based on, you know, what, what I kind of thought about
Carter
6:43
about in my head of, of when did I make the mistakes when were the mistakes most visible and and how do i structure it then to kind of create a full um reckoning of the actual campaign so that's what i that's what i created uh
Carter
6:58
uh and then i sent it to you too for your uh for your input and uh you're hoping to get input before we record it and instead here i am so uh you know let's let's go for it well
Corey
7:10
well like any board meeting We read the
Zain
7:14
No, no, no. This is part of the consent agenda. We've read it. It's fine. But there are certain board members, i.e. the listenership, they're on the board before you, Carter, that have not read this document. Give them a voiceover. Give them a sense of some of your assumptions. Do it relatively quickly. Give you a couple minutes to kind of give a bit of a voiceover on what went right, what went wrong, some of the highlights of your document, and then we'll jump into it.
Carter
7:42
Well, let me start with the format of it. The first section is the pre-campaign. So the February through till April 2022 section, where we hadn't launched, we were just in the pre-components. And this is where I think I made several of the more challenging mistakes. mistakes. So first mistake, and I'll start with that. I'll start with mistakes. The first mistake was, I believe that initially coming in, I thought we're going to do a strong incumbent model. Mayor McCallum was in place. He was going to run. He had name recognition, very similar to Justin Trudeau and John Horgan. So I thought, here we go. It's going to be a strong incumbent model, but he was polling below 10%. He had such high negatives. I thought for sure this was not going going to be a strong incumbent model. And I think that ultimately that was the first mistake because it ultimately was a strong incumbent model. People moved to the incumbent afterwards at the very, very end. And I probably should have beaten the car out of them in the beginning. The second mistake was to dismiss
Carter
8:50
Brenda Locke, who was the woman who actually won, as a single issue
Carter
8:55
issue candidate around keep the RCMP in Surrey. And what I've decided here in the document is that she was actually seen as the primary opposition to McCallum. I think you guys will probably take me through that a little bit. It forced our hands on the RCMP issue, which ironically we're going through here in Alberta with the dismissing the RCMP for a provincial police force. Well, the good people of Surrey have gone through it and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on it. so far. So, um, keeping the RCMP is, uh, not going to happen, but, uh, it was pretty interesting to see it. Uh, and finally, I think the last mistake was when we decided, um, to wait out, wait until June to announce, um, that was a significant mistake. Um, we should have launched in March. Uh, that's when I pressed to March to launch, but the candidate is sitting MLA and
Carter
9:50
and she wanted to be, in the legislature until the end of the spring session. So she stayed in the legislature and we weren't in the media cycle at
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