Episode 1051: "Conversations. Boy, I don't know."

Annalise 0:01

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1051. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil. With you, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan.

Carter 0:10

You know, it sounded like you almost forgot my name right there.

Corey 0:14

happened so quickly, Stephen. You watched out. That was going to

Carter 0:16

to be really upsetting for me, so I'm glad you pulled it back together again there. Yeah,

Annalise 0:20

Yeah, I know your name. Stephen Carter.

Corey 0:24

it's Notorious Stephen Carter. Stephen

Annalise 0:26

Carter. Yeah, everyone knows your name.

Annalise 0:32

We're talking again I didn't talk to you for a few weeks And then now it's what, like two days in a row? When did we last talk? Quite

Annalise 0:44

feels like just yesterday It

Corey 0:46

It does feel like just yesterday For most

Corey 0:48

people, they probably listened yesterday Why aren't

Annalise 0:52

We are here because there's an election coming up And we're going to record a little bit more that's why why why

Carter 0:59

why i mean i uh are old and tired and surely

Carter 1:04

surely this can't be a good idea i mean you know that every time i do this i risk great personal harm every time i i come

Carter 1:13

on the show he lies

Corey 1:15

lies too close to the sun yeah your notorious big thing i didn't like where that was going for example

Annalise 1:20

example yeah so it's not every episode it's just every time you open your mouth which you've been been doing a lot lately on like political on

Carter 1:27

on no because you put me on to the was

Carter 1:30

was i on tv

Carter 1:33

i don't remember but i

Corey 1:34

the important thing steven yeah the important thing is that our premier the

Corey 1:38

the person who leads government in this province has declared that we're in a campaign season and so that is a very important legal term that the strategist takes seriously and that means we increase our recording to

Corey 1:51

to three episodes a week one of them paywalled i think that's actually like that's in regs it's not a bill but it's in regs really

Corey 1:59

yeah man you know

Carter 2:01

when i was not true

Corey 2:01

true i worked for the government for many years yeah you know did

Carter 2:05

we sign a contract with you when you were in government is that what happened i

Annalise 2:08

would trust cory on this over you carter he's more of that like detail guy right that said

Carter 2:15

said that uh what was it eight years ago this week we

Carter 2:19

we started recording the strategist podcast that's true we

Carter 2:22

should yeah this is your

Corey 2:26

birthday of when we when we came up with this

Annalise 2:29

this yeah you guys we should be doing this like in person with a cake a little happy eighth birthday cake i'm

Carter 2:35

i'm not allowed to eat cake at the moment there's

Carter 2:37

there's a situation i'm

Corey 2:39

i'm not allowed to hang out with steven carter at the moment yeah so so

Carter 2:42

so this is as good as we're gonna get annalise okay

Annalise 2:44

okay but but just pause there because some people a few people listening have not been with you um for eight years so just tell us a little bit about that story why did you why did you start eight years ago today well

Corey 2:56

well we didn't we actually started 25 years ago with bell and him chester but eight years ago was when zane and us first talked about it was bringing it back after yeah after a little bit of a hiatus yeah well because

Carter 3:08

because of the whole zune situation yeah

Carter 3:11

we we got into a deal chester got us into this deal with zune right and um Um, then it wound up in all this legal trouble and I was like, I was just fucking done. But Corey was young and had some enthusiasm and,

Carter 3:25

and, uh, Zane, I mean, Zane's, Zane's always got enthusiasm, uh, or at least then, not so much now. Yeah. But,

Annalise 3:34

But, um, he was, yeah,

Carter 3:36

he was, uh, enthusiastic. So we decided to start it up. And I think also we didn't have, uh, we were trying to record something for the CBC on on a debate night and they didn't have a show for us to be on, which

Carter 3:48

which obviously led us to recording a podcast.

Annalise 3:52

That's true. CBC led you

Corey 3:54

start. I mean, CBC letting us down. Letting us

Corey 3:57

by not having a program. Let us to start. So in 2015, I was doing, I was one of those three election panelists on election night for CBC. Stephen, I don't know. Stephen,

Corey 4:09

he was doing Stephen things. But

Corey 4:10

But the CEEP, as we we call it. You

Corey 4:14

understand, but those of us who have worked with the Seab, we like

Corey 4:17

call it the Seab.

Corey 4:18

The Seab was carrying hockey instead of the debate.

Corey 4:24

Yeah, so I wasn't going to have the opportunity to share my pearls of wisdom, and I thought, you know, that old thing we did with Chester, that Peabody Award winning radio show that we did, maybe it's time to dust it off. And Stephen,

Corey 4:38

he had nothing else going on, and so he immediately jumped to it. And Zane, who who was not involved in the conversation, and this is 100% fact, said, I'm in, I want to be the host of that thing. And so we let him do it.

Corey 4:52

And then he's let us down ever since. Yeah,

Annalise 4:55

Yeah, here we are eight years later without Zane.

Carter 4:58

which totally worked out as we planned it. Hey, Corey? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, it's exactly the way we'd planned it.

Corey 5:05

Bit of a slow burn, but hey, we were talking about twice a week public EPS. Oh. Sundays, Tuesdays. We're still talking about that? what do you think our batting average is going to be like oh

Corey 5:15

think a thousand i

Carter 5:15

i think a hundred percent because because here's the thing we've identified who our weak link right our weak link is zane um

Carter 5:24

um all we have to do is keep annalise relatively healthy um which has been tricky i concede that

Annalise 5:30

that has been tricky but

Carter 5:31

but if we can keep her relatively healthy she seems enthusiastic in a way that zane hasn't for probably the better part of five years so part

Annalise 5:38

part of it the key carter to being relatively healthy

Annalise 5:42

that my baby, my toddler, is in daycare.

Annalise 5:46

So, do you want to look after him during

Annalise 5:50

during the days? I already

Carter 5:51

already have an arrangement

Annalise 5:51

arrangement with Zane to do

Annalise 5:55

Daycare at Stephen Carter's house is what I'm hearing. I

Corey 5:58

I was pretty sure the key to enthusiasm was that Annalise is paid by the episode, unlike Zane's. You

Carter 6:04

what? That is true. She is paid by... And you know what? I think she should do... Double

Annalise 6:08

episodes, double the pay, right?

Carter 6:10

we should pay Zane that

Carter 6:12

that could have worked

Corey 6:16

let's not go nuts okay we got a thing going on now we're doing it okay

Annalise 6:19

okay guys so just so everyone is clear Sundays, Tuesdays may change probably won't Carter thinks it won't you're going to hear more of the strategists and

Corey 6:32

and you can still get your Thursday Patreon

Carter 6:37

us that sweet sweet money yeah

Corey 6:41

getting rich six dollars at a time yeah yeah

Annalise 6:44

yeah exactly um okay well this has been a very informative conversation we're going to move into our first topic our

Annalise 6:51

first topic uh is called intimate conversations there's like an s on the end of that in case i see i

Carter 7:01

i thought it was multiple

Annalise 7:02

multiple it's multiple conversations um

Annalise 7:06

guys i was at an event all afternoon um and many other people were there i would say there was probably about 1200 people in the room maybe a little more um calgary economic development had a um conversations they had conversations this afternoon um so they had an event many people thought they were buying tickets to an event that would see Smith and Notley on stage together in a discussion moderated by the mayor. That was how it was kind of initially branded. It said, like, join us for an intimate conversation,

Annalise 7:46

no S, with the premier and Rachel Notley. You're

Corey 7:49

You're really hinging a lot on this S. Yeah, there's a lot

Carter 7:52

lot going on. I'm trying to read between the

Annalise 7:54

Led by Mayor Gondek. You know, it had, like, a photo of all three of their heads.

Annalise 7:58

Anyways, I was there this afternoon, noon as I say many other people were there and it was not a conversation it was uh two different conversations they were not on stage together um and and the the language kind of recently shifted if you look back it said like you can hear intimate conversations with Smith and Notley anyways

Annalise 8:20

anyways long story short um the way they did the event was uh Notley was on stage she went first she was on stage for like probably about 20 minutes mayor asked her some questions mayor had an ipad asked her a couple audience questions she answered she she leaves and then in the same chair um premier smith comes and sits down same sort of thing um afterwards notley scrummed with the media smith did not so a lot of details there but i i want to kind of dissect this strategy wise from you guys because we said at the beginning right we're we're right before an election um what rit drop is in like less than two weeks you

Annalise 9:01

guys have been in in those rooms making these decisions beforehand we i don't know what happened i don't think anyone knows what happened why it went from being like here's a conversation to different conversations but can we can we get into the strategy of like what

Annalise 9:16

what is that like as a staffer um in terms of do Do you do you want your your leader on stage with the other leader when the event is happening? Are you like so nervous about like they could say something bad and everything could go wrong? Like let's let's kind of ignore those like details and talk about this overall bigger picture of conversations in the public sphere, events, debates, whatever with your leader. Corey, looks

Annalise 9:45

looks like you have things you want to say. Yeah.

Corey 9:47

Yeah. Well, especially two weeks before the election, as we're kind of in, you are in many ways testing your election footing and you're going out and you're treating things in a much more election-like sense than you would otherwise. So let's just start by saying six months ago, the idea of two of them on the stage would have been strange, but there's precedent for that. That's possible. You can imagine it. But two weeks before the election, you start saying things like, do I want them on stage at the same time? What does that mean? What's the dynamic? And I'll have to tell you, this event, I was supposed to go, but I'm actually on vacation today, so I begged out of the event. But I was kind of sad too, because I thought, oh, this is going to be almost like the first debate of the election. And I almost couldn't believe that it was going to happen, because it seemed to me crazy that Danielle Smith would be willing to elevate

Corey 10:39

elevate Rachel Notley to that level before she needs to, right?

Corey 10:42

right? In a campaign, it's just party leader versus party leader. In this two weeks before, it's still premier and opposition leader. And if you're premier, you don't elevate opposition leader. That's like a cardinal rule, especially as you start thinking about how you can use that power dynamic to maximum advantage ahead of an election. So your question is like, what's going on? What's the conversation?

Corey 11:04

You're having that kind of conversation. You're definitely not giving the opposition leader that elevation to peer status before you have to. You're thinking very carefully about those events. You're thinking about how you use the power of the bully pulpit while you still have it in this kind of like nice liminal space where you are premier, but people are paying attention. And those two things don't always come together. So this is a very powerful moment in a campaign. Now, I've also had experience

Corey 11:32

experience from the other side, where I was, you know, a campaign director for what was then the official opposition, but polling third, right, and ended up third coming out of the election. And you're desperate to get that elevation, and you're trying to pull it. And so the dynamic of this event is fascinating to me because it ended exactly where it should have begun. And I'm sure there's a story about how it went from one conversation to two. But the fact of the matter is, Rachel Notley clearly wanting it to be a conversation amongst equals, and Danielle Smith clearly wanting to engage as minimally as possible so it was not a conversation among equals, is actually pretty optimal behavior by both of them. Now, a lot of suboptimal this around there, but they certainly seem to be playing their cards the way I would expect them to play.

Annalise 12:19

When you're planning that event, like put on your event planning hat here,

Annalise 12:26

how much does does Smith get more say instantly because she is premier? Like you kind of you said, you know, Rachel probably wanted it to be a conversation as the event planner. Or do you kind of just have to go with what the premier says? And like, how do you navigate that? Well,

Carter 12:46

both of them have veto, right? So either one of them could say, I'm not coming. There's a tremendous, I mean, if you're putting yourself in the position there, you've got three very powerful people going up onto that stage, each one of whom doesn't want to be made to look like an ass. And I would argue that the situation as it unfolded made each of them look like an ass. So when you're going through these negotiations, I can't tell you the number of event producers that are producing debates or things that they think are going to be debates or different structures that I've just royally pissed off because they come at me and they think that this will be a great event for them.

Carter 13:23

Fantastic. I'm really excited that you want to have a great event. Go fuck yourself because I'm not in the business of giving you a great event. What I'm in the business of doing is getting my candidate elected. So if that means that I get an opportunity to debate Jeremy Farkas one-on-one in the mayor's race, then I'm making sure that it happens. If we get to put Nahid Denchi into debates day after day after day with Rick McIver and Barb Higgins, then I'm doing it because he can slaughter them. But, you know, Jyoti wasn't that good in debates. Alison Redford wasn't that good in debates. You know, we picked and chose where we put people because if you just simply drop people into every situation, you can wind up with egg on your face. And I would argue that today's event put egg on just about everybody's face in that auditorium. I did an interview with CTV just before the event started. I think it was at, let's see, 2.30. And they got up on stage at, I believe, 5.30. It was after

Carter 14:29

Yeah. So that's not great. That's not great.

Annalise 14:32

The event was supposed to be over by 5.30. The networking started. The networking was 2.30 to 3.30. Everyone was sitting down at 3.30. It was supposed to be over at 5.30.

Annalise 14:41

The first conversation happened after 5.30. Yeah.

Carter 14:45

Yeah. So the problem that you have in all of those situations, and especially a situation like like this where the calgary economic development authority or the whatever it is ced has its own agenda and its agenda again it does not match with the agenda of of rachel notley or or danielle smith they have the you know i i see very clearly why rachel notley wanted to do this event she wanted to stand in front of an audience of uh business leaders in calgary in the place that that she needs to win and shine as a potential option for Calgarians. And it really doesn't matter what the format is. As long as she gets to stand up in front of a Calgary economic development audience and talk about Calgary economic development and not sound like an idiot, it's a good day for her. It doesn't matter what the format is. Danielle Smith is in a totally different spot. Danielle Smith is trying to keep

Carter 15:41

keep herself elevated. Right now, all her advertising is paid for by the government of Alberta. There is no, you know, there is no media relations requirement because it's not, you know, she's decided she's not doing media. The media is trying to paint her with a brush of not being available. But who cares? It's just not going to have the impact that going up there and sitting in front of a microphone and having actual clips of you sounding like an idiot. There was a tremendous amount of risk involved in Danielle Smith even setting foot up there. And frankly, if I was running either Smith or

Carter 16:16

or Gondek's campaign, I would have said, absolutely not. Hold

Annalise 16:22

Hold on, you said Smith or Gondek's campaign? Yeah,

Carter 16:25

Yeah, Gondek should never.

Annalise 16:26

never. You think Gondek shouldn't have moderated is what you're saying?

Carter 16:28

There's only two ways it can go. She's going to piss off someone, right? She's going to look like she's being too hard on someone or too easy on someone. And she's

Carter 16:36

she's not a fucking moderator. She's the mayor.

Annalise 16:39

Have you guys seen that? Is

Annalise 16:41

like, is that, you've been in politics longer

Annalise 16:45

longer than me, but is that, have you seen that before? Like, I can't recall when I was a reporter covering

Annalise 16:51

covering something where you had two candidates and then it was moderated by a mayor. Have you seen that before?

Corey 16:58

don't think it's necessarily unprecedented it's very weird and I will say in general when people try to play with those formats they think that they're splitting the atom they think they're breaking the mold but the reality is people have drifted to the kind of rules Stephen said like don't put a mayor who's a politician in their own right in a situation like that for a reason an event that really always sticks with me in 2015 I can't believe they're getting more air time In 2015, the Alberta Party held a leader's dinner. They're

Carter 17:26

really happy with us right now. So I'm glad we can talk

Carter 17:29

talk about them again.

Annalise 17:30

They loved your comments in the last episode, Corey. Just love them.

Corey 17:33

them. A leader's dinner. Okay. You know how it's called a leader apostrophe S dinner? Like it's the dinner for the leader. This

Corey 17:40

This is 2015. Greg Clark is leader of the Alberta Party. Do you know what they did as their program for the leader's dinner? Tell

Corey 17:47

Steven remembers. members. They decided to put Greg Clark on a panel with myself and Danielle Smith. Yes, that Danielle Smith. And essentially, it just ended up with me and Danielle beating up Greg Clark for an hour in front of the Alberta Party faithful. It was very weird. And I'm sure some people thought afterwards, well, maybe that wasn't a good thing to do. But it wasn't. And the reason The reason why the format of the leader's dinner is the leader gives a speech is the entire thing is it's a speech from the pulpit to the faithful. Same thing with these kind of moderations. What's the one critique people always have of moderators? It's they didn't go aggressive enough or they were too aggressive, right? Like, what's the win? You know, even

Corey 18:32

even if you do win, even if you come out of there being like, what a great moderator, is that anyone's idea of what the job of mayor is? Where's the win, right? But I

Corey 18:40

I want to get back to something Stephen said, which I think is really important to underline.

Corey 18:46

Everybody has their agenda. Opposition has the agenda. CED has an agenda. Mayor's office has an agenda.

Corey 18:54

Premier has an agenda. And the delicate dance that happens before any of these events is like, how

Corey 19:01

how are you going to negotiate this? Whose agenda is going to trump? And so you ask, like, does the premier come with a stronger position? Usually, not during an election. But because we're in this weird space in between, I'm sure there was a weird dance. But CED is not trying to give Rachel Notley a platform. And they're not trying to give Daniel Smith a platform. They're trying to platform themselves and make themselves seem very relevant and connected and at the core of Calgary. so

Annalise 19:25

with with that weird dance like rachel spoke first and then smith spoke and i mean another recent event i was at our live show uh stephen carter you did your strategy first and

Annalise 19:39

and then cory did his strategy um

Annalise 19:42

um but so even even like even a detail as you know seemingly minor is that that i would say is quite big because when smith is talking you're thinking about well rachel just was on stage and she looked this way and she was wearing this and she said this like in terms of that um who goes first when

Annalise 20:00

when you guys have been in those back rooms if you were advising in this case would you have pushed like no my leaders goes first cory wayan yeah

Corey 20:08

yeah well so again we're in this period where it's not an election and the protocol is pretty set like the premier closes the show like the big speaker goes at the end so i'm sure it wasn't much of a debate But actually, Stephen and I were in the same version of this conversation in 2012 when we were talking about the rules for the leaders debate that particular election.

Corey 20:28

election. We were in a room with other parties and there were conversations about how they were going to decide orders of questions. And when it becomes a campaign and when it becomes these are all party leaders and we're going to pretend they're equal, even if they're the liberals polling at 10 or the wild rose polling at 30, right?

Corey 20:48

Then the debate, the dance gets a little bit fancier and it often goes down to random chance. So this same event held two weeks later probably would have been a coin toss. But because it was held today, premiere goes last. And that's

Corey 21:02

that's the protocol. You can ask yourself in an event that's running so long and people are starting, I'm sure, to stream out whether that's to the advantage of the premiere.

Corey 21:10

But that is the protocol.

Annalise 21:11

Which is the better position? Protocol aside, is

Annalise 21:15

is it better to go first or to go second? Well,

Corey 21:18

Well, so it's funny because if it's an announcement, the protocol is like the big person goes first. Like it always starts with the premier, right? And then it peters off to other people. At like a dinner or a formal event, it always ends with the big speaker. And so really, if you're going to have them captured and captivated, you want to go last. Because the whole idea is you get to be the last thing they think about. And then they can go out being like, what a great speech. It's so good. I'm going to go leave. it's why zane opened for us but steven and i closed the show exactly

Carter 21:48

exactly right yeah same

Carter 21:50

same exact thing but

Corey 21:51

but at like a media event and i think some of the logic applies in an event where people have to start petering off to go home for dinner and to see their kids and stuff you want to go first because if somebody only sticks around for that you know you you want them to hear that it's it's the inverted pyramid approach to communications which communications professionals will recognize it's the idea that you lead with your core messages and it's just taken to the idea of the speakers list you lead with your core speaker um you know so interesting dynamics here but like i said there's there's pretty clear protocol for these things i think if there was a debate to be had it was what kind of event is this well

Carter 22:29

that's where it went off the rail why

Carter 22:31

why did i go first i wanted to give a chance

Carter 22:32

chance uh okay because

Annalise 22:35

you you won the the for people who haven't gone to that episode yet because i know there's a lot of episodes or they weren't there we did a coin flip carter won he got to choose and you picked that you went first well

Carter 22:46

well in in part because i i didn't want people laughing at my slides while i was presenting them um right

Carter 22:54

right like my powerpoint while strong in its own right uh you know doesn't stand up to cory's uh exceptional

Carter 23:02

exceptional powerpoint skills but but that's also part of what we're describing like Like, if you're not, like, there's

Carter 23:10

there's a lot to lose for Danielle today. Really a lot to lose. And I'm really shocked that her team let her do this because all these things, all these considerations you're talking about, Annalise, all of them are highly variable. I mean, it sounds to me like everybody leaving that, you know, the event ran so long that you're not got a good, you know, you don't have that great audience. You don't have that. Everybody's sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for the premier to say what they're going to say. I mean, it was really set up almost as a lose for Danielle. I'm also told that there was it was a very female heavy audience. Again, you know, fantastic for Calgary Economic Development. Great for the mayor. Great for Rachel Notley. Less good for for Danielle Smith. myth but this is another campaign mistake um that i think a more experienced campaign team would have just said you

Carter 24:04

you know uh i mean go

Carter 24:06

go do it yourself we're not going to show up and then taking the lumps of yeah you didn't show up for a calgary i mean of course we didn't show up the mayor's the fucking moderator do you think she's impartial last week she was screaming about me at me about about um downtown funding or opiate deaths or whatever she's she's not impartial i couldn't possibly show up and and have a discussion when the mayor of calgary you know uh is is suddenly the the quote-unquote moderator there's nothing moderate about her carter

Annalise 24:38

carter what is that like um in terms of the requests like you've been in those back rooms at this time and obviously people have lead time and their requests have come in you know weeks months ago but is it just non-stop requests and how which

Annalise 24:56

which are the ones that instantly go to your yes pile almost

Carter 24:59

almost nothing goes instantly to my yes pile the the one that would for this particular situation the one that goes directly to the yes pile is the televised leaders debate uh there will be one of those uh maybe two depending depending on how the teams are negotiating it. I

Corey 25:17

can't remember the last time we've had two. Yeah, but- I mean, there'll be like a pseudo event, like CBC Radio will have all of them on

Carter 25:24

on or something. But

Corey 25:24

But in terms of like a formal, I'll bet you there's one. I'd be surprised if otherwise.

Carter 25:29

You pencil that one in and you say, okay, we have to do that. Because if we don't do that, we're going to get pilloried in the news media and it'll actually be worse for us than going out and shitting the bed. And that's kind of how I think about it. you know are we going to shit the bed is there a possibility that we could shit the bed and if yes then you know you have to weigh it against the possibility of shitting the bed not the possibility of winning the day these things are extremely difficult

Carter 25:56

difficult to predict is it going to work out well i don't know could go really well could go horribly so

Carter 26:02

so you've got to make sure that you know you're i start from the from the place we'll do one and

Carter 26:09

and then when they start piling up like we did with the municipal campaign, then I'm just looking for voter sets and money sets. If I need to get money, then we do a corporate one. If I need to get attention

Carter 26:23

attention or voters' attention, then we'll do a special voter one

Carter 26:28

one where the voters themselves have more of a say or feel like they're being heard, something along those lines. But each one needs to be fully

Carter 26:36

fully evaluated and vetted because

Carter 26:38

you really are putting your entire campaign

Carter 26:42

on the line just for a

Carter 26:45

a couple of people's satisfaction who actually attend the event.

Corey 26:48

Yeah. And that's really important. I want to underline it because I think in particular third parties make this mistake of being desperate, right? They'll

Corey 26:56

They'll take anything, they'll go to anything and they do not do the assessment as to whether it moves the ball forward for them. Because frankly, there are just rooms that are of no value to you on any campaign, whether you're the premier or you're the leader of the third party. And you've got to make the assessment on a case-by-case basis. And I like to tell people, and I usually do in the context of election day, like get out the vote, because I, well, Stephen, you've worked with me on a get out the vote. I could be pretty aggressive. We'll call those people a dozen times if we need to, to get them out the door. And what I often say is they they got four years to get over it. And that's true of event RSVPs too, right? This is the moment. This is why you are building all that capital over four years. Don't blow it by being like overly courteous during the election. The whole point from a political point of view of all of that other stakeholder engagement is to get optimal outcomes for yourself.

Corey 27:48

Yeah. I mean, that might sound a little crass and transactional, but the reality is you don't want to blow it in the four-week campaign you only get one of those it's

Annalise 27:57

it's with with the oh carter did you want to i'm

Carter 28:01

i'm just gonna say it's a campaign not you know it's not this thing where you go around and try and make everybody happy and there is only one outcome that matters did you win or did you lose and making

Carter 28:13

making people happy just isn't part of that calculation okay

Annalise 28:17

okay with the leaders debate and this was actually there was a little conversation on this in the discord group which people can access if they give six dollars a month uh and become supporters it's been it's been hopping lately that discord group it's like it's

Annalise 28:34

like everyone has left twitter and they've turned to talk politics in the strategist discord group um

Annalise 28:40

um but there was a little conversation there today log

Carter 28:43

log in again do you guys remember how

Carter 28:45

i can get in you're

Annalise 28:49

there was um there was a little conversation today about the leaders debate and like if if saying no to it is a strategy can you do that and you kind of maybe already answered this by saying it's the one thing you have to do but can you say no to the leaders debate or has that happened and um yeah cory do you want to start yeah

Corey 29:09

yeah you could say no it is certainly happened not in alberta in my memory i'm sure it has happened but you'll recall even in like the I mean every federal election this comes up a little bit more with the kind of collapse of the consortium and and when Stephen Harper decided he was just going to do his own thing in 2015 there are ways to say no without even looking like you're saying no like I don't like this format I'm going to go talk to this group over here and you know knowing that the other team won't want to go talk to that group and it's not yeah hey I'm not trying to avoid the debate I was willing to do a debate over here they weren't willing to do a debate over here looks like we're We're both cowards. Oh, well, right. And then you sort of wash your hands of it. But you know, there's an artful way to do that. I think the challenge you would have in an Alberta setting is probably the

Corey 29:55

the precedent, right? The fact that we do have this television consortium that gets together and everybody discusses it and it's, you know, CTV and Global and CBC are there. And it would be different if it was like the CBC debate, right? Because then people would pull out of the consortium. You know, I don't trust CBC. You know, they have such poor judgment the way that they left Twitter, even though Corey Hogan told them they shouldn't. Stuff like that, right?

Corey 30:19

But there's just, you know, it's just a little bit more of a stage set affair in Alberta. Could you say no? Yeah, you could. I don't even think it's impossible. It happens this time around if there's kind of a triggering event.

Corey 30:32

But I think it would be very tough. It would look like you're hiding from the media. Carter,

Annalise 30:36

Carter, strategy-wise there, let's say you're advising Danielle Smith.

Annalise 30:41

Should she do the debate? And maybe you're adopting a bit of Corey's strategy, which is like, don't be out there saying things. Should she do the debate?

Carter 30:53

Well, I mean, I think that even today, I don't think that the things that she is saying are resonating particularly well. I think that what she is saying and how she is saying it is being met with cold ears. And, you know, so this isn't necessarily good for her every time she shows up and opens her mouth. So then in your campaign, you have to evaluate whether or not turning up and opening your mouth is good or not, because you can run campaigns where you don't show up and say anything. You diminish your chances of winning in a normal sense. But this isn't that time. this time is is much you

Carter 31:32

this this could be the time when because you're up against the quote-unquote evil socialist empire um we're not showing up could be a benefit because people won't remember that you're an idiot conservative they'll think you're just a conservative yeah

Corey 31:47

yeah there's the question of what's optimal in a general sense and i think we would probably both say generally what's optimal is to show up to the debate because you don't want to

Corey 31:56

to look like you're dodging the debate and then there's the question of what's optimal in an individual sense and that's different from election to election and you can always over learn these rules right and it does remind me of a campaign debrief i was involved in many many years ago now this was like 2008 or so right where uh you know we were talking about what went right what went wrong on the campaign and somebody in the debrief said they

Corey 32:23

they didn't think door knocking worked at all because they found no correlation. Where they sent their candidate, the vote actually went down. So no correlation. And my point would be, well, there is a correlation, it's just a negative one. And so while door knocking is generally good for candidates, perhaps you've got a candidate who doesn't perform on doors. And perhaps the individual strategy there is to pick formats where the candidate performs more strongly. Same basic logic for everything you're approaching in a campaign right now, and you asked us, Annalise, sort of to kick this off. It's two weeks before a campaign. What are people thinking about? What are they doing?

Corey 32:56

That's the kind of conversation they should be having right now. Hopefully, they've been having it for months before that, but they're trying to decide what their campaign looks like. It's fine to hear what best practice is overall, but you've got to layer in the environment, the individual actors, all of the things that make each individual campaign unique. A beautiful snowflake, if you will. Is

Annalise 33:16

Is it not really hard, though, when I

Annalise 33:19

mean, obviously it's hard, but when

Annalise 33:21

when with the RSVP time, right, like CED started advertising this event over a month ago. So the dynamic that Daniel Smith and Rachel Notley were operating in a month ago when they said yes, obviously they knew this is going to happen in a month. It'll be two weeks before the election. But like a lot has happened over the past 30 days. Does that just really

Carter 33:43

I never ever say yes a month ago.

Corey 33:46

Yeah, you say maybe.

Carter 33:48

I don't know. I'm going to see how things go. Oh, you know what? She's got a tremendously busy schedule. We're certainly going to try and put that in. You know, oh, can you advertise it? Sure. I mean, if you want, that's your risk, not my risk. So if you want to advertise, you go ahead. You just make

Annalise 34:04

make it like super hard for those people who are booking the facility and selling tickets and

Carter 34:10

all that. Yeah, because again,

Corey 34:10

again, like to what we were saying earlier, like it's about what's good for us at this moment. and it's not it's not what's good for them i

Carter 34:17

i don't give a shit if if if um calgary

Carter 34:20

calgary economic development rents a hall and doesn't put anybody in it not my problem that's their problem all i care about is whether or not my candidate picked up support or not and and you know even

Carter 34:34

even if they started advertising it and you know i hadn't said yes there's absolutely no way i would even care air i'd be like yeah fuck it that seems like a them problem not a me problem um

Carter 34:47

um and that's really what i would be focused on all the way through carter

Annalise 34:51

carter do you think that was the first i mean you said everyone has egg on their face and we can get into that but we've also talked about this a lot but do you think do you think the first problem was rsvp-ing a month ago yeah

Carter 35:01

yeah absolutely you cannot commit to something four weeks from now i mean tour is done two days in advance i mean you put down a path like right now in the big rooms there's there's a board and on the board there there is a tour schedule of where they want to be on any given day by the end of the of the campaign they will have hit 45

Carter 35:21

45 of those events 45 of those dates and that's a good campaign right like that is an outstanding well-performing campaign it's and so you plan so you know what you're moving away from not

Carter 35:33

not because you know what you're going to be doing and

Carter 35:35

and this would be part of that i mean this is essentially this fixed election date you know the the unintended consequence of having a fixed election date is that now you happen to have a period where you know there's going to be an election so instead of having a four-week election campaign now we have an eight week ten week twelve week campaign um in the states it's gotten to you

Carter 35:59

you know a year-long campaign Yeah. So, you know, that's the nature of fixed election dates. And I think everybody knew that. But

Carter 36:09

But we all thought that this would remove some sort of home field advantage for the government. Bullshit. We just gave them a different home field advantage. Corey,

Corey 36:20

Yeah, I mean, I agree with Stephen, but that's almost a whole other topic we could open up here.

Carter 36:24

Yeah, but that's why I did it. I was opening it up for our next question, just in case. I

Annalise 36:28

I said last question.

Corey 36:31

know, the question of RSVPs in the month ahead and some of it's tied to what Stephen said in that, like, it feels like in normal times you would give an RSVP a month ahead like this. But if they're going to treat it like an election, they got to treat it like an election and they can't give that RSVP in advance. My suspicion is it probably went something like this. CED reached out to Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith. Rachel Notley and her team immediately jumped at it because, as I was saying, like, they want to elevate to like, okay, this is now two party leaders debating because that's better than premier versus opposition leader, right? That's wonderful for them. And then that either directly or indirectly caused the premier's office to then say, well, we better be there too, right? And by directly, I mean, like they heard Rachel Notley's in, so they're in. Indirectly, I mean, they probably didn't give even as much of a hedge as they should have. And I imagine having both been the person delivering that message and knowing that people hear what they want to hear, but also the one trying to get the answer from people about whether they're going to show up to something, that the premier's office probably said something along the lines of, yeah, that's certainly a really interesting event. We'd love to be there. We'll try to make it happen. Yeah.

Corey 37:41

And then, you know, and then maybe things ran away. So either directly or indirectly, the cause of this was Rachel

Corey 37:48

Rachel Notley agreed, Premier's office felt they couldn't at least disagree, right?

Annalise 37:52

And somewhere in the course of that, it went from intimate conversation to intimate conversations. conversations? Well,

Corey 37:59

Well, sure. Because if you're being the group that's saying like, yeah, we'll even if you're being vague about that, we'll be there. But you haven't 100% confirmed, you haven't gotten into the details, right? In that scenario, right? Especially if you're thinking you might not go, you are definitely not going to make them create a format that is going to cause all sorts of trouble, you're going to leave it loose. And, and so I don't know, I'm sure that there's a story to be heard here. I'm sure that we'll hear about it on Twitter. And just through our various contacts, Calgary is the biggest, smallest city in

Corey 38:31

in some ways, but... Hang

Carter 38:34

I'm just getting a DM.

Corey 38:36

You're getting a DM.

Corey 38:40

From the DMs, Stephen.

Annalise 38:42

Let's send your DMs there, Stephen. From

Carter 38:44

From the DMs. I'm getting a DM that says that this

Carter 38:47

this was an event actually produced by Corey Hogan.

Carter 38:51

Corey Hogan put this thing together, and he's the reason that Danielle showed up. She's like, oh, if I can be interviewed by the Corey Hogan, then

Carter 39:01

That'd be very exciting. That's what the DM said.

Corey 39:05

reminisced about the time that we were on stage with Greg Clark beating the stuffing out of him. Yeah. Wow.

Carter 39:09

Wow. That would have been great. You and Danielle.

Carter 39:12

Would have been good. Oh, well.

Annalise 39:14

Okay. Next topic. Good conversation. Crime, guys. Crime.

Annalise 39:18

Crime. Let's talk about crime. Boy. Bad guys. Crime. Boy. I

Annalise 39:23

don't know. And by the way,

Corey 39:23

congratulations on your first Velgie-length segment. Yeah,

Annalise 39:27

I know, that was long.

Annalise 39:29

That was... You Velgied that one. That was long. You

Annalise 39:32

really Velgied that one. But there was lots there. That's what he always says, too.

Corey 39:36

he always says, too.

Annalise 39:37

too. There was lots there. You guys were saying good things. Carter was not saying stupid things, so I kept it going.

Corey 39:44

I mean, that didn't sound like it was an insult, Stephen. It

Corey 39:46

It hurt a little.

Annalise 39:48

Okay, crime. So, it's an issue... Did you guys see my

Carter 39:52

my whole West Wing thing there? Boy, crime, boy, I don't know.

Corey 39:56

No. No. We're okay. The

Carter 39:57

The fans will. The fans will see it. I

Corey 40:00

I got to tell you, I don't know what you see in that show. I find

Carter 40:02

find it so great. You literally were the last one to refer to it on this podcast. You were literally the last one to refer to it.

Corey 40:09

will not be taking any of your shit. I was hoping to be the last one. Yes, I was. I will not be taking any of your shit, Carter.

Annalise 40:13

Carter. Get your Discord login and go chat with people there about it. um crime is an issue the same one

Carter 40:22

one as the twitter account because that would be explaining some stuff crime

Annalise 40:27

is an issue that the ucp is pushing um it's

Annalise 40:31

it's been in the headlines a lot lately right like it's been in the headlines both in terms of actual crime that is happening um

Annalise 40:38

um and i say that with my former crime reporter hat on but like there's been stabbings there's been um

Annalise 40:45

i don't no like violent crime sprees there's just been a lot of crime stories recently and then there's been commitments and announcements um from

Annalise 40:53

from both the UCP and the NDP the NDP had an announcement on the weekend the UCP have had multiple like more money for mental health more money for cops on transit new police officers um there's been a lot today there was a global mail exclusive about about documents that show the UCP is looking at essentially forcing some drug users to attend treatments against their will. Just kind of the whole crime, mental health, all that stuff has been in the news a lot. And then also, and I don't think we talked about this, so let me know if you guys talked about it with Zane, but the first sort of unofficial campaign presser took place a couple weeks ago when

Annalise 41:33

when it was UCP MLA Rebecca Schultz. she called out six NDP candidates for past social media comments about the police and then this was followed up by ads and texts I got one from the UCP that said you know like Rachel Notley's NDP are not serious about public safety um so I I want to talk I mean we can talk about kind of the specific things but this like broader topic and issue of crime and how you win on it strategy

Annalise 42:00

strategy strategy-wise. Why don't we start with that massive question, Corey? You've got thoughts. I

Corey 42:05

I do, because it's interesting, because we had the live show, we talked about strategy. One of the things that we looked at was the issues, and what were the top issues for people, and what were the issues that the UCP could win on or the NDP could win on. And it was like the next day, this big crime brigade from the UCP began. And it made me realize, like, crime was not on those lists. It wasn't even being polled as a top issue at the time and we didn't have solid polling on where they landed but i think that we would probably all intuit that this is an issue conservatives have historically done better than progressives on right and i thought well that's really interesting and at the live show i you know i think steven and i both made the comment like hey we we don't have party polling we just have access to the public polling but it made me wonder what their party polling says and i suspect that they saw it as an opportunity to really wrong Longfoot, the NDP, probably saw this as an issue two-to-one advantage over the NDP. And if they could elevate it and make it an issue that people were really concerned about, that could potentially pay huge dividends. And so they

Corey 43:12

they went on a bit of a crime spree, I guess you could say. Oh, nice. Thank you. That's good.

Corey 43:18

Wow. Through ads and announcements and events. And that continues to even this day, to your point.

Corey 43:27

it's really a tough one for me because crime

Corey 43:31

crime is on the rise right like the statistics show crime is on the rise but if you take a broader view of it crime is still well off of where the highs were in previous decades and so i don't think you can dismiss it and i think progressives would be not serving themselves well to pretend that it's not a concern for people like you really do need need to think about how you resolve these challenges and frankly for most people it's not going to be enough to say we're going to cause we're going to tackle the root problems because yeah we fucking should but that's not going to help me about the person with a knife downtown today right like that's a longer lead strategy and so and that's why both parties are sort of talking about what's we're going to do now what we're going to do in the future kind of thing here but

Corey 44:13

but i you know the last thing i want to say before i throw it over to stephen carter here The

Corey 44:21

it's not even crime that concerns people. It's random crime, right? It's the crime that they think could happen to them. It is the guy downtown who is running around slashing a knife. It's the train incident that you can't get away from. Those are the things that people find particularly scary. crime that they don't think they're ever going to see or feel they kind of soullessly tune out it's when they themselves start to feel that anxiety that that it becomes real and that's very anecdote based and frankly i would find it deeply insufficient myself if somebody said yeah well i know you don't feel safe on transit but you know statistically speaking you're worse off in a car crash like that doesn't oh thank you very much like what

Corey 45:04

that do for me and i think progressives do fall into this kind of like blind following of the numbers a little quickly uh because there is a huge emotional component to it as well i

Carter 45:15

i think that that's i think that that's true i mean i i was down did i mention i was downtown today uh did an interview with ctv oh you

Annalise 45:24

you did it downtown you

Carter 45:25

didn't yeah i did studio hey

Corey 45:27

while you were there did you pick up the check for the live show i

Carter 45:30

i tried to actually and it's not okay uh

Carter 45:32

uh so we are once Once again, getting fucked around by our venues. Hey, calm down. They haven't given us the check

Carter 45:40

Yeah. So, you know, there's a signing issue. Anyways, here's where we are. I'm downtown. I'm walking to my interview. Where

Annalise 45:51

Where was your interview at? It

Carter 45:53

It was at the TELUS Convention Center. You may have heard

Annalise 45:54

heard of that place. Oh, you were live before. Okay. Yeah.

Carter 45:58

Yeah. Before it started. I'm the kind of guy that, you know, they want to get an input from before things happen because I set the stage, right? I let

Carter 46:08

let people know how it's going to

Corey 46:09

You're the kind of guy who will show up to an event you're not going to just to provide B-roll. At

Annalise 46:14

.30 on a Tuesday afternoon.

Annalise 46:18

Carter, some people are busy working at their job.

Carter 46:22

have higher standards for yourself. I was able to get down there and I did this interview.

Annalise 46:26

Did you take the train down there? No,

Carter 46:27

No, but I walked past a couple of people. I'm not sure if they were homeless. I don't think so. But I don't think they were housed. But regardless, they were just in the midst of shooting up. And it didn't make me feel particularly comfortable because, you know, I'm not used to those types of things. And this is the type of social disorder that we now see where people are walking past more and more social disorder when they go downtown. And they're not necessarily seeing violent crime, but they're seeing crime that makes them fearful. And crime that makes you fearful is something that is really nebulous and hard to understand and hard to figure out. But you just if you don't feel good, if you don't feel comfortable, then it is it doesn't matter what the statistics say to what Corey says. And I didn't feel comfortable. Now, I don't believe at any moment of that interaction, I was actually at risk, but it doesn't matter. I didn't feel good. I didn't feel comfortable. And that's why, you know, there are many, many different progressive style solutions. But I'll tell you what I was really impressed with is the NDP putting out their crime strategy so that they would have an answer on

Carter 47:42

It went out, it got some coverage. It's actually a really good day for getting coverage because there's not a lot going on on Sundays, and there's still reporters, so the reporters have something to cover, and they covered this particular story. I thought that was a great opportunity for them to get out their crime story, their crime platform, without having to take on the progressive side, take on their own internal groups of people who want to see some specific types of solutions. solutions um they got to be hard on crime without having the natural consequence of having their own side stand up and say how dare you try and win votes from the middle when you know that these solutions don't ever work and that

Carter 48:27

that to me is really important for partisan communications partisan communications are no small part designed to win over or to get your own crew crew on side and the

Carter 48:39

the ndp the left crew is just as crazy as the right crew the right crew are you know you didn't go far enough on crime and the left crew will be like oh you went too far on crime you know we don't understand the i mean i read the the forced um treatment thing today with a very different eye than the left that was just like this is just simply bad across across the board. I don't think it'll be effective, but I can understand the impetus and the desire to put people into a safer place. It sounds

Carter 49:14

sounds negative, but you could spin this if you were the UCP to be a lot more sensitive than they actually have.

Annalise 49:22

So Carter, are you saying that part of the key here is just to do something? It doesn't necessarily matter as much what it is, but to have something so that you can point to, we're going to do this. I

Carter 49:34

I mean, I walked past two sheriffs and two police officers today walking basically hand in hand. I'm not sure why you need four officers walking together instead of two groups of two, but it didn't really reinforce the idea that everything is safer. But now the UCP has put more officers downtown. They put these cops, you know, the sheriffs are down there with the police officers. Now, when I saw them, they were all side by side, hand in hand, not solving a damn thing. You know, they were nowhere to be seen when I was walking past the folks that were shooting up. But, you know, that's just the way the cookie crumbles that it looks like you're doing something. So sometimes

Carter 50:16

sometimes looking like you're doing something is all you can do.

Corey 50:43

with certain baked in, you know, regardless

Corey 50:51

regardless of any logic, brand takes over. And it's a great example of how brand trumps all, frankly. But what they did is they did exactly what we suggested

Corey 51:00

that the UCP do on the issues they're weak on, right? Which is have an answer for it, get that answer out there, but don't dwell on the answer. Like, don't make it what you're all about for the next bit. And I think it was really smart, you know? So it was a weekend announcement, The leader wasn't there. I read that a little bit different. I read that as Rachel Notley, filling the larder, getting the things she needs so her candidates on the door have good answers for crime. They can talk about investments in police, they can talk about investments in prevention, but not going to spend all of her time and her megaphone to talk about an issue that is, if you elevate its importance, naturally going to lead people to the UCP, right? right? So you got answers, but you're not giving it audio.

Corey 51:40

audio. You're not giving it kind of the volume that it would otherwise have. And that's exactly what they should be doing. Like, that is very smart. And frankly, I

Corey 51:51

I even saw online a number of people when Rachel, well, not even Rachel Notley, when the NDP put out this, who are NDP supporters being like, well, this is bullshit. She's just giving more police great. We now have two parties doing this. You know, this

Corey 52:04

this is just wrong. Well, Well, okay. Right. But that's, you know, that's exactly why these issues are a little perilous for the NDP. Right. And why you don't want to be talking about them too much, because you are going to have people on your own side, making comments that will be thrown back in your face. Now, the comments that the UCP were identifying and trying to elevate, such as Janice Irwin retweeting something that by somebody who used the hashtag defund the police are a little ridiculous. Like they're a bit of a stretch here. But it is also a good example about how careful powerful candidates have to be on those particular things what

Annalise 52:39

about the emotional aspect of it and you both have kind of talked about crime being an emotional topic and i think and again we're talking like anecdotes here but when i was a crime reporter way back in the day you know and like a a targeted murder happens in a community and you're in that community door knocking and people will be like oh but this is such a good quiet community and now i don't feel safe and it had had nothing to do with them and it happened to block away but it's so it's it's so emotional and then when I I worked um briefly with the justice ministry rural crime was a huge issue that we were dealing with and it's super emotional because as you say you can point to statistics but people talk about how they feel and what they're hearing from their neighbors and well this happened to that person so and and Carter I mean you're doing it right now talking but what you saw as you know like a middle-aged man walking downtown at 2 30 in the middle of the afternoon right

Corey 53:35

how old how old am i buddy

Corey 53:38

that's good for you middle-aged is nice

Annalise 53:40

nice but that that's

Annalise 53:42

that emotional aspect and then you add in you know when it's dark when you're a woman when you're alone that sort of thing like do you want to talk i guess about how when

Annalise 53:54

when an issue like this is so emotional how it affects the strategy yeah

Corey 53:59

yeah let's start here uh okay you know

Corey 54:04

let's let's start here though like

Corey 54:06

psychological safety is an element of safety i think we should acknowledge that and and it's part of why we can't dismiss people's anxieties about this particular matter and it's why you can't fact them to death it is important that people feel safe going about their lives that's that's pretty like i mean that's in some ways the foundation of society right this idea that you know we're governed by rules and laws and things will according go according to a plan somewhat and that we're all going to comport ourselves in a certain fashion right so like you do need to address the psychological safety component and governments do need to address the psychological safety component and i'm personally of the opinion that even if you think crime statistics don't warrant it even if you believe that the better solution is long-term And the more fruitful solution is long term to deal like head these things off at the pass. There is societal value to putting police in the situations where people can regain their sense of comfort and safety, because in doing so, they will also regain a bit of their rationality and their ability to deal with these issues in a more forthright fashion. So you can't ignore the psychological safety. That's the only thing I wanted to put on the table before Stephen jumped in with whatever pearl of wisdom he had. yeah

Annalise 55:18

yeah it's gonna be good carter the mic is yours people

Carter 55:21

people want to see certain things too uh people want to see bad people being arrested they want um you know they're not as afraid as

Carter 55:31

as they are you know when they they answer the door just after that incident and they're like oh my god i've always been so afraid of crime you or i'm so afraid now i never thought it would hit my neighborhood you know what you're not going to be afraid in four days in four days you're going to to go back to living the exact same life you were living before and you're going to forget all the about all of it because that's the nature of the human existence you don't we don't generally live in fear we generally are able to move past fear quite quickly but when we are asked you know are you worried about this are you scared about that yeah of course i am um in no small part because you're asking me so these things are fleeting they don't necessarily last but a good smart smart government makes people feel safe by taking action periodically. Um, and I think that this is where we're kind of off track in society. We have enforcement issues. We have issues where, um, some, some crimes don't

Carter 56:30

don't seem to be getting much attention. Um, and some of them are

Carter 56:36

minuscule and don't matter very much, right? Like my, my constant gripe about cars that are too loud uh because i'm i'm i'm ancient i'm

Carter 56:45

i'm ancient and uh it interrupts not it interrupts nap time and frankly uh you know it's against the law and i just want to see that punished but there's a lot of things that seem to be against the law that people don't see punished anymore vagrancy um you know doing drugs in public isn't allowed it's not a thing that we do but because people aren't punished people start to have the sense that there's a general lawlessness and then our police system complains about it incessantly the police will complain about their inability to enforce laws or the revolving door that exists in our in our kind of current penal system at any opportunity that they're given and they're not wrong so

Carter 57:29

so i think that a party that

Carter 57:32

that wants to have real impact on this. We'll start looking at things kind of holistically. But I'm not thinking that anything that the UCP, or the NDP have brought forward, even gets close to that. In this particular election, it's just, it's just too much to really deal with. And why would you bother?

Corey 57:52

Well, look, let's also be realistic. We are a province on the prairies of four and a half million people in a country of 40 million in a world of 8 billion. And these are also trends ends that are happening at

Corey 58:04

least through the western world right like there is obviously some more foundational challenges out there and that's not to give governments a pass and governments are responsible for outcomes but um i

Corey 58:15

think almost you ask too much of both the ucp and ndp to solve these particular matters steven i i think that steps in the right direction are what i would settle for right now but in alberta it's worse than in a lot of other provinces and maybe we should, you know, at least point out the kind of the oddness that a lot of this rise in crime that the UCP is so adamant to stamp out and put at the feet of the NDP occurred under

Corey 58:43

under their watch. Oh,

Carter 58:45

Oh, and the way that they're dealing with addiction and homelessness is utterly bizarre for anybody who's interested in trying to solve the issue. But, you know, this is where we We are. And I think that both of them have done the job that they need to do to kind of show their bona fides on what their actual position on crime is. And now we're done because it's not actually going to be a voting issue to the point that we raised earlier about the

Carter 59:16

the polling. The polling does not show that this is actually something that people are going to vote on. do

Annalise 59:20

do you think we are done or do you think every time over the next six weeks when there's any sort of crime incident that's random in calgary a city of you know over a million people and that's going to happen that the ucp are going to try and make it into

Annalise 59:35

into a thing like are we done yeah

Carter 59:39

yeah sure they could try but who cares i mean the ndp gets to say and that's why we're proposing to do whatever the the hell they proposed on the weekend i

Corey 59:48

my theory and it's a listen it's an absolute theory my theory is this my theory is that any polling the ucp has shows they have a massive advantage with albertans on the crime issue but that the crime issue is just not particularly salient probably rising in salience though because of you know just a lot of the things we've talked about the fact that we've had a couple of major incidents in the in the last couple of weeks and all of that and i mean this sounds just too dark and too cynical but i think that they would welcome the issue being a bigger deal because it would be strong ground for them so of course they're going to take the opportunities if they arise but what rachel notley did was the the first steps in a very strong inoculation strategy yeah

Corey 1:00:28

sure which was the ability a she's got some good key messages on the ucp investments in crime or declining mining investments, as the case is. B, she's got an NDP strategy that includes more police, which will provide that psychological safety. Is it new? Is it novel? No, it doesn't need to be, right? Yeah, we want to do the same thing in that particular context. It's fine if it's an issue that you don't want to be talking about for a long time. And C, it also does go a bit deeper and talks about the social challenges, which again, allows her to pivot to her strong suit, which is people trust the NDP on healthcare, people trust the NDP on social justice, and by making it about those issues pivoting to those issues she's got all of the ingredients for a very strong defense on that particular matter okay

Annalise 1:01:13

let's leave it there and move on you don't seem to have liked

Carter 1:01:15

liked our answers though can i just dig in there

Annalise 1:01:18

there i don't seem to like this your answer was

Carter 1:01:20

was but we just finished and you went okay fine

Carter 1:01:24

fine and you moved on and it sounded a little sharp she didn't say fine i didn't

Corey 1:01:27

say fine a little

Corey 1:01:29

you can listen you're just making Did it not sound

Annalise 1:01:31

sound a little bit sharp?

Annalise 1:01:33

It sounded a little bit sharp. You're a vet that I called you middle-aged, Carter. We're moving on to the lightning round.

Carter 1:01:39

round. Oh, okay. You

Annalise 1:01:40

You didn't have your naps a day because you were doing your CTV interview at 2.30, which

Annalise 1:01:47

which is nap time. That

Annalise 1:01:49

That explains a lot. Lightning round. We're going to keep it kind of short. But I've got a lot of lightning round questions. Which ones? let's talk lightning round cbc and was uh was

Annalise 1:02:04

was cory hogan wrong um never

Annalise 1:02:07

quick quick follow-up to our conversation on sunday about elon musk and cbc and twitter a lot has changed in two days um cbc now has a tag that says they're 69 government funded media which

Annalise 1:02:22

i don't think we predicted on on sunday it said 70 and then um it

Annalise 1:02:26

it was changed to 69 and cbc has left the platform they've left twitter what uh cory do you the the mike mike is yours what do you want to tell listeners yeah

Corey 1:02:36

yeah so on sunday i think i said there's no way they would do it because it would be too self-destructive well they did it but it doesn't change my view it's too self-destructive i i think they made a massive mistake here listen elon musk is doing everything he can to make himself the villain in this story and he's such a fucking child the fact that he moved

Corey 1:02:55

69 like just embarrassing for him right embarrassing for him he should be embarrassed but cbc said they were going to pause their engagement on twitter right and they did it pretty broadly and they did it across english and french channels but they are just playing into this idea that they're acting in a political sense like we cannot lose sight of the fact that it was pierre poliev who wrote He wrote the letter to Elon Musk that seemed to be the catalyst for this particular thing. So they are effectively protesting an action of the Conservatives, which is going to play into the Conservatives mentality that the CBC is just out to get them. We talked about this on Sunday, but the fact that it says that they are 70% government funded, or even if it said government funded, most Canadians would say, yeah, sure, of course they are, because they are, right? Right. So like what they're arguing is like it is just the weakest, stupidest ground for the CBC to stand on and say they said we're government funded. And their definition of government funded implies an editorial control that they do not act like nobody's going to listen to you past like the first couple of words you said there. So you're not winning with a general population. You're trying to win with an elite class. But you're getting yourself out of the conversation on the channels that the elite class have this conversation. And by the way, you've done it in a way you have basically two choices. You either slink back after the pause with nothing having changed, having utterly fucking failed, or you don't, and you're no longer on Twitter, and you've just done that for what? Because they said you were government-funded? Which, again, you are. I know it's not with the editorial control that's implied by that label, but you are. And it's pointless, it's ridiculous, and it's self-defeating. so i i mean i'm sorry cbc but like i just can't be with you on this one and and you know the more i see commentary along the lines of like masterstroke because they did it across reggio canada as well which which will hurt pierre pauliev in quebec because it's a political issue in quebec if cbc is thinking that way they are being political in the way that pierre pauliev is accusing them they are reconfirming the very fucking thing they're trying to not confirm firm this is a bad play by the cbc and they they've blown it now they should just quietly slink back carter

Annalise 1:05:05

carter is i can't remember what my position was on saturday

Carter 1:05:09

saturday or sunday do we can we play back

Annalise 1:05:12

back the position it's because cory's position was so powerful he's just yeah

Annalise 1:05:17

he's so passionate about it he's wrong but he's so passionate about it oh

Carter 1:05:23

no carter what You know what? This is this is why I'm trying to remember what my position was, because I actually really agree with Corey's argument. And I have another thing that I that I strongly feel about journalism and people associated. They're not great communicators. They're great journalists. They're great journalists, but they're not necessarily great communicators. Political communications is different. And it's the same thing that we see when people who aren't campaigners put Daniel Smith up today in there in that event. You shouldn't be doing that if you want to be a good political communicator. Political communications is different than a lot of communications. The CBC's internal communications team didn't see the political downsides that they're now into. And they should have just done what

Carter 1:06:10

what Corey said. And no one is hurt more by that statement than me. I am devastated

Carter 1:06:18

devastated that I have to say that. and uh you know i'm probably gonna have to shower before bed tonight that's

Corey 1:06:27

well after that walk you know yeah

Annalise 1:06:31

well um while we're talking about who should and should not be on twitter um next

Annalise 1:06:39

next lightning round question candidates candidates for political parties should they be on twitter and should they be spending a lot of time on twitter right now

Annalise 1:06:51

lightning rounds keep it quick so

Corey 1:06:53

so again there's the general advice and the specific advice generally i think that it's one of these things that tends to get a lot more inputs than it delivers and outputs specifically if it is a medium that you're comfortable with if um if it is something that you already have a large following with well then sure it makes sense it's a way to talk to people it's a way to galvanize um but it's going to be very dependent on your own strengths and the last thing anybody needs is a candidate with a generic campaign you know account that is not saying anything remotely interesting run by staff who have the potential to blow it but not give you any upside.

Annalise 1:07:31

Carter what are your thoughts like are you I don't know my feed right now is not that I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter because I think it's the worst and terrible but it's like a lot of candidates just like saying

Annalise 1:07:42

saying this stuff that, of course, they're going to say, spending all this time on Twitter, getting into conversations, and I'm like, are they winning votes? Like, should they not be out knocking on doors right now? Like, is it not a huge waste of their time, Carter?

Carter 1:07:57

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think there's a large population that think that Twitter was won on, you know, the Twitter is how you win a campaign, the way that Facebook used to be how you win a campaign. And you know what? There was probably a time when Twitter mattered. And I think that time was, ooh, Ooh, 2009 through 2011, 12,

Carter 1:08:16

12, somewhere in there. Same place that the Facebook was. You know, it did matter back then. You did have to have a strong presence, but that time's gone. It's over now. If you don't have a presence, don't establish a presence. If you do have a presence, give the password over and just let the staff do their tweeting of the leader's stuff and retweet the leader stuff with comments like, oh, this is why I chose to run and crap like that. Just don't get yourself into trouble because there's no upside in it. There's only downside. You fuck up, you're gone.

Corey 1:08:53

Yeah, I disagree that there's only downside. I think you're not going to win any votes on Twitter like those days are over. And the way we've all kind of collapsed into our social media bubbles make that true. But there is kind of a message crucible element to twitter as well so you are providing your supporters with the messages that you want and you are all refining them together like you see the best version of the phrasing the one that seems to own the libs the most or really stick it to the ucp the most or whatever you want and and there's this iteration on twitter of messaging that i find fascinating like when an issue happens in the first six hours as the partisans all kind of feel their way to their key message there's value in that um i mean you've got to be mindful that they may be feeling their way to a message for an audience that you're not after but it's an audience where they're engaged you might galvanize them you might get them out to do actual real work like door knocking and you can kind of test your messages in certain areas but is it is

Annalise 1:09:52

that not just for the leader like why what's in it for individual candidates if if their messaging is what the leader tells yeah cory

Carter 1:09:59

cory what's in it for individual candidates cory well

Carter 1:10:03

well because you're smarty pants my

Corey 1:10:05

my advice to the ucp might have been not to have local messaging but let's assume it was actually

Carter 1:10:10

actually i remember your strategy i remember it well

Annalise 1:10:12

he had that really good powerpoint do you remember carter oh

Carter 1:10:15

oh yeah no that was people

Annalise 1:10:17

people are still talking about it it was really good

Carter 1:10:20

yeah people aren't talking about it yeah great many

Corey 1:10:23

many if not most campaigns however do need to to tailor their campaign somewhat to their local geography, particularly if you're outside of a major center and you can't just have leader Calgary messaging, right? Like if you need Banff messaging, if you need High River messaging, High River is a bad example, kind of in the market, but Lethbridge messaging, Grand Prairie messaging, Medicine Hat messaging, you're going to want to make it about the locale that you're in and speak to the issues that people in your area are speaking to. And so there is a place for local candidates to find their way to those messages on local issues are

Annalise 1:10:57

are they finding it on twitter or can they not find it like out on the doors i

Annalise 1:11:01

i don't know what

Annalise 1:11:02

what your twitter is like cory but mine is like terrible terrible place right now

Carter 1:11:09

just an update update on the tiktok um thirst traps are back um i did nothing i changed nothing i changed nothing no

Corey 1:11:20

no your gaze lingered we

Corey 1:11:21

we don't need to hear we still need

Annalise 1:11:22

need to um do

Annalise 1:11:24

do that thing where we just stream your feed and everyone can see i was doing really

Carter 1:11:28

really well during the taylor swift phase i was doing great also

Corey 1:11:33

also does this mean you were looking at tiktok while i was talking is that what i should read into this i thought he

Annalise 1:11:39

dms and he was gonna say something from there you

Carter 1:11:42

you took two completely different positions on that answer by the way you opened with one position and then you moved to another position and you you didn't even feel like

Carter 1:11:51

like like that that's the

Corey 1:11:52

the nature of the lightning round starter

Annalise 1:11:53

starter they need to be on twitter and on the doors okay next question um stephen harper is texting did you guys get a a text from stephen harper today no

Corey 1:12:03

no i don't live in a swing riding no

Annalise 1:12:06

he's texting albertans he's telling them to vote for the ucp um

Annalise 1:12:10

um there's he doesn't mention daniel smith in the 12 sentence text but he he says like vote for the ucp is this is this Is this a good, effective move, tax from Stephen Harper?

Corey 1:12:25

Maybe. I mean, it feels weird

Carter 1:12:27

weird now. It feels too early.

Corey 1:12:31

It does feel a little weird now, but I think that might actually tell us a bit about the psychology inside the UCP war room right now.

Corey 1:12:38

You know, I think here's the thing.

Corey 1:12:41

Yeah, it is too early. Like, ultimately, why is this not the week before the election that you have a message like this? But it's

Corey 1:12:47

it's interesting. Interesting. I can't recall anybody blasting out a tactic like this. I'm sure it's been done. I'll bet you someone in Ontario will correct me instantly. I don't remember it in Alberta. I can think of people blasting to party membership lists, but to say, we're going to take the entire cell phones of Alberta. And if they're in a swing riding, I think I heard it was 1 million different cell phones got this particular text message. And we're going to deliver a relatively long form even for text, you know, message. message yeah

Carter 1:13:15

yeah i mean we that could have to do with spend limits too hey cory like

Corey 1:13:19

oh it's great point like what does that cost you think what

Carter 1:13:21

what do you what do you mean it's gonna be so

Carter 1:13:24

so that's gonna have a cost on it right like so you have to pay for those types of texts and you'll want to narrow your text your text targeting as you get closer because you don't want to text a million people people um you

Carter 1:13:38

you know that aren't interested in you uh in during the writ you just you'll burn up quite a bit of your um of your spending cap because we are capped on this election but we're not capped at the in the pre-election parties can spend anything that they want prior to the writ drop on uh may the second or whatever it's going to be so they can spend okay

Carter 1:14:02

okay whatever um they can can spend everything so if you're going to drop a big

Carter 1:14:08

know a great big text um with a million users that's probably going to cost you 60 70 000 yeah that's

Corey 1:14:18

that's 3.2 million dollar limit so that starts to become a real chunk of it right yeah

Carter 1:14:23

it's it's another it's another ad run right Right. Like it's it's a targeted ad set if you if you still have that 50, 60 grand.

Corey 1:14:34

Yeah. Yeah, that's it's interesting. You know, I think on campaigns we often look for or maybe not me and Stephen, but I think generalist campaign practitioners, we look for that Hail Mary, that one thing, you know, that killer ad. And so rarely do you actually ever get that because you don't get the reach. this is an interesting one for me because it is talking to so many albertans so you know maybe it'll have some effect a measurable effect but

Corey 1:15:00

so often those things even when we kind of come up with a creative way to get in front of a lot of people people say who fucking cares and they move on like

Corey 1:15:08

how many spam text messages do you get in a day these days and

Carter 1:15:11

and timeliness really does matter yeah

Carter 1:15:14

do you are any of them thirst traps no

Annalise 1:15:16

no no but okay text are a bad place twitter's a bad place yeah uh okay we're gonna leave it there guys uh congratulations

Corey 1:15:26

congratulations on a velge length yeah

Corey 1:15:28

yeah that was i know

Annalise 1:15:29

know what am i doing i mean what

Annalise 1:15:31

what am i doing kathleen is gonna be so

Corey 1:15:33

so proud of you i can't over

Annalise 1:15:35

over an hour it's gonna be good but yeah uh that's a wrap on episode 1051 of the strategist my name is annalise clingfield with you as always stephen carter cory hogan

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