Episode 1278: Another Hour on the Alberta NDP Leadership Race

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1278. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's

Zain 0:10

what's going on? It's only minus 50 degrees outside. It is cold, Zain.

Zain 0:15

It's cold. I'm not going to

Carter 0:16

to lie to you. I had to go walk the dogs tonight. I came back and had ice cream to warm up. That's how cold it is. It

Carter 0:22

It is so cold.

Corey 0:23

cold. That was a terrible joke.

Carter 0:24

joke. you like that no how

Carter 0:24

how cold is it steven how cold is it it's

Carter 0:28

it's so cold we don't even have a cold open well that

Corey 0:32

that would have been you know what if we had just gotten into it and then down the road said that that would have actually been okay it's so cold saying that normally a little peek behind the screen here like uh you know a little bit of what goes on here i normally turn my furnace off when

Corey 0:46

when we record because

Corey 0:48

i care about the audio that i provide i care about the listening that that you're gonna say the

Zain 0:53

environment but okay yeah

Corey 0:54

yeah it's fine no no not in this context but uh furnace is on so i'm

Corey 0:59

i'm just gonna you know i'm not turning it off for an hour my family would be dead so

Carter 1:04

yeah we're gonna power through it's super cold yeah

Zain 1:08

let's do this thing because now

Carter 1:10

now i'm cranky carter

Zain 1:11

and i leave the furnace on every recording we just want you to know i have noticed

Zain 1:17

carter any more marvelous mrs mazel jokes you want to get out of the way uh with your stand-up routine before we move on is there anything you got in

Zain 1:24

in the hopper for later

Zain 1:25

so i didn't watch that show

Corey 1:27

show did he just like straight no

Zain 1:29

it's just it was same energy but it had that 50s it had that 50s energy right like i'm going to the 50s i'm gonna

Zain 1:36

i i think it took place in the 50s great

Carter 1:39

you guys not watch it like

Zain 1:40

oh incredible clothes on that show can we talk about the clothes on that show carter no

Carter 1:45

we're not going to talk about the show let's get us let's go i

Carter 1:48

i had to have lunch with someone today who

Carter 1:50

told me how great i am compared to you two losers so let's let's

Carter 1:54

let's just do this so i don't have to put up with those kind of comments anymore moving

Zain 1:58

moving on to our first segment our first segment the clothes on marvelous mrs basil carter uh this is our first segment where we discuss how great the clothes are and then unbelievable the uh both for the ladies and the gents okay i

Carter 2:10

i just love me a petticoat It

Zain 2:12

It was Canadian, by the way. Great clothes. I like that. I mean, there's going to be so many people writing in saying, I wish Zayn had kept going about the clothes. No

Carter 2:20

is writing in ever. I

Corey 2:21

I never saw the

Zain 2:22

the show once. I was

Zain 2:23

vaguely aware of its existence. It's actually a great show. It's fantastic. Carter, let's just use the segment title. Who gives a shit? Let's talk about the Alberta NDP. Let's talk about the fact that we have someone already in the race to replace Rachel Notley was not left yet well that's

Zain 2:43

that's what it kind of seems like according to a new article by harold um there is yes we're going to use that yeah oh man indeed uh kathleen ganley put out a video less than a minute long uh which had all the makings or some of the makings i should say because we can talk about what other makings there should be in terms of a launch video maybe if we go there today had the makings of what looked like a campaign video don't take it from me take it from some of the folks they interviewed in this article, Dwayne Bratt, Laurie Williams, Mount Royal University, saying that, you know, this looks like a campaign video, a launch video that is declaring her candidacy to potentially replace Rachel Notley. Here's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about how you guys read this video. Is it a launch video? I have to tell you, I'll be totally candid. I do not know. I do not have any inside information on this. I'm genuinely curious. But almost beside the point, what makes a good launch video? what elements were missing in that regard and if it wasn't a launch video was this a soft launch video and then we'll talk about the other candidates we discussed on our on our two-hour um pod uh in terms of what they should be doing right now if anything because guys the race hasn't really even started because we still have rachel notley as leader of the alberta ndp so carter can i ask you the very simple question was this a campaign launch video by kathleen ganley greatest

Carter 4:02

greatest Greatest soft launch of a campaign since Sandra Jansen. I got to tell you, like it

Carter 4:09

it was a really good soft launch. The only

Corey 4:10

only way this would have been more self evident is if she showed up on the strategists and just laid bare the entire strategy of her launch.

Carter 4:18

Let me tell you what I'm going to do. It would have been a great episode, right? Like, let me tell you what I'm going to do.

Carter 4:22

No, it was absolutely a soft launch. Now, you

Carter 4:25

you know, I mean, new look. Can you, can you familiarize

Zain 4:28

familiarize people with, with the term soft launch? There are many new listeners since the 2015 heyday that this reference takes advantage of, Carter. Fuck them. 2016, that is correct. Yeah, fuck them is obviously, like, I mean, that's baked in. Like, fuck them is pretty much baked into all of our materials. But could you do, at least, and someone the service of letting us know what you mean by soft launch, Carter? So

Carter 4:52

So a hard launch is the day that you launch. And a soft launch is when you can't get it up.

Corey 4:59

Okay, that's not what it is. this is going yeah but uh you're just gonna have to figure it out from context clues as we talk about it for the next hour yeah

Carter 5:06

we're we're done care we're done babying we're not holding your

Corey 5:10

your hand people we

Corey 5:11

we we believe in you guys

Zain 5:12

guys yeah that's good now i'm

Zain 5:13

i'm on board and i'm on board uh cory soft

Zain 5:17

soft launch real launch uh accidental soft launch what was this what was what brought

Zain 5:21

lines to the strategy read it for me and then let's talk about what what it what it needs to be and it shouldn't have happened yeah

Corey 5:28

yeah okay so we have a video basically of kathleen ganley introducing herself to albertans and talking about having her colleagues with her and talking about how i i can't really fully recall i watched did watch it yesterday i you know so i'll give you some quotable quotes the woke agenda i'll

Zain 5:47

right so cory's right this is like a 50 55 second video introducing herself a vertical video just her there's no b-roll there's There's no, like, score or music to it. It's her just talking to screen, saying that, listen, she knows she's got deep roots in Calgary. I know who I am. I know why I'm here. I know my colleagues stand with me. As Corey mentioned, these speaking call me whatever they want. I won't be fooled and neither will Albertans. We don't have a woke agenda. We care about what you care about. I'm paraphrasing that last bit. That was pretty much the essence, right? Like, I know who I'm here. i i have strong values both from the party perspective as well as i guess the roots in the city perspective and fuck the ndp right like was pretty much the vibe of this video over 55 seconds and i think the reason cory people are calling it a campaign video is that because it really wasn't talking about a day-to-day policy

Zain 6:38

policy yeah like that's my point right

Corey 6:39

right like like it had the subtlety of a stephen carter podcast like i just try to imagine any other human being on earth just being like hey just for fun i'm gonna put that on social media zane if you had recorded that video and put it on social media everyone would be like well i guess zayn's running for something you know like that's

Zain 6:54

that's well i am running for something through samir cayende that's

Corey 6:57

that's right you can get the poster zayn velji for leader at the strategist.ca but

Corey 7:02

but no i mean like it

Corey 7:03

it demands the question why are you posting this there is no reason to post this unless you are shooting for some sort of higher office or you're shooting for some greater responsibilities here and uh carter was starting to talk about and i'm going to just steal the point like Like, you know, she's, she's got kind of this, you know, updated look and the video, even though there's no audio and it's not produced, is kind of produced, right? Like it's produced, not produced stuff. And it's just, it's so clearly not a casual, hey, I'm going to react to something in the news. I'm going to give you my thoughts. It's so clearly a, we're going to do this and we're going to put this out. And, uh, you know, I get broad strokes. We're just going to see where this goes. We're going to try to be the front runner. We're going to try to be the person right in there. I think it probably is pretty closely tied to a strategy of Kathleen Ganley announcing a lot of caucus support. I mean, even if you hadn't heard whispers or rumors of that, just the fact that she talks about the caucus and her colleagues standing with her, pretty fucking obvious in that sense. And it's game on. It's so clearly game on. We talked about this last time, that it was going to be the unofficial start the minute there was that Jason Markasoff article.

Corey 8:10

Nobody is literally going to launch over the Christmas break. and so this is kind of the first opportunity and people are taking it this is a race people are doing things calls are happening meetings are happening stuff is going on and any pretense that there was not a leadership contest is a hundred fucking percent gone a hundred percent gone carter

Zain 8:31

carter what does that do for kathleen ganley in the sense that if you call it a launch video soft launch video launch video you know i was hoping for a bit more nuance around what this was, but that's fine. I can't extract any more out of you, Carter. That's okay. But what do you feel like

Zain 8:49

like this does for her?

Zain 8:52

Because my point is out of the gate first versus out ahead are two different things, as we know. So give me the breakdown in terms of what this video does for her. So you both agree that this kind of means we're game on, but what does this video do for her in your mind?

Carter 9:07

Well, let's go back to Danielle Smith. I mean, Danielle Smith got out in a hurry, got her deposited in a hurry was running ahead on day one she was further ahead than anybody else it took almost until the signatures deadline for everybody else to start to campaign and danielle smith was so far down the road that it was really hard for others to catch up so there is something to let's go first right and and i'm a believer in that i mean we uh we moved joe t gondek out in january uh now we did have um farkas out before us but he was a sitting counselor we still moved quickly because speed speed matters being able to do something now this video was also very safe right you're you can say that wasn't a launch video that wasn't a soft launch we all know it was a soft launch of course

Corey 9:58

course it was a video launch

Carter 9:59

you have you can you can say it wasn't we We just were talking about the woke agenda. We're tired of being accused of being something we're not. She has plausible deniability. And if it went over like a lead balloon, if

Carter 10:11

it went over like a lead balloon, then she could walk away from it. I don't think it went over like a lead balloon. I think that her telephone and her campaign team's telephones are all ringing today because finally someone's putting down a stake in the ground and saying, we're ready to go. Finally is ironic because the leader hasn't left yet. but it's it's an open fucking secret that uh rachel notley is going to ignore every fucking word of advice ever given to her about when she should step down and she's going to step down in january and people are going to have to campaign in the middle of fucking alberta winter where where your ass freezes just walking over to the dog park so good job rach

Zain 10:53

carter any more marvelous okay um hold on there's a lot there in fact carter i want to actually i I want to pick apart one of your points, which I think is actually excellent, because the Daniel Smith comparison, I think, is a really solid one in the sense that even before Jason Kenney left, do

Zain 11:11

do you guys remember Daniel Smith put up like a splash page? She said, oh, I'm intending to run. She

Corey 11:13

She was very clear with it. I'm intending

Zain 11:15

intending to run if he leaves. And she put up like a splash page, which I don't remember if it was collecting signatures or if it was just an outright great looking photo of her and just some like, hey, I'm back sort of vibes. but she and it's not this video but functionally it it serves the same purpose of this video right which is like intent declared cory to that point intent

Zain 11:40

intent declared before a leader leaves what's the cost here well

Corey 11:43

well not huge i think it's one of those things that people will tut tut um but ultimately they will move on quickly and you're

Corey 11:53

you're always doing these kind of upside downside downside calculations for things like this and obviously people have decided yeah I mean let's

Corey 12:00

let's just get on with it and there's a benefit to going first there's a benefit to coming out strong there's a benefit to kind of sucking up all of that early oxygen and to Stephen's point

Corey 12:08

if you are somebody who's just watching this casually and you don't know who might be in the race and who might not be in the race you now have exactly one name of somebody that you might consider supporting and you can call Kathleen and that matters that matters a lot because Because so much of, especially leadership politics, where everybody's on the same team, comes down to not policy.

Corey 12:30

policy. It doesn't come down to, you know,

Corey 12:33

know, the idea of who's most electable. It comes down to care and feeding. And you can't give care and feeding if you're not in the race. So if you're now out there and able to have conversations and say, hey, I'm obviously thinking about doing this. I'd love to have you on my team.

Corey 12:46

You can do that now. And you can do that fairly easily. And you also have the channel in now where people can reach out to you and say, hey, Kathleen, I'm really interested. I'd like to know a little bit more about what you're up to. That matters a lot. And actually on that front, I wonder if maybe this video didn't go far enough, right?

Corey 13:03

throw that out there. Well,

Zain 13:04

Well, this is okay.

Zain 13:05

okay. So let's focus on the video for a second, because I do want to come back to my question of out first versus out front, like, you know, like the two, the difference between those two things and what this kind of means for her in that, in that broader context. But

Zain 13:19

let's talk about the video. Corey, can I start with you? Like, what did you make? Let's just, let's just accept the premise that it's a launch video, soft launch, hard launch, who cares, right? Like I'm putting that aside now.

Zain 13:29

What was it missing? What was good? What would you have done differently you

Corey 13:32

know i i mean i think it was a little too subtle i i will actually start there right like clearly you're putting down you're the calgary candidate that's part of the background that you're trying to provide as you're going through there i

Corey 13:44

i think though that you needed as long as you're still playing this game a little bit you can't make that argument as explicit as you want to and actually steven and i were talking about this on the phone just the other day

Corey 13:54

politics is not a subtle game right you want to be as explicit as possible as explicit as you're You're allowed to basically in every situation, you have a proposition, you have a ballot question, you use basically those exact same words, you slap them up there, you make sure people know, like, it's about the economy. You don't say something that's like kind of obscure and makes people try to guess a metaphor, right?

Zain 14:19

I'll jump in there because I have such agreement with that particular point. And, you

Zain 14:25

you know, Stephen and I also talk on the phone, Corey, in a separate

Zain 14:29

conversation. Carter, do you remember our conversation? Because that very much aligns with Corey. This was months ago around like creative in political advertising and how it's fundamentally so different than what would like would be considered like CPG or like, you know, creative for like consumer packaged goods

Zain 14:45

or a commercial company where it's like you're looking for witty and creative in like those fundamental names versus like sometimes it's not subtle. It hammers you over the head. It's repetitive and it's supposed to be memorable in a way that other types of creative are not. And I think that's a very, very good point, Corey. Keep going on that front. The

Corey 15:02

The other thing is it really does. Well, I'm curious what they know or what they think on the Kathleen Gambley campaign that made them talk about like, we're not woke months. Like, do they think that's what NDP leadership voters are looking for? Actually, or is that just supposed to be their hook? That's the best fucking hook they could come up with? I don't really understand the content, if I'm going to be frank. I think that the presentation was basically what you would expect and want if you're doing this kind of soft launch video i don't understand the content that it's hooked to beyond just like her talking about her background i i don't i it seems really baffling and it feels like they could have gone in 12 different directions and taken 12 different approaches that would have been less leading with your chin i mean i'm curious your thoughts carter but that was my first reaction yeah

Zain 15:49

yeah carter what did you like what you didn't did not like where would you have kind of changed things what would you have changed the same framework i guess i gave cory

Carter 15:56

i like the new look kathleen i think that she looks great sounds great um you know that those things matter we we always like to pretend that they don't but they do uh and it's not just for women everybody and we can have a big conversation about that some other time uh say something say

Carter 16:13

say something uh saying that you're not the woke person that they think that you are is i don't know what the fuck that means i would much rather have her it's not like there's not positions to be taken um Um, but

Carter 16:26

but leaderships are sometimes

Carter 16:29

sometimes about not saying stuff too. So I can see why they did that. I can see why they chose what the topic is. It wasn't actually an introduction to woke. No,

Carter 16:39

it was an introduction to Kathleen taking a new position, taking a new type of position for her. And, you know, we talk about Jeff Jackson a lot, uh, out of the, out of North Carolina and how his videos are kind of defining the uh the house of representatives down in the u.s well maybe kathleen's going to stake out her own her own ground and say this is the type of video you can expect from me i

Carter 17:03

liked it i like the video i i think that it said nothing at all um but i don't think that that necessarily matters i think when

Carter 17:10

when you think of most launch videos they barely say anything anyways wow this is

Zain 17:14

good okay let's let's talk about that last point yeah cory go ahead and i want to actually dig deeper into the why does it not matter at all in i want to pick up a bit on that but cory react and then we'll jump there if

Corey 17:23

if i'm going to be entirely charitable to the video the logic of saying not woke to our previous point about it not being a particularly subtle uh game is that they knew by going first they would get the earned media that they did in the calgary herald in the conversations it would be spread into normal people populations this is not a normal people population but it's spread into normal normal people populations. And if you know one thing about Kathleen, maybe you come away with, oh, she's the not woke New Democrat, right? And maybe that's exactly where they want to be in the public. However, this is a leadership contest. And I think you need to think about where you want to be with the membership and prospective membership. And I'm not, I'm not entirely sure they're trying to win the right game if that was their particular strategy. I'll just be blunt on that one there. And there, you know, there are a million ways you can introduce yourself in a way that that hooks on the issues of the day you could talk to the party faith again it depends on their strategy i don't have enough line of sight on that but you could easily see saying like hey you know i'm kathleen and i know after like losing an election even though it's a close one and even though we all have a lot to be proud of you

Corey 18:29

you know it kind of hurts and and you might want to sit on the mat for a bit but i'm telling you right now we can't sit on the mat this is so important my family has been here for x number of years i've been doing this for whatever and And like a rally the troops kind of message, instead of a, I'm not the thing they say we are, which might actually even antagonize part of your base, would probably be more appropriate for the contest in front of you. I think that that would be my point.

Zain 18:54

Carter, your last point, and

Zain 18:56

and good point, Corey, but your last point, I want to go back to that, Carter.

Zain 19:00

It doesn't particularly matter if it didn't do all the things you wanted it to do. Why?

Carter 19:05

Because there's always tomorrow, right?

Carter 19:07

right? Right. Like the, the, the, the beauty of these videos and the beauty, I mean, it's at one point we used to produce a video, um, you

Carter 19:15

you know, maybe two videos, a campaign, right? Like one, two campaign videos, one at the beginning of the campaign.

Carter 19:21

And, and now you're producing a video a day, right? So the content shift, we're all where you're, you're getting new content every single day, every single day you get new content. So the, the content itself becomes less valuable than the brand you're creating with the content we talk about brand incessantly why do we talk about brand incessantly because brand is the thing that you actually interact with not necessarily message message can reinforce brand but message and brand are two different things and if you mix those two things up sometimes you can get a little bit off off kilter and i did i would suggest that that's happened before in canadian politics where people start thinking that the message is the brand it's

Carter 20:01

it's not the message is just a tool it's just a vehicle so the brand is so much bigger and what we saw with kathleen is a beginning of a brand is it the right thing i mean i think that cory's point about what she could have said about getting up off the mat and and you know this election was tough and now we're going to and now we're going to enter into something that's even more exciting or you're more meaningful because i'll tell you something i'll tell you something right now danielle

Carter 20:27

danielle smith is going to be a one-term premier she'll

Carter 20:31

she'll join jim prentice allison redford rachel notley ed stelmack i

Zain 20:36

think you want to mention rachel notley on that list carter it's

Carter 20:39

it's just a fun list it's just fun to point out i like it okay

Zain 20:42

okay uh okay i good answer and like i think that's a very insightful answer carter about tomorrow cory my next line of questioning was going to be really around what if this wasn't a launch video right like play

Corey 20:53

play it out academically yeah

Corey 20:54

let's let's yeah right no no no no no but like

Zain 20:57

like we like we got an hour of space

Corey 20:59

space to fill here yeah

Zain 21:01

great what if it wasn't like the but i think there's a strategy perspective here and i think carter's hit on it in terms of how campaigns deal with it because certain campaigns would would say let's say let's just hypothetically the camp today said that was actually not supposed to be a launch video we posted it on the wrong day we actually did right whatever it was certain

Zain 21:19

certain campaigns would choose strategy a which is how do we relaunch how do do we actually bottle it up package it relaunch again others would follow the steven carter track which is you got tomorrow who gives a shit why put so much pressure on a launch video just keep creating the brand what what camp would you be in if i'm being so reductive and painting them as as yeah

Corey 21:37

yeah i think that people i think we've even talked about this i believe launches are way overhyped they matter far less than campaigns think they do insofar as they have an importance it's that it is like kind of your initial crack at defining yourself going forward maybe if this was not intended to be launch material in any way shape or form look i refuse to believe it's not campaign related but if i

Corey 22:01

i want to be kind of guessing that it's if i were let's put it this way if rachel notley called kathleen into the office and said what the fuck kathleen i am still here are you out of your goddamn mind what the what the fuck are you doing show some respect or something like that um i think i would say look we all know a campaign's coming i'm sorry that was not meant to be a launch video we're just trying some stuff we're getting ready for when you fire that starting pistol rachel we all know it's coming i'm just trying a new look i'm trying new shots i'm trying new conversational matters and that's just that was not meant to be the thing it was meant to be and so maybe zane maybe that's the case but it's still campaign related like Like, let's be really clear about that.

Zain 22:41

Sure, sure. But to my question of if it wasn't meant to be, you're saying that we put too much pressure on them. They're overhyped, overrated.

Zain 22:49

overrated. Are you part of the Stephen Carter camp? You always have tomorrow, you power through, like in that regard, even if you have to have a remedial conversation

Zain 22:55

or a slap on the wrist. Like, are

Corey 22:57

are you just a big fan of just keep creating content? I am 100%, not just in leadership politics and not just in politics. This stuff is all so much more ephemeral than you think it is. and actually this is advice that is even bigger in like a corporation or you know another setting people fucking sweat these things and it's like it will be gone in a blink even if you're wildly successful and if you fell on your face people will forget before dinner time you know so like just chill out we live in this absolutely content saturated world you always have more opportunities you no longer even have to wait for the media to come to you you can just put something out on the youtubes and the tiktoks and all of that right so yeah i couldn't agree more on that like it's it is just one of these things where it is it's gone before the next thing like i think we would all struggle right now to say hey what was that not the not the kind of like here's the size of my wood video of pierre polyevs what was the subject matter of pierre polyevs first actual leadership video oh

Zain 23:56

oh yeah it was dark lit him in a boardroom being like sign this fucking petition it was like one of those okay well so my point was going to be

Corey 24:02

be you don't remember but like you did

Zain 24:04

yeah yeah i've studied that campaign i mean that campaign had so many interesting lessons let me tell you that like but that video we'd be fools not to study that

Corey 24:16

that video was not a video like pierre polyev's later videos right and you know they just throw it out and they try it they move on

Zain 24:22

on boardroom yep good

Zain 24:24

good point good point carter let's use that as a natural extension

Zain 24:28

You're Racky Pancholi. You're Sarah Hoffman. You've seen this. You may believe that this was a launch video. You may not. It doesn't really matter. The content war has started. The leadership race has kicked off. What is your advice to them right now? As they watch today, as they watch Kathleen Ganley get a headline in the Calgary Herald, does that even matter? But she's put a video out there. She's created the conditions to hit go. Do you do the same? Do you wait? Talk to me about their individual strategy. They might be fundamentally and functionally different too. So let's spend a bit of time on that. And I know overarching all of this is the fact that when

Zain 25:07

when Rachel Notley will leave and what the rules look like as well in terms of when this leadership race happens, because early might just be mandatory and necessary because it might be short, for example. So let's talk strategies a bit. I've loaded it a lot there, but throw me your internet your initial sort of comments carter i'll help mold it for for both of the the other two campaigns at this point number

Carter 25:27

number one do not do what the other guy just did right like there is nothing worse than following someone and doing the thing that they did uh seconds ago even if you do it better yeah it's still going to be at best a comparison you don't want a comparison what you want is someone to be thinking of you in a in a totally different frame so you don't do do what was just done. So what I would do is I would- So

Zain 25:53

So I'm clear. If there was a campaign video that we were planning to launch Monday morning on one of these two, you'd say, we're killing that as

Carter 26:00

as I watch? We're killing that. Here's what we're going to do for the next... What I would suggest is for the next six or five or six days, you put 10 people, your top 10 lieutenants in a room, right? And you are working a list. You are working a list and you are calling calling everybody and saying, did you just see it's on? I need you. Did you just see it's on? I need you. That would, that the conversation would repeat itself over and over again. If I was either Kathleen or Racky or not Kathleen or Racky, Sarah or Racky, because Kathleen's already produced her video. Kathleen's already done her thing. Now it's time for us to do our thing. And our thing can't be the same. Shouldn't be the same. And in fact, now we get to be the people who say we're too respectful we are too respectful to go out and do this um and undermine the leader and instead you get to say um

Carter 26:52

um but you're still you're still fucking campaigning it's just a different type of campaign the video will add nothing you know what the phone calls will add people and

Carter 27:00

and people are everything in a leadership campaign i

Zain 27:04

i i hear that i also want to acknowledge your previous point which is you know if this didn't land like a lead balloon for kathleen in ganley she may be getting a lot of inbound today cory uh carter's helped me mold a few things here uh don't follow don't don't repeat don't try to get into a comparison you know carter i'm going to extend on that saying find your own lane here advice

Zain 27:23

advice to other candidates we we know that sarah hoffman racquet pantry as as mentioned the article as mentioned in conversations that have been happening our contenders let's use them as examples uh and even get specific on their campaigns if we need to your advice cory start us off and then we'll molded for each one well

Corey 27:39

well here's where i think in particular when i say like okay maybe it was crafted for the calgary herald maybe that was their strategy this like i'm i'm not woke thing

Corey 27:49

uh i actually love everything carter said i'm gonna build on it in a second but the it's on i need you work the list get the members i want to really underline a point here and we'll probably return to it a million times between now and whenever this leadership contest ends holy

Corey 28:04

holy fuck fuck is this not about winning over the calgary herald readership like does the herald matter i mean you could ask the question doesn't matter at all but really you should be asking does it matter to an ndp leadership race but now what you have provided is that wiffle ball bat that somebody can take out and knock you around the head with right exactly the way steven said you call and say hey look this is this is happening this is going on so we need to start we need to get moving and you've created an opportunity for everybody else to have those tut-tutting conversations to call all of their other people uh and essentially not look like the first mover on this particular i mean i love that the idea of just getting 10 lieutenants in a room because to the point we'll have to come back to a million times it's

Corey 28:47

it's not about the calgary herald membership or readership it's about selling more memberships and getting more votes right you've got to build that membership base and you've got to get them to actually cast their ballots and if it's like a very complicated field yeah you want to be second choice and there's a bit of conversation there but you only need to do that if you don't win on the first ones go out there and get people so if you're working the phones finding people who can deliver you a hundred memberships 200 memberships a thousand memberships two thousand memberships that matters so much more than whether you know the absolutely anemic readership of the calgary herald and the smaller still readership of people who read the Herald and give a fuck about the NDP's internal politics

Corey 29:30

get some sense of the story, right? Like, that's just, I mean, that's the reality.

Zain 29:35

Yeah. Top line advice, Carter, let's be more specific to each of these campaigns, can we? Do you want to go down that path?

Carter 29:41

Listen, I'm a fucking professional, man. I can do anything.

Zain 29:44

Sarah Hoffman, what would you suggest to her? In more particular, so let's say if she had a video to go out on Monday, you'd kill that. I got it. You do the lieutenant thing. Everyone does that, right? Right. Whether it's it's the two campaigns we mentioned or anyone else who's who's considering this. What specific advice would you have for her? Someone who's being a longtime loyalist to this party, deputy premier, deputy leader. What advice would you have for for her in particular? And we've talked about what lane she's going to try to potentially carve out from a message or brand perspective. Now that it's on, do

Zain 30:16

do you have anything to add?

Carter 30:17

Yeah. I mean, do your five or six days of telephone calls. and i'm really quite serious 10 people in a room for right like you can do probably

Carter 30:26

probably six or seven hundred phone calls in a day if you push um and six days of 600 phone calls gives you a really good head start on this campaign uh and then come to calgary sarah

Carter 30:38

sarah if we don't see you in calgary in the next i

Corey 30:42

i think she's actually in

Corey 30:43

calgary tonight so is

Carter 30:44

well there you go uh i wouldn't be here today i'd be working the telephones but in a week i'd have a big fucking event um but i'd make it not about the leadership i'd make it about rachel or make it about the you know what i'd do i'd make it about the volunteers who worked on the campaign right

Carter 31:01

right we're gonna have a celebration in calgary hosted by sarah hoffman deputy leader of the opposition uh cop you know know the the one of 10 000 shadow critics for the new democratic party caucus um and she's going to host every every volunteer come on in you know get the word out tell your friends we're going to have we're going to meet at the pork and fiddle i don't know right just

Carter 31:31

do it okay i

Zain 31:32

think the pork and fiddle closed a long time ago carter uh by which it might mean it never opened um Hey,

Zain 31:38

could I ask you a really technical question to both of you? Not even really technical. How does one pay for that?

Zain 31:48

Both. I mean, this is the Strategist podcast, so let's talk about, do you

Carter 31:54

you have to persuade

Zain 31:54

persuade your caucus to be like, fucking put me up? This

Zain 31:57

This can't be party money, or is it? How are you doing? This is your- Your

Carter 32:01

Your constituency can pay for it. Yeah,

Zain 32:03

Yeah, walk me through this. Yes. So

Carter 32:04

So your constituency, if you get the approval from your constituency board of directors, they could pay for it. Keep in mind, there is no leadership. Until

Carter 32:13

Until Rachel Lally steps down, this

Carter 32:16

this is a gray area. So the gray area exists on two fronts. Can you raise money? Not really. Not supposed to. They're raising money. Can you campaign? Not really. Not supposed to. They're campaigning. Right? And these are the rules that they created. These rules are fucking obscene.

Zain 32:34

Sorry, so you mean they, just so you're clear, you mean this is the constitutional rules? No, no, he means the NDP government changed

Carter 32:42

kneecap campaigns and try and keep big money out of campaigns. But now they're going to find out it's super hard to raise money, super hard to pay good people when you have no fucking money. And it's going to be really hard to host an event at the Duke and the Duke and Cat. The

Zain 33:01

The Pork and Fiddle. yeah the

Carter 33:02

the duke and cat and uh long

Zain 33:04

long time calgary established for the pork and fiddle which by the way can i just mention corey you can get your pork and fiddle t-shirts at the strategist.ca or at pork and fiddle.ca thank you what

Carter 33:14

what are you doing yeah

Zain 33:16

yeah i knew that what are

Carter 33:16

are you doing yeah

Zain 33:18

i'm just making sure that every podcast is net revenues neutral making sure

Zain 33:23

sure we make no money i'm

Carter 33:25

i'm already hearing that that uh there's already a ton of work happening in the union world people People are calling all the unions. People are trying to get the unions engaged. I mean, I think that, you

Carter 33:36

know, the campaign's on. The only question is how visible you're going to be with it and how much money you're going to spend.

Carter 33:43

And I think if I'm Sarah Hoffman, I'm spending a little bit of money trying to find some people in Calgary.

Zain 33:48

Corey, can I ask you the money question? And then I'll ask you the Sarah Hoffman question. I want to give you a fair shake on both. Any thoughts on how you pay for it? My sidebar question. And then what advice would you have in particular for Sarah Hoffman if you want to build off Carter or go in a different direction?

Corey 34:00

direction? Yeah, well, in general, I think what you do is you hook on to what's legitimate activity and also you are allowed to spend your own money buying your friends drinks and all of that. So there's a certain kind of individual cost that you may be incurring at this point,

Corey 34:14

taking people for coffees and beers and all of that. But one of the ways that you can hold an event like Stephen just discussed here, and I don't know enough about the internal financial controls of the NDP, but i can tell you you

Corey 34:26

you can do it from like a legal point of view is your constituency transfers the money to the host constituency in calgary and then also because that happens in campaigns all the time people sharing

Carter 34:37

and you say like you

Corey 34:37

you know uh we're really lucky in edmonton glenora and and so we just wanted to kind of like thank the calgary volunteers and so we've transferred this money to calgary buffalo and my good friend joe cc has allowed me to speak to you for a minute it and just say we really appreciate everything that you've done here right and and so there's like the way you can partner with other constituencies where it like you can literally just run an edmonton glenora event in downtown calgary but if you're worried that that just looks fucking crazy then you can find a friendly constituency you can partner with them and you can put on the event and that that's pretty easy and pretty natural to do the other thing is when you are somebody who is the deputy leader of the caucus whatever i mean that's there's no no requirement for a caucus to have a deputy leader so whatever that means i don't mean that dismissively but maybe you say hey look i'm i'm going i just i'm bringing good tidings on behalf of the caucus to these individuals and maybe this gets a little more dodgy but maybe it's a caucus event and maybe you have an adjacent event at the bar next door where you start to talk a little bit about leadership politics right once the main event's done and this stuff happens all of the the time should it happen i'd entertain arguments either way but uh the number of politicians who have come out on caucus business on ministerial business who have traveled around the country around the province in order to do their quote-unquote day job and then oh look it's five o'clock oh now we're doing a party event oh now we're doing a leadership event is like too

Corey 36:05

too numerous to count there's not a single party that doesn't happen and so you know that's that's

Zain 36:10

that's a practical There's pathways, which is why I wanted to kind of bring that to light. There are pathways to do this, even if there's no official leadership race. Well, yeah. It's

Carter 36:16

It's easier without an official leadership. Yeah, for sure it is, right?

Corey 36:20

the minute there is...

Zain 36:20

is... Because you've got access

Carter 36:21

access to... Well, no, the

Corey 36:21

the minute she steps down, there

Corey 36:23

there is a mechanism through which you should be registering in order to do this. And collecting money. But there is no mechanism at this particular moment. So you're

Zain 36:31

you're in a little bit... There's no other path in that sense. sense cory

Zain 36:33

cory sarah hoffman yeah carter's talking about events he's talking about uh i i don't want to also dismiss your point carter of like metaphorically hugging rachel notley yeah

Zain 36:43

in the sense of like celebrating her you but you ended up with your idea being volunteers like come to calgary do that sort of lunch cory you can be as specific as carter on a tactical basis or even broader advice kathleen's

Zain 36:57

what are you doing if you're sarah so

Corey 36:57

so if you're sarah it

Corey 37:00

it seems to me that being kind of like the party stalwart the heir apparent the person who is continuity in the ndp is part of your brand right and so i do think you need to lean a little bit heavier into the tut tut you know like why this shouldn't have happened yet rachel's our leader she's gotten us here and you probably you

Corey 37:20

you know you probably don't necessarily want to be like the person who's like out the next day or doing very different tactics but also because of your kind of like loyalist reputation you that that seven people in the room it's game on we got to do this it's probably more available to you than than others so so i really like that and i think that in general uh going around as the deputy leader and finding opportunities to engage with people ask them conversations about what they think needs to happen it's

Corey 37:51

it's a lot easier for you to make the case that that's just legitimate work i mean everyone's going to see through it obviously but it you know it has kind of a veneer that is helpful to you in these particular moments because there's nothing that stops you from going out and talking to anybody anywhere in the province why are you up here in grand prairie well i'm deputy leader of course i'm out here in grand prairie and sure you know every critic is going to have their portfolio of reasons to be up there right you're the education critic of course you're in grand prairie there's schools in grand prairie aren't there but it becomes a lot more tenuous and then you know you've got got to work a little harder on the hooks speaking

Zain 38:25

speaking of the education critic cory that's rack up and truly that was not a coincidence

Corey 38:29

i used that one i

Zain 38:31

i just i want you to know i'm on the ball here

Carter 38:33

that would have been a coincidence if i did it because i had no fucking clue he

Zain 38:37

he carter carter wouldn't know carter doesn't even know three people within the alberta ndp yeah i

Carter 38:41

i know you okay

Zain 38:46

am i'm elected through the transitive property carter i don't think you understand how this is going to work i'm confused um poster sales are our memberships uh memberships

Zain 38:52

memberships are attached to the back of each post hey do

Corey 38:55

do you think like our listeners are going to go out and buy a pile of memberships here be like a strategist voting block

Carter 39:01

they should they should listen to the podcast and then decide who they're going to vote for based on what we recommend will

Zain 39:06

will we endorse me at the end yeah

Zain 39:08

mean we will you know but

Carter 39:12

i don't know zane you kind of been i don't think i'm on the board you kind of man i

Zain 39:17

yeah i mean all those domain name purchases i'm forcing on you um probably not Yeah, fiscal responsibility not part of my campaign. Yeah, not part of his campaign.

Zain 39:24

Hey, Corey, Racky Ventura.

Zain 39:27

What do you think? What's top line? She sees this. She sees Catherine Ganley go out. She's probably got the most,

Zain 39:35

I shouldn't say outsidery, but like quasi-outsidery sort of like vibe to her despite the fact that she's a sitting elected MLA

Corey 39:43

MLA of this caucus. Yeah, because she wasn't in the government. She joined in 2019. Exactly.

Zain 39:46

She joined in 2019. um she's she's seemingly you know got the angle on calgary but doesn't live in calgary yeah what are you what are you doing if you're if you're heard is she in the toughest spot the easiest spot like how how are you like thinking about where she's at and what she needs to do now that this has started especially specifically around launching and getting out there with with with your first sort of strokes or your first sort of initial that's

Corey 40:12

that's super interesting um Um, my, I, she's just in a spot. I don't think it's necessarily bad or good. And I probably lean towards good because I just said like, Sarah, I feel like doesn't really have the option to be the person who's not loyal to the leader. Racky can be as loyal or not as she wants. If I were her, I would, as a foundation do that, you know, 10 people in a room calling 10 million people or whatever the numbers were that we were using there. and um i would actually be working through proxies i would be making sure my proxies felt very comfortable talking about my candidacy i would have everybody on every right away a hundred percent like you don't announce right you're being respectful yeah you're working the phones you're talking to people but i'm not sad at all if people are talking about my candidacy i want to make sure every time the ndp leadership race comes up people are talking about me and they're talking about me in that initial framing i wanted to be whatever

Carter 41:01

whatever it may be

Corey 41:02

be right like so one of the things i thought it was really interesting and i'm not i'm not trying to you

Corey 41:08

you know be critical it's really tough giving commentary sometimes when you don't necessarily have like the pulse on it like somebody calls they ask you a question you give an answer to it but in the herald piece uh you know the one you referenced there were like a couple of comments that i know i did and i suspect you guys did too who read it you're like well that's wrong right like that's just not accurate uh

Corey 41:28

uh like like three yeah yeah right and one of them was the idea that like racky was a left-wing candidate well no probably not but like that's actually a challenge for you if somebody's going to say that they don't know even that level of it i'm

Zain 41:40

i'm like the pundit class yeah so

Corey 41:42

so i'm not saying you want to be the right-wing candidate but you want to be seen as like kind of like a business friendly moderate modern you know actually doesn't give that much of a damn about kind of the partisanship or or the notion that there's a left and a right but it's about doing what's right for alberta bringing as many people as they can along creating opportunity for all people whatever you want it to be like you've got a lot of options but you do want to make sure whenever your name comes up even like the casual pundit or the pundit who's not quite like fully keyed into the race and i was like a i know rack he's in b i know this is her initial positioning so that when the comment shows up in the next herald article it's not so wildly inaccurate right like i mean the only thing you can say that was accurate is that she's a contender for this thing but you know a lot of of the rest of that was just not right and and that's a problem for the pundit but only in a modest sense it's more of a problem for the you know the pancioli campaign because you you got to be you've got to have an understandable brand that's out there carter

Zain 42:40

carter you know optionality she has it yeah um in terms of what to do you know this is probably the simplest way of putting what cory and i were just discussing earlier around what she can do what she cannot do but what is is your take on the spot she's in and then go further what is your take on what she should do when give me a recommendation like a strategic recommendation of what she should do as it relates to launching her candidacy well

Carter 43:06

well i mean i think that if we go with my earlier recommendation she should not follow and do exactly what was done before baked

Zain 43:13

baked in taking that

Carter 43:14

that i would suggest that the the thing for her to do is to get ready to do her launch the moment rachel steps down um so getting those those telephone calls done uh she's going to have a different tone to it than than sarah sarah's probably going to do the can you believe what they just did to rachel tone and rocky's probably going to do the i need to be ready and on you know i'm hearing it's going to be this date and at this time i want to be in that story of of you know or two days later or a day later or whatever i want to be the first one out uh so this is when we're going to do our launch this is how it's going to happen i need 100 people there pulling everybody together making sure that it's going to happen um so that she's not missed

Carter 44:00

missed in the next cycle and and she wasn't missed today because you know pollsters pundits political science professors are the holy trinity of political incompetence um but why she

Corey 44:14

say i tried to be like kind of like fair and even-handed and you're just i

Carter 44:17

i was fair and even-handed that's fair and even-handed two

Zain 44:22

two other categories cory sounds

Zain 44:24

fair and even it sounds like it's overcompensating to me but okay carter yeah but

Carter 44:28

but anyways i mean the uh the

Carter 44:31

the next time that she's mentioned you're gonna want to be mentioned properly and and in the race and having taken action does

Zain 44:37

does that even matter does like the earned media even matter can i like be honest like it

Zain 44:42

it does reconcile if that matters with this is a race for the ndp membership

Corey 44:46

membership actually that's a fair point and that's a good check on even what i just said there like in in a way does it matter is that yes it does you fucking

Carter 44:53

fucking you're killing me how could media not matter media is as an opinion shaper because a lot of people get no other information but that which they get from the media are you guys seriously taking the position i'm

Corey 45:06

i'm not being a media nihilist here i'm saying that like if i want to be consistent with with what I said previously, it's not the be all and end

Carter 45:12

end all. Why? We've never been consistent. That's a fair point. Yeah,

Corey 45:14

Yeah, you're right. You know what? Past me was wrong. Current me is right. Yeah. You got to get it

Corey 45:19

in the media right. Yeah. Right.

Carter 45:20

Right. Jesus Christ. I'm getting cranky.

Zain 45:23

Be a bit more specific for me, Corey, in terms of, you know, how you would be her. Give me a strategic recommendation and racquet patch, we'll go back to her. And I do want to talk about Rachel Notley as well because she's witnessing all of this, right? Let's say some version of everything we are suggesting here happens within the next 10 to 15 days, and she hasn't made her decision or she hasn't announced, I want to get to Rachel Notley in a second. But Corey, give me a specific strategic recommendation for Rocky and her campaign. Yeah,

Corey 45:49

Yeah, I mean, I do want to return to the one I said, which is you want people talking about you. So I would actively be calling people, particularly pundits and opinion leaders in Alberta.

Corey 45:57

Alberta. I would be calling Ryan Jesperson. I would be calling the brilliant Corey Hogan and the mediocre

Corey 46:03

mediocre Stephen Carter. And I would be making sure- Don't

Corey 46:06

me. they understood the framing of uh of the campaign i would be reaching out to the same 12 people

Corey 46:13

people that they go to for commentary on every political story honestly it could be like six people right the way it goes and just making sure that everybody if

Corey 46:23

if they know nothing else they know like oh she's the candidate that's x and it's the framing of x that you think will be most advantageous to you uh with the goal in mind of winning the ndp leadership right so it's probably about electability it's probably about this idea that you can take that next like sequence up and move the ndp into into government space so um that would be a huge component of it i do like steven's idea of basically saying i'm getting ready for a launch and look there

Corey 46:53

there is going to be to and

Corey 46:55

and again the idea that somebody soft launch that's not kathleen's actual launch there will will be an actual launch down the road at some point

Corey 47:03

point right but you

Corey 47:05

you don't want to all be trying to do the same launch so you've got to ask yourself am i going to be the person who's going to get a thousand people in a room and that is just like really excited energetic it looks like a modern alberta not 1000 white people but like a very diverse alberta yeah

Corey 47:20

or am i going to be the person who says none of that matters and does like the bernie sanders style i've talked about it's my favorite launch of all time where he just walks fuck off because it's so consistent with his brand and that's the important point there right where he just walks outside not even with like any kind of setup and he's like yeah i'm uh running for president right and oh but no pretty much says listen let's do this quickly we don't have a lot of time yeah

Corey 47:45

yeah literally those are his opening lines don't play the game if you're gonna lose the game right and so you've got to determine the type of launch but i would be being ready to have that launch event whatever form it takes whatever you think is consistent with your brand maybe it's a i don't know maybe you maybe you launch on jesperson i just mentioned him right but whatever you think is appropriate for the goal of trying to build the party and create that particular brand

Carter 48:09

well why wouldn't you launch on a podcast that actually has impact like why would you go to jesperson when you have the opportunity to come on the strategist podcast yeah we're we're well known no one guests yeah

Zain 48:18

yeah we're all known for being inviting it yeah you

Carter 48:22

you know what you don't have to be on it we'll just launch it for you that's a service you've provided in the past that's

Zain 48:28

that's actually true yeah

Carter 48:28

yeah we've done it before that's

Zain 48:30

that's a service correct uh cory you're rachel nutley watching this how are you processing this how are you processing things like legacy which is like this

Zain 48:38

this thing we've talked about in the past but also things like rules and what you should leave for folks i know we've talked in the past you know in terms of different pods around what the legacy sort of tactical piece looks like is it is it i'm leaving is it a video whatever we don't have to discuss that but like you're you're processing this uh the first salvo's been thrown some

Zain 49:00

some of the stuff we mentioned here may or may not happen it's almost immaterial to her position in the sense of but it's on yeah it's on who cares what tactically exactly what what what moves everyone makes or how nice they are to to the history of the legacy you've built it's on and when it's on and you're still there how are you processed well

Corey 49:17

well i'm sure it's a lot more real and i'm sure it's actually a little bit frustrating that's just human nature i don't know how you wouldn't be a little bit frustrated that people are just running about and doing things and not you

Corey 49:28

you know it probably in your opinion even thinking about like kind of the strength and durability of the party rachel

Corey 49:34

rachel notley is in such a fascinating position it's almost like this george washington position where everything she does becomes the standard going forward because this party today this ndp is

Corey 49:45

is is so not what it was before she became leader that i have a hard time thinking of it as the same party and there are like the traditions of the old ndp where it was basically like a very small let's keep the lights on board sometimes for periods of time where it's the same 12 people pick the next leader and it's about continuity and it's about making sure there's always somebody to keep the lights on and it's about making sure if nothing else they will be a good party stalwart because that's how how you ensure that the dream never dies on the prairies but it's it's not that anymore right and and that that requires an entirely different mindset that requires an entirely different approach it requires the

Corey 50:24

the kind of this openness and this willingness to let people jump on the trapeze without a net underneath it and and what i think is going to be interesting both because of rachel notley's personality and because of that change i've talked about is is she's gonna have to let go and not try to control this thing in a way that i you know i can't say it's foreign to her but like really she has not really had to do in a

Corey 50:48

a very long it's

Carter 50:48

it's completely foreign to her well

Carter 50:51

it's i don't know about

Corey 50:52

about i mean come on like we we think of her as the premier who kind of like controlled all of the details and we think of her as the leader who was like so universally

Corey 51:00

universally strong and iron gripped on the party like everyone would do exactly what what she said but like she had a whole life before that so i don't think it's fair to say it's foreign to her but i

Corey 51:09

i certainly think it is a massive massive change from her you know previous few years existence and it's a massive massive change for the ndp and i think actually the point i want to make is like that whole like curation process of the ndp going in the past and this whole idea of kind of keeping the lights on might actually actively antagonize people in kind of a more modern contemporary party that sees itself as a contender going forward so she's in a fascinating position and and what she does is sort of going to set the status quo going forward right and do you

Zain 51:40

you have a recommendation for her in

Corey 51:42

way from like a strategic perspective

Corey 51:44

my recommendation to any past leader is you're you're it's the minute you you're

Corey 51:48

you're you're not the leader anymore like even the minute you've decided you're not the leader you're not you're not actually the leader anymore we've talked about this and how you

Corey 51:55

you know there's kind of the formalities and the niceties and whatnot. Schrodinger's leader, as

Zain 51:59

as we've called it.

Corey 51:59

it. But your obligation in

Corey 52:04

of a broad-based political party, and maybe you don't see the NDP as that. Maybe you see it a little differently. But generally

Corey 52:10

generally speaking, your obligation is to kind of the party and the system and the process. And that's why you don't see former

Corey 52:16

former presidents nominate until very late in nomination processes. That's why you don't see former leaders campaigning for current leadership candidates until very late in the process. Um, and you just sort of let things unfold and you try not to be in a situation where you're going to create ill will, um, because you are, you have morphed from being like

Corey 52:38

like the leader of the faction that controlled the NDP when, you know, there wasn't really that kind of factionalism, but you

Corey 52:44

you are now supposed to sort of embody it no matter what happens. And, uh, you know, you're the person who gets any future leader gets to call on and you're like, you're up there and you give the rousing speech like Jean Chrétien does for, you you know, anybody, any given time. He's like 90 now, eh? Yeah,

Carter 52:59

Yeah, it's his birthday today.

Corey 53:00

We weren't invited to the party.

Carter 53:02

I was. No, I'm keenly aware I was not invited. Were

Zain 53:04

Were you invited to the party?

Zain 53:08

unfortunate. Zane, I am the party. We were not invited. Yeah.

Zain 53:11

Okay, well, you are the, yes, you are the party. Yeah. Carter.

Carter 53:15

Carter. Can I get in here and correct all the things that Corey did wrong there? Well, I would

Zain 53:20

would just like to get your analysis, but then also like a strategic recommendation. We've gone through each of the front runners, and I've asked you for strategic recommendations for them, given where we are right now. I'll ask you for the same for Rachel Allen. So, yes, get in there, but also give me a recommendation, Carter.

Carter 53:36

Well, I mean, the recommendation would be don't do it like this. Because losing control before you leave is probably the worst thing that you can do as a leader.

Zain 53:49

You think these candidates running means she's losing control? Is that what

Carter 53:53

what you're saying, or

Carter 53:53

She's lost. No, she's not losing control. She's lost control. Control is gone. Control is now in the rear view mirror. She's watching it go away. What she should have done is tell everybody, here's how this is going to go. I am leaving in March. We are going to have a convention prior to that. At that convention, it will be my convention. It'll be about me and you can start to campaign at that time anybody who comes out prior to that i will denounce you i will say this is not you know this shouldn't be the leader i will hold this group to account um that's what she should have done but because she didn't do that she's she's done there's no point in worrying about what should rachel notley do because she's no longer a player all that's left for her to do is to slink away in the dead of night sometime in the cold days of january and maybe she stays on as the interim leader maybe she lets someone have that that uh you know wants to have a title on their resume um but she's done i

Corey 55:02

i mean i don't agree with that but well you're

Carter 55:04

you're wrong not to agree with that because it's the absolute right analysis look no

Carter 55:09

no what is is she gonna do guys you guys give me one thing you guys give me one thing that she can do that has any fucking impact on the future starting right now i'll

Corey 55:17

i'll wait i think she could set the rules for the leadership i do she

Carter 55:21

she can't it's in the council's hands oh

Corey 55:24

oh okay well if it's in the council's hands i guess the leader can't set the rules

Carter 55:27

rules you know what the the the leadership candidates have already been jockeying to get the council members on their team she's lost it she's lost control of the party she's the leader in name only and she screwed up her exit well done

Zain 55:42

listen i would agree with cory on on the rules are one thing you can agree

Carter 55:45

agree with cory all you want

Carter 55:50

you can agree with cory all you want look

Corey 55:52

look i think the reality is ever since the election like kind of the universal authority of rachel notley that she enjoyed which was unusual for party leaders let's be clear

Corey 56:01

hasn't existed right you

Corey 56:03

you you are talking about about power like it's this light switch thing like you have it it

Carter 56:08

it is a light it is not it

Carter 56:10

is a light switch it's not oh

Carter 56:12

oh you've just never lost it as quickly as i have there

Corey 56:17

there are there are degrees and she is still a very powerful and important person in the ndp and she will continue to be the rest

Carter 56:23

rest of her life yes she is cory yes she okay all

Zain 56:28

all right look i'm i'm gonna park that i'm gonna going to move it on to our final segment steven carter over how did this segment go an hour

Zain 56:36

time on the ndp than

Carter 56:37

than we've done for professional carter lately yeah

Zain 56:40

yeah yeah it's it's good i like it hey hey carter when are we gonna kick

Carter 56:45

kick the shit out of trudeau

Carter 56:46

trudeau when are we gonna kick the shit out of trudeau can we do that yeah well is

Zain 56:49

is this the light he had a bump and then it had a slide yeah this is the lightning round we're going to the lightning right stephen carter tell me something this is actually a

Zain 57:01

lieutenant hustle strategy that you've kind of put on the table that the campaign should do who

Zain 57:07

how do you decide who who the leader calls versus these lieutenants like in the sense of like if you were advised i want to get you to get a bit more specific this weekend um and this this is like more so like general principle, right? As well. But if you were doing the blitz this weekend and you ask these 10 people being like, call everyone on these lists, let's get them all. Who does

Zain 57:30

does every call end up with the leader? Who calls? Talk to me about how you've done this. Corey, you talk to me how you've done this. I want to get a bit more tactical on this one, even though it is indeed the lightning round.

Carter 57:40

First set of calls from the leader or the or the leadership candidate are the people who, uh, they want to feel roles, right? There's a role for, uh, a campaign coordinator in, in each riding, right? We're going to do it riding by riding. Okay. Well, we best call every

Carter 57:56

every riding president, every former candidate, every party treasurer, everybody who's got a name on the, uh, elections, Alberta forums in the last five years, the leader's going to call those people. And that number is going to somewhere come out around, let's say 250 because the names don't change actually that much because there's a very small group of people who actually keep the lights on in any given party yeah we've covered that before the next thing that should happen is is the money the

Carter 58:25

the leaders call the leadership candidates already the

Zain 58:28

the money you're talking already this weekend just to be clear yeah

Carter 58:31

there's only X amount of dollars you got to go and get the money campaigns I don't know if you guys know this but money is the currency of politics and it is super important i

Zain 58:40

i know i know a guy who has a mug that says that anyways yes

Carter 58:42

i've heard of it um

Carter 58:43

um you've got to go after it so the the they got to do the organize they got to do their key organizers or their key campaigners they got to do the money and then they should do randoms because

Carter 58:56

because the word's going to leak out that the random guy the call from the potential leadership candidate and it changes the tone it now sets the tone that i

Carter 59:04

i can talk to the next leader i didn't get to chat with rachel except that time that she shook my hand at the convention but you

Carter 59:12

you know hoffman called me that

Carter 59:14

that was fantastic i feel great right so they should be making a thousand telephone calls the same way that they're 10 you know like they should make as many phone calls as humanly possible good

Zain 59:25

good news you want to get in on this they'll

Carter 59:27

they'll leave a lot of messages cory

Zain 59:29

cory you want to get in on this can carter can i ask you one more tactical question on this last point sure

Zain 59:34

do you do you call through your own phone

Zain 59:36

do you do you like do you like do you effectively give a thousand people your phone number is is my is my question no you may have discussed a permutation of this but i'm so i'm so curious about this detail because there are politicians that you and i both know that are notorious for that in fact it is their calling card is here's my number text me anytime and you do it and it's an i-message it's to them do you do that here is that the level of like surprise and delight you're you're looking for or no get

Carter 1:00:01

get a campaign burner oh

Carter 1:00:04

yeah locked up for the campaign here's

Corey 1:00:07

here's the thing um hey carter it's 2024 leave a lot of messages nobody like what is this like you send a lot of texts uh ultimately

Zain 1:00:17

that's what i'm saying yeah

Corey 1:00:17

yeah but um i think that what you what i would recommend is that in some ways the lieutenants do almost the first screening in the sense that they call and say hey listen uh i'm pretty excited about you know raki pancholi i'd really love like you gotta you gotta meet her like she's gonna be in you know and you have sort of a can i set up a call between them and you have that initial judging of interest and it's at the pork

Zain 1:00:39

pork and fiddle yeah

Corey 1:00:40

yeah it's at the pork and fiddle uh

Corey 1:00:42

uh stephen carter's gonna be there he's gonna do his uh you

Corey 1:00:45

you know his famous impersonation of rachel notley that he always likes to bring out of parties oh

Carter 1:00:50

oh it's so good and

Carter 1:00:52

she loves it too oh

Corey 1:00:55

i'm sure that's at a higher patreon level that you get to hear that uh yeah

Corey 1:01:00

yeah and so you you kind of because you don't want the prospective leader just to be dealing with like a trillion people are like no not interested right a that's demoralizing b it's not a good use of time so good point you go out but you don't make it feel like it's a screening and you certainly don't um give

Corey 1:01:17

give it the sense that they're only going to be able to talk to you like Like you, the name of the game really is like the feel of personal connection. And so like Carter's comment about getting the randoms, getting calls, if

Corey 1:01:26

if the randoms are getting calls, the actual useful people all need to get calls. And by the way, you

Corey 1:01:30

you know, these calls are not going to last that long. You are going to be sending a lot of texts that say, Hey, you know, it's Racky. I missed you, but it is actually me. And, you know, so fire me a text back. If you want to chat, I'd love to talk to you about what's going on in Alberta NDP politics. Right.

Corey 1:01:44

Do it on the campaign burner for sure. Right. Right. And and then I think, yeah,

Corey 1:01:50

yeah, it's it's also using those calls as an opportunity not just to get that person, but to get the next three people. Right. So who else do you think might be interested? Who are you? You're a constituency president. Who do you think are like the three most interesting people on your board or the three like up and comers that you really think like would really be great, especially if like you're getting friendly conversations with them?

Carter 1:02:13

Really good advice. Ask.

Zain 1:02:14

Make the ask. yeah lightning

Carter 1:02:16

lightning round cory jesus christ

Zain 1:02:19

me let me only throw one more on there guys which is i'm going to revisit this question every now and again when we talk about the ndp specifically related to candidates which is the brand lanes that we've loosely identified for each of the three candidates we have sarah hoffman as you know and you guys can correct me if i'm wrong but like history of the party right like the extension of of what you got sort of thing the 2015 as i think you'd cory you'd alluded to and we kind of settled on some version of like that was kind of her lane calgary rachel was kathleen ganley and then racky had the most optionality almost as an like today where we're discussing uh where she could be bold um where some of her risk is really around if this is going to be a super best friends club versus being a little bit more chippy and trying to create some daylight you guys want to change any of those brands or refine them after seeing today after having some time for reflection like i said i'll keep revisiting this question around the lanes they should each hunt but i want to open up the floor on this maybe to you first cory and then to you carter uh as we round out this episode i

Corey 1:03:20

i don't necessarily know that i want to change any of the lanes i will say i listened to that pod and one of the things that i thought was funny after listening to it is that we we gave some pretty esoteric swim lanes and we somehow managed not to talk about the traditional ndp swim lanes of environment true of labor labor yeah yes and um those lanes still exist and there are still a myriad especially on the labor side of ndp stalwarts who really speak and think in that language and listen there's still a lot of memberships to be driven that way there's still a lot of risk of antagonizing the labor wing of the ndp and um people are going to need to be very mindful of the coalition as it exists as well as the coalition as they wanted to exist and every leadership is going to be a combination of existing members your membership sales their membership sales and if this thing goes multiple ballots there's there's a lot of considerations and there's a lot of ways you're going to need to be able to cut it and

Corey 1:04:17

and a lot of ways you're going to be able to talk to these particular issues here so i don't want to change any i just want to observe there

Corey 1:04:22

there are a lot of swim lanes we didn't talk about that are very powerful you

Corey 1:04:26

know in the ndp and i particularly want to call out labor because we did not give labor its due last time we talked about this it's

Zain 1:04:33

it's a good point especially even in the in the voting rules so to speak and and labor might be like something that someone adds as a comma so to speak in terms of what what their current lane is and say comma like a bit of labor here or like you know we'll have some labor-friendly policies or certainly endorsements which are going to matter carter i'll

Zain 1:04:49

i'll give you the same opportunity do you want to change do you want to tweak do you want to refine after experiencing what we have with the with this this sort of opening launch no of this campaign not

Carter 1:04:59

not really but i would say i would say say two things number one pick a lane right and that was probably a critique that we could say about kathleen's video there was no real lane well i mean i guess she's trying to make a i'm a not a i'm more than just a regular new democrat lane um which is a little different than calgary rachel which i can get behind um and

Carter 1:05:20

and the second one is fuck labor there i'm done um that's

Carter 1:05:24

that's all i have to say that's

Zain 1:05:25

that's that's a lane that's the lane you want to pick are you just saying that just

Carter 1:05:29

just saying in it okay

Zain 1:05:31

like yeah that's that's my response to you carter all right that's

Corey 1:05:36

do you lose like a labor client or something like that i'm

Carter 1:05:39

i'm actually rethinking this right now i'm thinking you know what this is pretty fucking stupid yeah

Carter 1:05:45

yeah on behalf of all labor let me just say this the ndp have to work harder to get us that's what i mean okay that's what i so

Corey 1:05:54

fuck labor to personifying labor and talking about you know what

Carter 1:05:59

i read the wrong sheet. I read it backwards. I read it backwards. We're going

Zain 1:06:02

going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1278 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velge. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you at the Pork and Fiddle.

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