Episode 1280: Rules for rules

Zain 0:01

This is Strategist episode 1280. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, it

Zain 0:10

It is time to do a podcast, Stephen. It is time. A

Carter 0:13

A little bit past time, isn't it? It is a little

Corey 0:17

Completely disagree. A little late. A little late today. No. A little today and not yesterday. You guys don't have the fluid

Zain 0:24

fluid eastern sensibility of how time works. Okay? This is early. early we're early for our next episode if we skip an episode it means that it wasn't

Corey 0:31

wasn't meant to be

Corey 0:33

this is the zane velgey version of it's five o'clock somewhere well

Zain 0:36

well why and guess what it's working china on

Zain 0:39

on the rise india just kicking ass you guys need to adopt this sense of time okay kicking

Carter 0:44

kicking ass killing people i mean there's all kinds of ways of putting it well

Zain 0:49

carter um anything you want to talk about we've got a packed episode by which i mean i've got one line written and we're gonna see how much i can milk that for so let's go talk about out let's

Carter 0:58

let's get through this thing it's past my bedtime i'm cranky uh you know this is this is well i want to watch a show like i want to go to bed man like i'm like exhausted out of

Corey 1:08

of curiosity what do you think stephen carter's bedtime is like if he wasn't on this podcast are you asking

Zain 1:14

asking me or is this like a poll

Corey 1:15

yeah well that's why i said zane well

Zain 1:16

well okay here's what oh i didn't hear zane okay here's actually what i want okay wait

Corey 1:19

stop let stop for a minute yeah audience yeah

Corey 1:23

and let's your answers in now okay

Zain 1:27

okay okay i heard one 330 which i thought was pretty good like someone who said 330 you know who you are pretty funny uh carter uh is it in fact what the poll says from the audience uh 345 no

Carter 1:40

no that's when i ate my dinner i

Carter 1:44

no i go to bed i go to bed every night at 9 15 except tonight because i'm recording with you two yahoo it's

Corey 1:50

it's 9 12 my god we got three minutes Three minutes

Carter 1:52

minutes to get in an hour. Let's go, baby. Yeah, three minutes

Zain 1:56

minutes of Carter quality. Here we go. Let's jump it on to our first and perhaps only segment draft day.

Corey 2:02

day. Corey Hogan, there

Zain 2:04

there are draft rules floating around for the Alberta NDP leadership race. Some of us have seen these rules float around in our inboxes, WhatsApp, chats, many people talking about them. Buzzworthy draft rules.

Zain 2:22

upset right now. The flex. Yeah, I still use email. It is true. Yeah.

Zain 2:25

That is the flex. I'm multi-platform. That is correct. It's not just this pod where you can find me on. Carter, these

Zain 2:33

these rules are round. People are kicking them around, got different versions of them. They're interesting, but that's not what I necessarily want to talk about. And when I say that, I mean the substance of what we have seen in these draft rules. Because we know at some point the Alberta NDP will publish a set of rules. Everyone will be able to see them. They will We'll dictate things like when the leadership race is, when it is revealed, the membership cutoffs, the prerequisite sort of what they'd call green lighting process, Carter, right? What requirements you need to have. All of that, we'll see the light of day. And so despite the fact that they are with a lot of us right now or some of us right now, what I want

Carter 3:11

want to discuss, Carter— Keep rubbing it in, Zane.

Zain 3:14

It's just me sending it to myself. Okay. Carter, here's what I want to discuss, though. Okay.

Zain 3:19

Because I'll let the substance of those rules come out when they do. I want to discuss how the campaigns in this Alberta NDP leadership race, but even broadly, how campaigns or camps, because there is no real official campaign yet, and we could talk about that for the candidates that are running, how these camps need to navigate these rules. And what I mean by navigate is, quite simply, advocate for rules that are in their favor. Try to even the scales, try to ensure that certain things that are beneficial to them, they make a case for. And I want to work this through with you guys in terms of a, what I'd call a, I've done this before, but a bit of like a biblical rule book. Let's go with some rules that you want to consider. And then from there on in, let's add a bit of nuance to them with the situation that perhaps some of these campaigns or these camps might find at hand. Corey, does that sound good to you?

Corey 4:14

sounds super and and i think that maybe i'll even jump in and say the first thing

Corey 4:20

as you go through and it's almost like i'm glad to do that

Zain 4:22

that because carter has to go to sleep so yeah just get us going here cory the

Corey 4:27

framework for the framework is you've

Corey 4:30

you've got to know that every party is going to be a little bit different but the rules don't just come on a stone tablet from on high right like somebody has to write these rules and so the draft has to be drafted by somebody, it has to be approved by somebody, maybe a different somebody, likely a different somebody or a group of somebodies. And it's only then that they actually take effect within the organization and depending on your party constitution, all

Corey 4:54

all sorts of ways that might be managed, right? But ultimately, it all comes down to three questions if you're a leadership camp, and you're trying to determine your ability to change these rules, or you're trying to set these rules in an advantageous way for you. You need to understand who recommends the rules, You need to understand who decides the rules, and you need to understand who influences that decision. And so the who recommends, who decides, and who influences model is really how you can start thinking about how these rules actually get formalized at the end of the day. So let's give an example.

Corey 5:28

If the party executive director or party secretary, in the case of the NDP or whatever, recommends the rules, then you know who's got first pen on it. There's going to be a significant anchoring effect to that. So you're going to want to try to address things there if possible.

Corey 5:44

The decision might actually be made by a broader group. It might be, for example, a provincial council. So all of the delegates to a meeting, right? That might be the deciders.

Corey 5:53

And then you know, ultimately, who the voting base is. And this is the group that you actually need to set at

Corey 6:00

at the end of the day. But that group, especially on a decision like this, is going to be looking to people who can give them a bit of guidance, because

Carter 6:07

because in many cases,

Corey 6:08

they won't know what they're supposed to say. And so you've got to look to who influences. And that might even be your own camp. That might be the other leadership camps. That might be the outgoing leader. That might be the party officers that are recommending the rules. That might be any number of individuals. individuals. But these are the major actors that determine who or what, I suppose I mean, the leadership rules will be in any contest. And

Zain 6:34

And I appreciate that, Corey, because it also highlights that when we talk about advocacy for the rules, we're not talking necessarily about changing, advocating senselessly for,

Zain 6:45

for, let's just, you know, let's get rid of the voting system. We want a delegated convention. Like, that's not what we're talking about here, right? What we're talking about largely, if you guys agree, is we have the draft rules. How do we kind of massage them in our favor? How do we kind of create a comma at the end that opens up a criteria a bit more? How do we create functions of that? And Carter, I guess the question I'll frame to you because Corey's given us a frame, and I do want to get to our list, but I'd love to just tap on your expertise here because you've run a few of these, Carter. Carter. Have camps that you have been a part of or

Zain 7:19

or have observed over

Zain 7:21

over-invested or under-invested their time and energy on trying to mold rules? I'm just trying to get a gauge of like, is this like a secret hack to how to win? Is this something that is already baked so most camps don't actually spend any time trying to mold it? Give me your take on this from your experience. Like, have you You spent considerable time and even political capital and even points for being super best friends, so to speak, and said, I don't give a shit about that, to say, I want to go in bulldozing on the rules. Talk to me about your experience and like what that wisdom has taught you on molding rules for leadership campaigns. Well,

Carter 7:58

Well, the rules are everything. And because the rules change from race to race, what appears to be a minor change could have significant impact. and if you aren't advocating and you aren't pushing for specific types of changes um you know the other teams are the other teams are all going to be pushing for what they think will give them a minuscule impact or a minuscule advantage um and it could be you know a fast membership race or it could be a a long longer gap between the uh the vote and the and the uh the actual membership cutoff whatever they think will give them an advantage they're going to negotiate for and you may feel like you don't have any power right like you may feel like you're just some uh you know just another campaign and what are you going to do you're not going to pull out you're not going to say oh we're not going to be a part of this it's not worth it

Zain 8:52

it for us anymore yeah

Carter 8:52

yeah or whatever we have to we have to just take these shitty rules and go with them um

Carter 8:58

you can think that way but you'll probably wind up losing the race because you do have This is your first opportunity to show that you're the leader that the party wants by actually being the leader that the party needs. So you need to be in a position where you say, I'm sorry, those

Carter 9:15

those rules do not serve the long-term future of this party. And if you continue to go that direction, I'm not going to commit to the commitments that will need to be made. so one of the commitments that need to be made later in the day will be will you continue

Carter 9:30

continue to serve as an mla if you know regardless of who wins the leadership and you can say no because i think these rules are shit and

Carter 9:38

and that should be a threat to the party the party wants more than anything everybody to come back together but if you can't come together because the rules aren't good then you have to position yourself so that you're strong enough to push back on the rules You're not powerless in this discussion. I think that too many campaigns think, oh, well, we can't push back because we really want to run for leader. I'll tell you something. It's running for leader and losing sucks. Don't run for leader and lose. Run for leader and win, which means you have to run for leader with good sets of rules. Which

Zain 10:15

Which means the game is on right now as it relates to draft rules. rules. Corey, I asked Carter the same question about overinvesting and underinvesting. Any experience or wisdom you want to share? Or do you want to get us started with some commentary on our first sort of biblical rule for people to consider beyond the framework you've kind of given on the stakeholders at play?

Corey 10:36

Yeah, look, I think that it's

Corey 10:38

it's really important. And you can actually quantify a lot of these things. And maybe even if you're in a leadership camp, you should, at least in a rough sense ask yourself well how many votes is this worth and um there

Corey 10:49

there are ways you can say well a membership cut off on this line might give us x number of votes versus y number of votes what would that mean for the other candidates how does that change the delta like there's ways you can sort of look through this in a kind of a crass calculating way the point i really want to put on the table though is camps are seen as interested parties right so when we talk about out who influences who decides who recommends well they don't recommend they don't decide and their influence is

Corey 11:15

is not is not enormous right because in

Corey 11:19

in many cases the the party office and the outgoing leader and the executive it really depends on how the leader left right they're going to say yeah of course you want that you think it's to your advantage right and if you're the even the delegates deciding you're gonna look at this with a bit of a jaundiced eye so carter said said something so very important, and I want to take a moment and underline it here. It's that as a candidate, you do not say, I don't like these rules. They don't serve my interests. You always say, they

Corey 11:47

they do not serve the interests of the party, right?

Corey 11:49

right? And you try to elevate the principle and you make it a bigger principle. You make it about the kind of party you want to have, whether that party is going to be open or closed, whether that party is going to be left or right, whether that that party is going to be up or down, whatever it is, you try to wrap it in something that is more motherhood and apple pie for your organization, whatever your organization will be. And that's really, that's one of two tools you have. And Carter talks about the other tool too, which is saying, I'm not going to play ball. And there are actually gradients of that because really what you're saying is I am going to cast dispersions on your race. The most extreme manifestation is I'm not going to play ball. I'm not even going to run next time, but there are manifestations all the way down to, I'm going to express concern, I'm going to kind of mutter behind the background that I think that this is not great, and it's not in the best interest of the party. And that's a calculation that some candidates decide to make for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes just because they're petty assholes, right? Sometimes because they think that that's going to allow them to sort of manage the narratives around there, and maybe makes up up some of the advantage they lost with the bad rules. But it's

Corey 12:55

it's rarely, I mean, I really struggle to even think of a campaign. And by the way, hurt feelings here. I've also run leadership campaigns. Yeah, but sorry.

Zain 13:04

What was the word I was looking for? I'm just going to look for a successful.

Corey 13:07

Successful. I hate listening to that.

Corey 13:10

I seem to recall the great success. I didn't run it, but I was part of the team at Stéphane Dion's leadership team. Ah,

Corey 13:16

Prime Minister Stéphane Dion.

Corey 13:17

I remember him. He was so good. He

Corey 13:19

was great. He was a

Zain 13:19

a legend. Oh, all

Corey 13:20

all right. So much culture. Oh,

Zain 13:23

I don't know why I made it

Corey 13:24

it to this hole. But I guess the point I'm making is

Corey 13:26

I mean, he's the reason we

Zain 13:26

we don't have climate change here in Canada. That

Zain 13:29

revolutionary. Yeah, I sure do.

Corey 13:31

Ahead of his time.

Zain 13:32

time. Was he ahead of his time or was he bad at his job? Who will never

Corey 13:36

never know? But the thing

Carter 13:38

will. They're synonyms. Super

Corey 13:38

Super nice. Super nice guy, by the way. Look, I would struggle to think of a campaign that was so crass as to say, I don't like this rule because um i i think that it it disadvantages like you'll hear disadvantages me in the sense of that's unfair to certain camps but you'll never hear somebody be like i wanted this rule because i'd get an advantage over everybody else like people don't let

Zain 14:01

let me let me summarize what i've heard and then let me say talked about a few things you guys have put on the board but haven't necessarily like molded for me as a rule because i think there's a few things i want to talk about so we've got who recommends who decides who influences cory you're kind of putting this thing of party over your personal interests a few things you guys have kind of addressed and carter maybe i'll get you to address this one is the coalition of

Zain 14:28

the camps talk to me about when you go in together and advocate and i will still talk about the how we haven't talked about the how you do this just yet just hold on yeah

Zain 14:37

we will folks uh but from both of you maybe start with carter on this talk to me about the rule you would have for coalition when do you go go in together, as in multiple camps say this is either unfair to us or not the best interest of the party? And when do you go in alone? How do you think about this? If you were kind of giving this general sort of guide, add a rule for me that, or start molding a rule for me on coalitions, Carter. Coalitions

Carter 15:04

Coalitions exist from the first day of the leadership to the last day of the leadership. The coalitions are fluid, however. So it's not like you're just necessarily going to create one coalition and you're in it forever what you're doing is you're creating a coalition for the moment so for example cory and i are running for leadership against you cory and i uh say oh my goodness if we allow um you you were flashing cash around earlier trying to buy my allegiance to a leadership campaign and i was like you know what you

Carter 15:36

you know i don't want cash membership sales because zane's got more ability to sell cash membership sales i've got multiple round

Zain 15:42

round trip flair airlines yeah

Carter 15:44

yeah i mean you're just flaunting like several 20s i don't even i haven't seen that much cash since the pandemic but the the the

Carter 15:53

the you know cash membership let's

Zain 15:54

let's take let's take a pause what do you mean by that what do you mean i

Carter 15:58

i haven't carried cash since the pandemic what

Zain 16:00

what why were you carrying cash in particular since the pandemic no one we're

Zain 16:03

all about the contactless this

Carter 16:05

this is what we're doing wait

Carter 16:07

wait why were you carrying it during the pandemic prior to the pandemic i carried the cash that's what i was why are we digging into this the

Corey 16:14

the words you were looking for then were since before the pandemic before

Carter 16:17

before the pandemic can

Carter 16:19

can i continue now but the cash members yeah but i thought there was something i'm like was this guy just like i

Zain 16:24

i go to cash only places i during

Carter 16:27

during the pandemic that's when i went to the places that were important i

Carter 16:31

call cory and cory and i say you know what we need to have no cash sales so we go to the the organizers and say, we don't want cash sales. They come in, you know, and so now two campaigns are saying they don't want cash sales. When you say cash

Zain 16:41

cash sales, just to be clear, in this case, you know, you're not just

Zain 16:44

the joke. You mean like you can't literally pay for a membership with cash,

Carter 16:48

You got to use a credit card because that's one way of preventing fraud, right? You're not going to have someone back up, you know, bring a briefcase full of cash that can buy memberships for everybody at Corey's church, right? Like that's just not how we're going to do this campaign. pain um

Carter 17:03

um in another situation i might say you know cory's got a big number of early memberships uh it's going to take us a while to catch up so we're going to want a longer membership period so i'm going to pick up the phone and call zane who also needs a longer membership period so i'm going to be working two allegiances at once to get the ultimate game that i want right

Carter 17:24

right i want this i want to screw cory this way i want to screw zane this way and i will work all the different arrangements to ensure that I'm screwing both of you at the same time. That came out wrong.

Corey 17:37

That came out exactly how

Carter 17:39

you wanted it to. I phrased that incorrectly.

Corey 17:41

We'll clean that up in post, don't worry.

Zain 17:43

Coalitions, yes, they're fluid, they're dynamic, you can have multiple of them. Give me your yes and or, you know, reupholster what Carter's kind of put on the table in terms of how you decide whether to advocate alone or advocate together. Yeah.

Corey 18:01

Yeah. Well, I think that when you talk about coalitions, you've got to keep in mind that it's not just the camps. It's also going to be interested organizations throughout the party. Think labor, think environmental groups who might be

Corey 18:12

interested in strengthening or their own interests or weakening another organization's interests. So you've got to think kind of broadly when you think about coalitions for leadership rules. And you've got to think again, going back to the model I put on the table there, right? Who decides who, you know, who influences and there's a lot of influential groups in any political party that can help change out some of those rules there. One of the things about coalitions, which I think is implicit, but I want to make explicit, is that it's not everybody, right? It's like it'll be a couple of people against one and you'll pick people off issue by issue. Because when there's a coalition of all of the camps, like all of the camps, somebody is wrong, right? Now, it might be the party. It might be something that's just so bad that it just damages the organization to a degree that all of the campaigns are... Or just like an

Zain 19:01

an oversight or something that they didn't think of. Absolutely. Much

Corey 19:04

more likely, it means one of the camps has read things wrong, and they think something will help them, and it will not help them. So one of the fascinating things that you've got to keep in mind is that nobody has perfect information. Everybody's got a game plan. And these game plans are going to be in conflict, but there's a certain fog of war, and you don't necessarily know everybody else's game plan. So let's just continue the example where Stephen and I are paired up on the idea of cash memberships. We don't want cash memberships, right? Oh, no, no, I don't want cash memberships. Cash memberships would be a real problem for me. Real problem for you too, Stephen, right? right?

Corey 19:38

Well, maybe part of my calculation there is

Corey 19:42

is entirely inaccurate. Maybe you're going to be in third either way. And what I should be thinking about is, if we came to you and you're like, I don't want cash memberships either, then we got a problem, right? But I don't know his strategy. He doesn't know my strategy. I might be thinking that cash memberships are bad for me. I might be wrong because it might be that the cash memberships that you're selling, even though they're yours, yours would have otherwise come to me, right? So, like, you just don't know. And you're trying to make calculations and you're trying to suss people out as they're moving along here. And that's kind of the art of it. You know, it's not clear cut. You

Zain 20:19

You make an interesting point about art. Carter, you put your hand up. I guess I'll ask this question to you. I want to go off what Corey said here, and then we'll throw a few others on the board.

Zain 20:26

Have you written like a strategy document in the past, Carter, when you've worked on these campaigns on

Zain 20:30

what you want from the the rules? What does it entail? What does it include for you? Give me like a Coles notes of what a strategy document includes when you're trying to win over the rules, if I can call it that, or win the rules in that sense. Well,

Carter 20:46

Well, I mean, each one is different. I mean, the strategy document for Sandra Janssen's leadership campaign, we

Carter 20:52

we knew that we needed

Zain 20:53

needed- Sorry, some people might know her as Premier Janssen, but yeah, that's right.

Corey 20:59

upsetting. Just want to make sure we're talking about- This is going to be like our greatest hits. This is really good. So for me, the success was Stéphane Dion. For Stephen, the success was who, Stephen?

Corey 21:12

no, no. We were talking about Alison Redford. I was looking for Alison. Oh,

Carter 21:14

Oh, you were looking for Alison Redford. Okay. Well, that

Carter 21:18

that one was relatively easy because each leadership, you have different expectations of what you're going to need. Yes. Alison, we thought we needed a long membership run up. To Corey's point, we were totally wrong. It turns out that a long leadership run-up, membership sales period, just meant that we had five months of not selling memberships and one month of selling memberships. So

Zain 21:42

So wait, in that case, can I take you into that moment then? Is it fair to say that you were advocating for a long period, you didn't get it, you took what you got, and it turned out to be advantageous for you? Is that how that played out?

Carter 21:55

out? we actually didn't get what we wanted we that's what i mean you

Zain 21:59

you you wanted long you got short and short no

Carter 22:01

no i'm sorry we did get what we wanted we we got we got we were in that leadership lasted for 13 14 years uh i mean it would it just went on and on and you could not sell a membership for the first i think five months like it was like

Carter 22:17

like people were just like yeah so what

Zain 22:19

what you're saying you wanted long you got long and it proved to not be an advantage i see what

Carter 22:22

what it turned out to be be just a complete joke and um you know i don't think anybody really got an advantage from it because no one was selling memberships early and then everybody sat on their membership sales anyways so who the hell knew like so rules like what do you do when you sell a member like do you sell the membership through the leadership uh through the portal uh of the ndp or can you sell the membership uh buy cash and hold and sit on those paper forms and then submit all the paper forms at once um yeah

Carter 22:56

you know so that fundamentally changes the race because now i don't know who you sold to um you know like the party the next time they distribute the membership list doesn't have that membership because you're sitting on it uh you're also sitting on the cash so any cash that's being collected on behalf of the party isn't going to the party and we used to just take that cash and turn it into a big check that we would send like there's so many different little nuances on how these things can be unfolded if you don't have a strategy if you don't have a strategic direction that says this is the case that i've built that is the best strategy for our campaign

Carter 23:33

then every little nuance you'll be like i don't know which includes the

Zain 23:36

the rules for you which includes for you it included tactics and who does what and and what we need from the rules in order to have a fighting chance well is that fair yeah

Carter 23:47

yeah and if you'll recall when danielle smith was on her way to winning her leadership we were talking about how the leadership itself the not the process because danielle smith was able to raise 175 000 faster than anybody else because danielle smith was able to get the signatures on her nomination papers faster than anyone else she was able to begin campaigning on average four to six weeks ahead of the other campaigns right so that process dictated the outcome the process dictates the outcome and no one pushed back hard enough and said we need a longer you know a longer period or shorter numbers or

Carter 24:27

whatever staggered payments would have made a massive difference in that leadership because

Zain 24:30

because they were out hat in hand trying to do it and while she was able to officially run and declare as a candidate, so to speak.

Zain 24:39

Corey, you may have a rule of your own. Do you, or do you want me to throw you some fodder to chew on?

Corey 24:44

Throw it at me.

Zain 24:45

Here's a question I have, and this one is in your line of taking something implicit and making it explicit. When you are advocating for the rules, are you simply doing it from the eye of fairness, or are you trying to screw your competitors over? And I I guess in a party that has a dynamic of, you know, friendliness, like we're together, the tone of that, I'm just trying to understand how much of this is cutthroat winning and how much of this is leveling the playing field. And I'm curious to get your perspective on what rules advocacy looks like for each of you, Corey. Do you want to start me off on maybe taking something that, at least to me, is a bit implicit and turning it explicit in terms of what this fight is for?

Corey 25:29

Yeah, let's be clear.

Corey 25:32

you will likely there's gonna be two types of people i'll start here actually some people will just want fairness right and

Corey 25:38

they will say oh you know as long as it's an even playing field for everybody what that is is so on the eye of the beholder though and i think realistically there are advantages baked in or out there and so like they may feel they're just trying to be fair

Corey 25:50

somebody else might think that they're not being fair right there are people out there who are saying how can i get an advantage and it might not be entirely duplicitous it might be i think think this is best for the party and i think it's best for me our interests align here yeah yeah

Corey 26:03

but that's an important point because the minute you are seen as trying to do something that is best for you but not best for the party you're in a lot of trouble right and then people are going to start saying you're just looking out for yourself and this is a little too crass and that can really affect those equations in terms of who decides and who influences right and you're going to have people say they are trying to do something that's clearly not interest in the interest of the party this kind of diminishes our view of all of their other requests along the way it makes them all suspect so there's a certain amount of like strategy that has to go in on that level too you never want to go so far out on a ledge that you're showing yourself to be a bad actor

Corey 26:41

even better just don't be a bad actor but like that's that's the reality that you're trying to deal with as you're trying to calculate carter right now is looking carter do you

Zain 26:48

you do do you just not give a fuck and you you do what steven carter does which is like if i can like how hard do you And be honest with me here. How hard do you go and what's your stopping point when you say, listen, this actually might be self-defeating at some point?

Carter 27:06

Well, I think that the number one thing is to always phrase it in the best interest of the party. But, you know, you have to fight for that which is in your best interest. And if you don't, you will lose, right? So there's some things that won't matter, right? So it's not like we're fighting on everything. There's going to be a cost-benefit analysis. So, for example, I was talking about membership length. How long do we have to sell memberships? Well, if you stop selling memberships, if you say, I really, really want a three-and-a-half-month membership selling process, and then the partner comes back and says, well, we can only give you three months. Well, you're not actually cutting off the last two weeks. The last two weeks will still be there. So you're only cutting off the first two weeks.

Carter 27:52

So that's really a small give. But there's other things that are much bigger gives, right? So, for example, are we doing a preferential ballot or are we doing points by ridings? I would fight to the death if it was a point by riding situation and I knew I was going to lose a point by riding, right?

Carter 28:14

you know you're going to lose something, you have to fight to the fucking death to get it, to

Corey 28:21

Corey. I got to say, Carter has twigged another important point here, which is you might go into these conversations with one strategy in mind, but you don't need to follow the same strategy if the rules come out different, right? So you're doing calculations sort of on the spot too of saying, all right, well, for our strategy, I would have preferred, I

Corey 28:40

I don't know, like an eight month campaign like Stephen Carter got in the Redford campaign, right? But we don't have that now. So now what's our strategy? What are we going to do differently here? And we're going to move along. And so, you know, there's also a place for kind of adaptability and flexibility, and it's by definition the earliest possible days. So very few things are so fully baked that you can't adjust. You obviously need to be making calculations in kind of a final sense as to whether you think you can do this at all as rules change, but you can often adapt to rules that you perceive as disadvantageous.

Zain 29:16

this is helpful and i've got a few rules on the board but i'll just kind of quickly add this carter which is cory mentioned there's two types of people i'll also kind of use that same framing which is there's two types of people when they read the rules they'll look at it differently there's a type of person like you i would say not to kind of you know overly simplify you as a and make you a character carter but you look at the rules and you say what are the biggest wins for me what do i need to 100 fundamentally change so i can fucking screw someone else over or outright win. And there's others that would look at it and with a slightly different tone saying, what is actually what do I need to raise the floor on sort of things for me, rather than say, I'm going to take this as an advantage and like, make sure this is protected or whatnot, what do I need to do to raise the floor on? And I guess, to me, do you see any advantage Carter, to aligning with different camps on that sort of worldview of how to look at the rules? Or is that an area where you go alone, you say, if we are going for the win, We are going to find certain things in here that we want to 100% preserve, fight to the death for it, and find other things that we're going to put all our eggs in maybe one or two baskets, not 15 of them, so that we can kind of raise the floor. We're going to go with two things and everything else we don't care because our determining factors are these two things. Yeah,

Carter 30:29

Yeah, I mean, you've put a couple of different concepts out there. I'm going to deal with the first one first, and that is this idea of how do we view the rules? I look at the rules as this is what I can do up to this point, right? So if the rules, for example, dictated that city councillors are able to put out signs up until May and June advertising events and that's allowed,

Carter 30:54

know what? That's what we do, right? Not that you did. That's what we did because that was in the rules. We weren't breaking any rules. They had to change the rules after that so that we couldn't continue to do that.

Carter 31:05

Interesting, right? Right. That's fine. But I'm the guy who looks and says, how far do the rules allow us to go? Not how much did the rules intend to hold us back? You know, there's a group of people who look for intention within the rule. Well, the intention of the rule is this. I don't look for the intention. I look for what the rule says, and then I find my intention around it. Because

Carter 31:28

Because the rules are... And you're talking about

Zain 31:30

about implementation here rather than advocate. I appreciate this this point but this is really about how you implement well

Carter 31:35

well that's kind of your first piece right and then your second piece is now how are we aligning on it generally speaking i'm not talking to anybody about the rules after the rules are done unless it's something along the lines of we must work together right when the rules dictate that you have to do strategy then you have to do the strategic work together and the rules in british columbia for the bc liberal leadership for example dictated that we had to have partnerships you had to have another partnership or another team the same with allison redford and doug horner combining to beat gary marr you have to have a partnership so the rules dictate certain partnerships that suddenly you become very open and honest with them but for the most part you're you're not sharing very much information um with your with your you

Carter 32:22

you know the people you're fighting with cory

Zain 32:24

cory any commentary on this on this world view how you when you crack open the rules how you view them um because i've got a few more things things that I want to try to get you guys to comment on as we try to create this list.

Corey 32:34

Yeah, look, a longstanding complaint

Corey 32:37

complaint of mine is that we've moved more to rules-based systems than principles-based systems, where really it should be more about the intent. But the reality is we have, and so people will look at the rules and they will use them as a roadmap for what they're allowed to do. That's the simple reality of rules in 2024, right? One of the things that I i think is interesting about your question about trying to raise the floor is i'll just go back to that fair is in the eye of the beholder like like

Corey 33:05

what is fair are you trying to create as much of a contest as possible is fair like well i think this is going to get everybody within the same number of votes naturally and we'll see where it goes is fair reflecting the will of the members as they exist is fair reflecting the will of the people who would like to be members so giving them the opportunity is fair reflecting the will of albertans and so i you know this i'm not trying trying to be a nihilist about this, but this is an open question. And so this is why

Corey 33:31

why you also don't actually find it that difficult most of the time to frame things in terms of higher principles. There's a lot of principles you can serve.

Zain 33:38

Let me ask you both a follow-up question then based on Corey's comment, Carter, which is how important is a persuasive story of your view of the world on the rules to your fellow, to of course the ultimate, and Corey's sort of like, Like, who recommends, who decides, and who influences? How important is that, whether you call it, you know, cliche, the elevator pitch or the persuasive story of how we should view this race? How important is it that each camp have their own version of that right now? Or it's actually not that important because, you know, you're not going to convince anyone. Everyone's going to just, you know, battle their own and their true beliefs or their own right. Right. Like, have you actually won over your competitors with your version of how you see theory of the race or the world through the party's eyes and say what's most fair for the party, even though it's actually most advantageous for you, Carter? Two

Carter 34:28

Two really good examples recently, right? First really good example is British Columbia, where David Eby and the BCNDP had to disqualify the challenger

Carter 34:37

challenger candidate from the environmental movement because the rules were set up in such a fashion that that candidate was highly likely to beat David Eby. If they had set the rules up properly, if David Eby had set the rules and determined, you know, for example, a leadership process of who can run, how much money do you need to put on the table in advance? What is your nomination process? Do you have to get signatures from X number of people, whatever it might be, that who can run component, if it had been done properly, would have precluded the woman that was ultimately disqualified. And that would have been such a much better outcome if the rules had precluded it rather than having her disqualified at a later date when she was already nine-tenths of the way into the leadership. And Jason Kenney, when he came in and took over the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, his move could have been disqualified. His move could have been disqualified qualified at a number of different spots. His move could have been beaten if

Carter 35:45

if we'd run the right rules. And I remember talking to that rules committee and the president of the party, whose name escapes me right now, and begging them to change the rules and explaining and trying to explain to them the unintended consequences of the actions that they were taking.

Carter 36:00

The unintended consequence of the action that they were taking was that Jason Kenney was going to win that leadership in about 15 minutes. Danielle Smith, another one where the rules dictated the outcome. The rules dictate the outcome. So if we know that the rules dictate the outcome, then we have to fight and push back and change them all the time. Because there's all kinds of examples, especially in the who can run, how much money is it going to cost, and what's the nomination process. Those three things are kind of like the first set of rules that will dictate the outcome.

Zain 36:35

question for you. You mentioned adaptability and flexibility, both in terms of if the rules change or strategy changes to give you a bit of optionality there. How far does adaptability and flexibility exist? And what I mean by that is, can

Zain 36:50

can you declare your candidacy contingent on the rules?

Zain 36:54

Absolutely. Okay. Talk to me about that. And how does one do that strategically? Which kind of gets me, and I'll preview this for both you guys and the listener, which kind of gets me closer to one of my ultimate questions on here, which is the candidate's actual involvement. As we get into the how, are they involved? Are they not involved? Do they keep their powder dry? What does the camp do? What does the candidate do? That's where I'm going. But Corey, talk to me about when we talked about adaptability and flexibility, how do you look premier-esque, leader-esque, ready for the gig, but then also have an off-ramp on if the rules aren't in my favor, I'm out of here sort of thing?

Corey 37:32

Well, look, we tend to talk about the rules within narrow bands of there's going to be some amount of money, and it's going to be memberships for some amount of time. And then there's going to be some system of voting, and that's how it's going to be. But the

Corey 37:45

the reality is, there are rules that will just outright preclude people. You could easily imagine a party saying you must have been a member for five years, right? I mean, I don't know any party that's done that. But then obviously, your participation is contingent on it. You could have a rule that says you need endorsements from at least 10% of caucus, and maybe you don't have them. Maybe you're an outsider. Well, then your participation, you might declare as being contingent on how the rules go, too. And I think what becomes an interesting question for me is that these

Corey 38:15

these decisions are – they're

Corey 38:18

they're not actually – people don't think on the margins for these things. Like, I actually don't know many leadership camps who see bad rules come for them and be like, well, I'm out. And I think camps actually need to think a bit more seriously about that and understand where their lines are and what they're trying to do. You mean about

Zain 38:33

about taking their ball and going home, potentially? I

Corey 38:35

I actually do, because I've seen a lot of, I

Corey 38:39

I can't even call it, it's

Corey 38:41

it's like a doomed campaign from the start. The rules were set up in a way, like, well, this is never going to fucking happen. Charest is a good example,

Zain 38:47

example, I think, in my mind.

Corey 38:49

he might very well be, right? Or if it was a point system and you have absolutely no strength outside of a certain geography.

Corey 38:56

well don't run just because you were planning to run for two months right like consider a sunk cost and move on with your bloody life and i think ultimately on a more nuanced level this comes down to what's your theory of the campaign going in so as much as i preached adaptability going in you've got to have a clear path to victory here and you've got to have a clear path to

Corey 39:17

well let me say you've got to be thinking about do i even want victory under certain conditions Right. Like imagine you join a party or you're going to run for the leadership of a party and they're just trying to clamp down the membership. They're trying to make it so it's like, no, there's no new members will be allowed. Anybody who is joined will be actually subject to loyalty oaths and all of that. But your whole theory of the campaign is we need to be open and inclusive. Well,

Corey 39:40

that would obviously be insanely misaligned. And again, extreme example to illustrate point, then you might want to take your ball and go home. So adaptability to a point.

Corey 39:51

But I also think campaigns need to think, is

Corey 39:54

is this really for me? Do I actually have a chance? Am I going to add something to the campaign? Am I just telling myself I'm adding something to the campaign, even though I've now acknowledged I'm not going to win this? and and think about these things in kind of sunk cost terms yeah you wanted to run yeah you were ready to do it yeah you even had a team probably do

Corey 40:11

do you actually want to run and and so extreme

Corey 40:14

extreme examples not likely to be manifest in this current set of rules and insofar as we have heard rumors about them coming out of the alberta ndp but this

Corey 40:24

this is the reality the rules matter but

Corey 40:26

but they have to matter to you too as a campaign as a candidate uh

Corey 40:30

uh and i think that is is an error that a lot of candidates make carter

Zain 40:35

carter should we talk about the how sure

Carter 40:36

sure i'm just here to you know do whatever you'd like uh i'm you know i'm still awake so let's yeah your

Corey 40:42

your bedtime was a while we've

Zain 40:43

we've got a decent set of rules let me kind of kind of walk you through these and when i say rules i mean our rules yeah rules

Zain 40:53

as a candidate you don't say any interest serves you it serves the party coalitions yes approach them but make make them fluid, make them strategic, understand how you can get an advantage, fight for the debt, what you're going to lose. If the rules change, your strategy change, adaptability and flexibility. Carter, I'm moving into the how. Okay, great. You've given me a bit of like a, you know, a genericized template. Carter, I need your help on how. Who does this work? Is it the candidate? Are all these candidates talking to each other? Is it their people? Who are their people? Is it at their top person. Give me your, you know, do a dump for me. When you talk about the how, do a bit of a dump for me, Corey, I'll ask you to do the same. And then if there's anything remaining from my question line, so to speak, or at least what I'm thinking about, I'll follow it up. But Carter, give me the brain dump on how. Well,

Carter 41:43

Well, from my point of view, the candidate shouldn't set foot near this. Because the candidate, to one of Corey's earlier points, which kind of annoys me um it you know you don't want a pissed off can you know a pissed off party at the candidate a pissed off party at uh you know stephen carter or cory hogan that's manageable right but a pissed off party at the campaign not or at the candidate not manageable so candidates shouldn't even be near these leadership reviews they should be sitting at home making their telephone calls trying to add i can't remember how many people we said we'd get them to make calls to but 500 telephone calls you know trying to add to their campaign teams having them sit for an entire evening or an afternoon on a leadership call uh is an enormous waste of time um and totally outside of the uh requirement of what it is to be a leadership candidate um and almost i don't want to say disqualifying but really you don't know your job if you're sitting in in a leadership um rule of review uh and and i would also say that that also goes for the former leader but the former leader at least has the the the privilege of saying well i ain't got nothing else to do um

Carter 43:01

know but the the the this

Carter 43:04

this is a big deal but you should not be in it um and in terms of who else the who um this should be the decisions on this should be made by a small group of people usually it's we we used to have an election uh a leadership uh

Carter 43:19

uh committee that would be formed they would have some caucus members and people like that but it would not be the full board it would not because the board had like every represent like 120 people were on the board right like the last thing you want to do is have decisions being made by large groups of people like that um there's too many sources of of influence to cory's very earlier point uh You

Carter 43:44

know, who's in charge of a large group of 150 people?

Carter 43:47

I don't know. But they might be in charge, and that might generate a list of really bad leadership roles.

Corey 43:56

Corey? Yeah, look, I

Zain 43:58

I think that it's

Corey 44:03

Generally, there is a chance that the party is going to say we want the leadership candidate there. I've seen that before in a couple of different contexts where they've either said they have to be there or strongly recommended it in addition to their campaign manager or their campaign staff, whoever it may be. that's not atypical but i do agree with steven in those situations you generally want to avoid that if possible and if it's not possible you you want to let the talking occur by your campaign representative only fully because this is the same reason why i've seen parties want this is the same reason why as a candidate you should not want to be there which is they want you there so that they can put you on the hook for this in the spot and be like hey you agreed to it whereas a candidate campaign manager can say, I got to check with my candidate, right? Which gives you guys the time needed to actually think through the decision and the consequences as it's there. So if you are forced to be in the room, reserve the right to say, got to think about that one, right? That's something I would say right off the bat. If you don't need to be in the room, don't be in the room. That's kind of organization 101. You always want a point of escalation. Stephen touched on on this if your campaign manager goes off the rails or has to get elbows up you can kind of tut tut it or even in the strongest cases sort of disavow and and move on but you can't disavow yourself yeah right and you can't undo that error if that error gets made so especially when you're getting into the fine detail work that's not candidate work for many many reasons carter

Zain 45:36

carter cory says this is not even this is not candidate work both of you would agree with that both have agreed with that. Let me test another assumption. Is this even campaign manager work? And the reason I ask that is, do you want someone even more disposable, even more removed, especially if you're going to kind of be a bit of a bully about these rules, kind of be prickly about them, you know, get more than maybe your hand slapped? Do you want someone that you can get rid of or demote so that you actually don't lose your campaign manager before the race even starts? Or am I i just overthinking it in terms of like strategic pitfalls sort of thing carter you're

Carter 46:10

you're overthinking it a bit because this same committee this same committee that's informally forming now to form to talk about the rules is also going to be the same committee that talks about the rules for the debates or the same committee that talks about the rules for the victory night party or the same committee so you need to put people in place now it doesn't need to be the campaign manager but it It should be someone who has negotiated, for example, I mean, I don't know that the NDP is going to have a big event at the end of this, but they will for sure have debates. So whoever's going to do your debate negotiation, I mean, imagine what happens if there's a televised debate. Who's going to do that debate negotiation, right? So it should be someone who's comfortable in the situation of negotiating all of those details. so for example I didn't play that role my first campaign I had someone else play that role who had more experience but by the end of you know like my most recent leadership campaigns I'm doing that role because I

Carter 47:12

I literally now have more experience writing the rules Corey and I together might be two of the most experienced

Carter 47:17

experienced people at writing the rules and understanding how the rules unfold in

Carter 47:23

the country right so i would

Carter 47:26

would look at those rules and and you

Carter 47:28

you know i i also know how to get around them afterwards so you want to have the same person making those negotiations and having that continuity uh

Zain 47:38

uh there's probably a good time to mention cory before you jump in here that um i'll make the same offer i did to the ucp which is the strategist podcast will host host a leadership debate. We're more than happy to do it.

Zain 47:49

In fact, what we will end up doing is I will host, and then Corey and Carter will also play candidates, so that people can actually test them, test the leadership candidates against two other people who have no ambition to be leaders. That's a good idea. It's a unique format. We may even do it live, 100 bucks a ticket, all going to my poster sales, which you can get through Samir Kayande. He doesn't know this, but you can get it through him okay uh cory talked

Zain 48:17

talked to me about this um there's a lot there yeah yeah well not not just a debate which is which is definitely going to happen uh the posters too yeah the debate the posters the escalation points can we talk about that was i overthinking it by by having some you know some some sort of bully show up let me you know who i'm thinking let me be clear about this i'm thinking someone like carter's not he's like you know what i'm available i'm whatever Carter, can you go negotiate rules for us? That's what I'm kind of thinking, right? A Stephen Carter-style person to just be like, make the rules negotiation for us and then say, good.

Corey 48:54

good. Yeah. Here's the thing. To put somebody in like Stephen as a hired gun, it'd be one thing if Stephen was working on a campaign. Let's say he still works

Zain 49:03

works on a campaign afterwards. I'm

Corey 49:05

I'm getting there. like so i i would say experience matters and you'd want to send a stephen carter type if he's available because he's right like you you got to go through these you got to get fucked by the rules once or twice you've got to understand how those rules have unplayed in a myriad of different situations yes

Corey 49:20

you start to you start to develop a muscle for like oh i could see that going badly oh fuck have they really thought through that oh my god that's really will poorly defined and you're definitely going to have people complaining about that down the road and you get a sense for it right so at i think that's a justifiable swap in if they're on the campaign but if they're not immediately

Corey 49:39

immediately you're going to sort of set off people's radars to like why is this guy here he's trying to fuck us he knows he's been through this a million times anything he says we're going to have to assume that there's an angle because he's not even

Zain 49:51

even really the campaign manager he's not really even on the campaign

Corey 49:53

campaign not even part of the party yeah he's

Corey 49:55

a hired gun right so you've got to be mindful of that and that does get me to the bigger point which is you talk about maybe sending somebody else on the campaign the

Corey 50:04

person you send also needs to be listened to right so they might discount the external consultant they might equally discount somebody who's too junior or who they think they're not going to have to deal with down the road or they think doesn't have the authority to make the decisions so why are you listening to them at all right uh they need to be a big enough deal to the campaign that in the room they can credibly speak for the campaign and the minute they're a big enough deal on the campaign to speak for the campaign, that they're in the room, you might as well send your campaign manager if it makes sense, because you don't get the deniability you're talking about. You don't get the disposability you're talking about with a name like that. Like if they're on the campaign and they're that big and they're that credible, they're

Corey 50:44

they're not disposable. So you don't get the benefit you're talking about. You're better off having somebody who could speak with some authority and probably move the ball forward with your kind of heft, your campaign heft and gravita and title carter do

Zain 50:58

do you ever strategically take and when i say you i mean does one

Zain 51:05

take their grievances public

Zain 51:09

can that be part of your arsenal or is that a big don't do it this is an inside this is a private club keep things private what is your take on on this. As it relates to the how, the advocacy for that, Corey's so pissed that he doesn't get to go first. Don't worry, you can clean this.

Zain 51:27

Carter is like half asleep. He's going to give you answers.

Zain 51:31

Carter, do you ever take your grievances public? That's the heart of the question. And the reason I add strategically is that does a campaign inside say, fuck it, we have no other, if this is one of those make or break rules, we may have to ring the alarm arm bells and see if we can get some media coverage, put this on social, build a little bit of a cohort behind it, a bit of a parade to help us push something through. Your thoughts on that? Or is it a big no-no for you?

Carter 51:58

No, I think it can be used. I think you need to be very aware that if you use it, you're using it exactly one time. And you may not be able to back away from it. And it's probably a precursor to you dropping out of the race. I'm a big fan. I think you need to have some power in this game you

Carter 52:18

need to put some power on your side and right now like for example you

Carter 52:23

the party itself seems to have so much more power than the individual candidates well that's right up to the point when this becomes a public conversation you

Carter 52:31

you know i think the ndp race i mean people are discussing things that are really almost inconsequential at this stage um you know how long will the membership sales thing be well does it really matter if it's three months two months or four months i mean you're going to sell 80 of your memberships in the last three weeks anyways who the fuck cares right so it's just a matter of how long are you spending money you

Carter 52:53

you know that's that's all the membership race is um but there's other things that do matter more so if for example i couldn't get the

Carter 53:01

the timeline that i wanted uh for the voting process where the voting day is close to the membership cutoff sales um then maybe i would Maybe I would go public, but I'm not speaking on behalf of any of the existing campaigns for sure, because I would think that they've all got their tails between their legs, and they're all so afraid. They're all so afraid, cutie.

Corey 53:24

I just, listen. Carter's available for hire. The way you just sort of tease things out that we can't even, like, you're such an ass. What did

Corey 53:32

did I do? We'll continue that conversation offline.

Zain 53:41

Just so people are clear, what Carter said wasn't the thing. Here, right now, this is the thing. This is the

Corey 53:46

the thing. Yeah, okay, good. Yeah.

Corey 53:48

are shades of going public. Are we talking about the candidate going public? Are we talking about the candidate's proxies going public? Are we talking about the candidate or their proxies calling reporters and columnists off the record and saying, hey, you might want to be asking about these things. This is pretty bullshitty, and this is pretty duplicitous, and here's why this would would be a big problem for the organization there are so many shades of this but if your fingerprints are on any of them you

Corey 54:14

you are going to have a problem because again you go back to this idea of like who decides who influences and i can tell you one thing that no political party wants it's it's that kind of fuckery at a certain point right like there is an instinct in political organizations to close ranks and say we are now being attacked from the outside so even if the suggestion was good and And even if the suggestion was well-intentioned, we are now being attacked from the outside. So we are going to close ranks. And to Carter's point, that's probably the start of the end of your campaign, either in slow motion or fast motion, because people will start to see you as an invading force, a hostile thing that needs antibodies to take it out, because you are putting your interests ahead of that of our beloved political party.

Zain 54:59

Carter, anything to add to that? Any response?

Carter 55:02

mean i think that it is it's you know i mean obviously you wouldn't want to have your fingerprints on it i mean i'd be making it look like cory did it for sure let's

Zain 55:12

let's spend the last couple bit minutes and let's just move this on to our over under and our lightning round so i can impose a strict sense of discipline because

Zain 55:21

we do it for you carter in the over under and lightning round this is like that's very quick transition let's talk about the campaigns and And give me a bit of advice for each of them as to how they should be taking what we've put on the board and

Zain 55:32

and thinking about their futures as it relates to what I'd call the first fight, which is the rules. You may have a couple of fights, whether that be this leadership or overall. You have the leadership itself. You have, of course, the election. But the first fight, some might argue, is this molding of the rules. Carter, if you're Sarah Hoffman and her team, what advice would you have for her beyond the generic elements

Zain 55:54

elements we have listed together? other and the advice we have given on the how around

Zain 56:00

around how she deal with uh with the overall suite of rules you

Carter 56:04

you know what i would probably i mean i'd probably recommend to sarah hoffman that they have a two-person runoff at the end um i think that that would be incredibly advantageous for her uh to drop one of the candidates and go to a new runoff that's not a single ballot ballot preferential, but instead it's a, you know, it's a runoff. Um, that would be changing the rules significantly. And I'm not sure that, that the party would be open to that, but if that, that's what I would be doing for Sarah is saying, okay, well, how do we get it down to a,

Carter 56:39

know, one, one V one race? Cause I think that the weakness that she would have is that it could could turn into a two or three v one race. And that that might be more tricky for for Sarah to manage.

Zain 56:51

Corey, it can be as specific as Carter's, it could be more generalized around her approach to think about this fight for the rules, if we want to call it that advice for Sarah Hoffman, and her camp as she enters this negotiation.

Corey 57:06

Yeah, and all of these camps will have their own theories. And they might have different strategies in mind for themselves than we have But if you work under the assumption that Sarah Hoffman has

Corey 57:16

has been in the NDP the longest, that's not an assumption, that's just a reality, and probably has the deepest roots, and probably has a strong Edmonton organization and backstop, then probably you want to make sure that those rules are fairly restrictive, a bit of rigmarole in order for you even to be validated as a member. as many hurdles as you can put on that probably the better and probably as short of a contest as possible is in your best interest in uh with the assumption that you know what you're really doing is you're just trying not to move the current state too dramatically now maybe that's accurate maybe that's not that's just a theory from the outside but that that seems to me to be pretty good i love carter's answer by the way i think that also this goes to a point we were was saying earlier, which is, we tend to think super narrow about these rules. And

Corey 58:06

And this is the anchoring effect, right? Like some draft rules went out, and people started tinkering with draft rules.

Corey 58:12

These draft rules that are floating out, like you can go way off menu, right? You could do exactly what Stephen talked about. I think that that actually like the ballot, like the 123 in the case of the NDP, that might be in their constitution. But you can really push the rules beyond where the party wants you to have the rules. And sometimes one of the benefits of an innovative idea like that particularly on the floor if you're going to think like a provincial council or really any governing body is people are going to be thinking about it for the first time and if you can get them to a well that's really fucking interesting oh that could be really exciting space the organizations that don't want this or don't even know that they don't want this might not have time to react to it so you know there's something to be said for novelty it's like when you're playing monopoly and you start doing like three-way trades and and all sorts of crazy shit nobody can see like there's just too much motion you can't even tell what's going on

Corey 59:04

that's cool stuff you should consider that no

Carter 59:06

no no no one thinks that playing monopoly is cool

Corey 59:10

yeah no that that's

Zain 59:10

that's not that stopped being cool a long time ago um

Zain 59:14

supporting pieces now they don't they don't have the battleship ticket

Carter 59:17

ticket to ride is really good if you want you know what's cool cory

Zain 59:20

cory okay the portrait unveiling of prime minister stefan dion okay that is what that

Carter 59:25

that was That was really good. I was happy to get an invite.

Zain 59:28

Carter and I were both there. It was just amazing.

Carter 59:31

Unfortunately, I was busy with Premier Sandra Janssen, so I wasn't able to go.

Zain 59:37

The Dion Decade, as they called it, and what a decade it was. Yeah, that's what it was. Carter, Kathleen Ganley, what advice would you have for her? You can go back to the specifics, as you have been, but also feel free to give her some advice on approach as well, as her camp, not her in particular, as we've discussed around some of the advice or the strategies you've said on individual candidates getting involved, what advice to her camp would you have?

Carter 1:00:01

Well, I think that it might be interesting for her to think about the timelines, right? Like what is in her best interest as a timeline? You know, there's always,

Carter 1:00:11

always, the question is, how much excitement can you generate for a membership process? process and membership processes aren't exciting. They are not sexy.

Carter 1:00:24

how can you generate a lot of excitement? And one of the ways to do that might be a shorter membership process. It would be counterintuitive because people might think that it benefits, you know, Sarah Hoffman, but a counter, you know, a really short membership process at the right time could be a really powerful uh tool for for kathleen to consider cory

Zain 1:00:46

cory and any any thoughts for kathleen ganley around advice to her camp for this rules battle well

Corey 1:00:56

don't know i think that if you look at the membership of the of

Corey 1:01:00

of the ndp i've heard kind of whispers that it's kind of more evenly distributed between calgary

Corey 1:01:04

calgary and edmonton than you might think although

Corey 1:01:07

although i suspect that kind of the monthly donor owner class those who have their members auto renew are probably still more heavily in edmonton in edmonton yeah

Corey 1:01:15

but if there is an asymmetry and if there's more members in edmonton then i i'm surprised frankly that to my knowledge none of the campaigns has been calling for a point system of any kind right i guess i understand why particularly here in alberta knowing that there's some anxiety about take back alberta but it does seem to me that one of the camps would probably benefit from a point system. I'm not sure which one. But, you know, that would be an area that perhaps if I thought that I could, if I could have like a lot of activity outside of the cities in particular, where memberships might be lower, if I was in sort of the southern parts of Calgary, where there's not much of an NDP organization, five memberships, five votes might become 100 votes just like that. And this goes back to my point about, you can almost calculate some of these things in crass vote terms and if you've got good enough information you can make calls like that and so i'd be curious if i was kathleen ganley to sort of explore things like that in terms of approach i think that you would want to sort of wrap yourself in the idea of trying

Corey 1:02:21

trying to build um calgary presence i suppose i don't know i mean it's going to be so funny because i think every campaign is going to want to build calgary presence but kathleen has has the postal code and you know

Corey 1:02:33

know and so maybe that's where she wants to be cory

Zain 1:02:35

cory let's talk about someone who's built a calgary presence or is done there for a couple years raki pancholi what would you tell her camp right now as they're thinking about these rules we've talked in the past of her kind of being the insider outsider having that optionality so to speak and then i know it's being simplistic about her candidacy but what would you tell her camp right now around around the rules advice or specifics either or yeah

Corey 1:02:59

yeah well if we assume that sarah wants a short contest and if we assume that um kathleen wants points and i like you know neither is a real thing but like let's just continue with this kayfabe here well then i think you want to have a long open contest that's not about points you want to you want to grow the party and build the organization out. And I'm doing that largely by subtraction, right? Like, if you think about where the other organizations are, you have to think about where your benefit might be as well. But I also believe that, and we've talked about this in the past, like, if she's going to be the person who sort of opens the doors and expands the tent and has that as her theory, well, then of course, you want rules that allow for that, right? That allow more people to come in and get engaged with with the organization. And so that, to me, is not a very exciting or interesting answer. But that's probably the answer. Like, if you're the person who actively is benefiting

Corey 1:03:56

benefiting from growth in the party, then you want to facilitate growth of the party.

Zain 1:04:03

Any advice for... Yeah, go ahead.

Carter 1:04:05

Yeah, I think that Racky's challenge with the leaders, you know, with Rachel Notley stepping stepping down so quickly and the leadership taking off so quickly is that the naturally occurring event has disappeared, right? There's no Canada day. There's no stampede. There's no, whatever the Klondike takes days is called. There's no Pinocchio stampede. There's no, you know, all the small towns, all the places you can go and go to grand Prairie and all of that disappears. And I think that, um,

Carter 1:04:34

um, for her then a longer membership sales process that enables her to get through at least july uh with an early september announcement of the victory uh might be her best bet because she can jump

Carter 1:04:48

jump on all those naturally occurring events where she's kind of a

Carter 1:04:52

naturally occurring all-star right like

Corey 1:04:54

like of of the three that we've talked about

Corey 1:04:57

carter's right like the event circuit is her friend and she doesn't she doesn't actually get that it's

Corey 1:05:04

actually bothering me how much better he's been at this section than me you know

Zain 1:05:08

well Coming in strong in the last five minutes here, Carter. We'll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Carter's catching a second wind. It's almost morning time for him. I know, I'm going to get up in a half

Zain 1:05:17

Hey, Corey, the Gil McGowans, the rumored Nahid Nenshis, the Don Iversons, the external non-party candidates. I know their needs are going to be different, like individually, and I know we haven't focused a lot of attention on them. but beyond the generic sort of template we have talked about the rules base we have talked about and the how what advice would you have someone poking at this thing or kicking tires from the outside considering this thing how would you get them to think about their world yeah

Corey 1:05:48

yeah i think first and foremost i would really like not even right now like yesterday we're

Corey 1:05:55

we're here too right if you are talking to those three you better be talking to us as well if you're having conversations about the rules we want to be engaged in these rules there's no reason you should advantage the caucus over people outside of the caucus we've we've all expressed interest we all want to be there i think that would be my starting point if

Corey 1:06:14

you're not at the table like here's the thing that they have going against them right now they're not at the fucking table like at least table menu

Zain 1:06:20

menu stuff is is that cliche works in this game

Corey 1:06:23

game yeah the table matters and so the first step is actually being at the table, because that's how you get to the point where you're affecting what gets recommended. So we haven't talked a lot about the first of my three things there, but who recommends is important, and you want to be able to influence the recommendation that goes to the larger body.

Zain 1:06:41

Corey, reconcile that for me a bit with optionality and flexibility of your candidacy based on where the rules ultimately land. How do you be at the table? Like, talk to me a bit about the wow. Wow. Just connect the dots for me around the how of, you know, how you get a seat at the table, but still very much a conditional player in all of this.

Corey 1:07:01

Yeah, look, I'm thinking about it. But obviously, this will have a big impact. And so a couple of people have been supporting me working through this. I'd like to put them in touch with people in central campaign. I want to put them in, sorry, central office. I want to put them in touch with the other campaigns. I want to make sure we're keeping channels open. And I don't want you to forget that there's a bigger world out there than just the 30-odd Alberta NDP MLAs. That would be so foundational.

Corey 1:07:29

And if you haven't done it yet, it's probably almost too late. But I think that that is a really important thing. Because otherwise, you are just going to be reacting. And you are going to be determining your terms, whether or not you like the rules as they come out.

Corey 1:07:42

because at this point you

Corey 1:07:44

know there's there's been rounds of revisions things are pretty locked in there will be changes still i'm sure but it's going to get a little more difficult at

Corey 1:07:51

at this point on carter yeah

Carter 1:07:53

yeah by the time that cory and i record you the people tomorrow night these people need to be in the ndp office uh getting briefed on the rules understanding the rules and uh influencing the rules um right now one would have to assume that the rules that are are being considered benefit in some fashion uh sitting members of the of the legislative assembly um you know i i don't know that that's a hundred percent true but maybe um so if it's you know if if you come in it's at a point when this the rules are all decided and they're not in your favor what the hell's the point of coming in and on top of that here

Carter 1:08:33

here we go with the good language which it is in the party's best interest to ensure that they have the largest possible field of leadership candidates. So the party itself should be trying to cultivate and not necessarily recruit, we've talked about that in the past, but certainly facilitate and ensure that candidates that want to be in the race can be in the race.

Corey 1:08:59

I think that one of the organizations we haven't talked about is enough, at least in my opinion, The party. So one of the things that Carter

Corey 1:09:08

Carter just triggered me here

Corey 1:09:09

here was when he said it is in the party's best interest. Well, there is a party executive, there is a party, you know, senior staff person, there is a full staff of individuals who have different ideas, perhaps, but what's in the party's best interest, and they are going to either suddenly or not affect this outcome based on their own anxieties and desires. desires. And certainly we know one

Corey 1:09:33

one of those anxieties is this notion that the party might be quote unquote taken over by

Corey 1:09:37

Take Back Alberta. And we haven't talked about that at all, but I want to kind of throw it on the table right now.

Corey 1:09:42

We've said in past episodes, we think this is a little overblown. I want to reiterate that. I think as long as you manage who the candidates are, it doesn't really matter what else comes out of this. I think it's really hard to sell memberships to people in the NDP if they are take back Alberta types. And ultimately, and this is the important point, if

Corey 1:10:01

if you are the NDP, you've got to decide right now, are you playing defense or are you playing offense? Like, are you trying to make sure you're, oh, please don't hurt us, take back Alberta. We don't want to be conquered. Or are you saying we're trying to build a party for the next election? And I think that one of the challenges that all parties have, but I would observe, I've sometimes seen more aggressively in the NDP, is

Corey 1:10:24

is a bit of a bunker mentality at moments like this that says, we got to batten down the hatches. We got to just, you know, stay out of the way. We got to put up all of these defenses. And

Corey 1:10:33

And that's interesting to me, right? I think if

Corey 1:10:36

if you are one of the candidates you've talked about from the outside, that's very dangerous to your candidacy. If you are even a candidate that wants to grow the party from the the inside, that could be a bit of a challenge for you. So it's something that I think needs to be observed. And I think that if you are in a party office and you're sort of finding yourself making those decisions, you've got to sort of almost sort of check yourself and intellectually ask, is this what you really want for your organization? Because I'll tell you, parties that start saying, how do we protect what we have instead of how do we keep growing what we've got are

Corey 1:11:10

are parties that ultimately die.

Zain 1:11:13

Nicely said, Corey. And of course, folks can get their Ron DeSantis for Alberta NDP leader posters at the strategist.ca. He will be declaring very shortly.

Corey 1:11:24

He's going to put a lot of money into the race, Carter. So we're excited for that. And that is

Zain 1:11:27

is indeed a wrap on episode 1280 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velch. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we will see you next time.

Transcript