Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1805. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Guys, huge news. It is half news. Breaking news. I would call it breaking news. Huge breaking news. It's going to break the internet. The news broke things. The news broke things. Carter, the WNBA is coming to Toronto.
Zain
0:19
Is this exciting for you?
Carter
0:21
I've never been more excited.
Zain
0:23
And of course, as you remember from the episode we did with the prime minister, he told us, what's the last thing he told us, Corey? Corey. If women's basketball comes to Canada, I want this podcast, say it with me, Corey,
Zain
0:35
to name the team.
Zain
0:39
And guys, we could do it now. That's when I
Carter
0:42
I really wanted to lay into him, but I held off.
Zain
0:45
that was the point where you're like, and I'm just going to go back to the transcript here. I think you said, sir, if you didn't hear me the first time, thank you for your service. I
Zain
0:55
feel like that is what you're saying.
Carter
0:57
Isn't that what I said we'd call it at Trudeau's? It was weird, though, because that was like the fourth time
Zain
1:01
you had said it. And Corey and I had to be like, hey, Carter, we heard it. I'm sure he heard it.
Zain
1:08
Right? So he didn't respond each and every time. I don't think he— No, he actually looked a little irritated by the fourth
Zain
1:16
fifth. But, Corey, on the directive of the dear leader of this country, we have to name this WNBA team.
Zain
1:22
And I've got a short list of two. Now, Carter, have you been preparing a short list as advised?
Carter
1:28
Yeah, I'm ready to go. Well, I'm going to start with
Zain
1:29
Corey then. Corey, what's the two that you're going to put on the table?
Corey
1:35
Oh, well, obviously the two that I am going to put on the table are, you know, if I was going to think about it, having thought about it for a lot of time. Absolutely. I definitely would have a few names. And one of the names would be the Toronto Knot Raptors, right? Just to differentiate from the Raptors property. Okay, yeah,
Zain
1:54
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're keeping it in the dino lane, but you're saying it could be any one of the dinosaurs, but not the raptors. But not the raptors. I think that's really smart. It would really help with merch, too, right? You could just sell stickers that just say not. Yeah, just
Corey
2:07
just like not that you put on top
Corey
2:09
of existing merchandise. And be like not Carter at
Zain
2:10
at the back, right? When it's Carter Jersey, right? You could just have... Not Carter. Not
Corey
2:15
Not Carter. I really like not Carter. There's something about that that really speaks to me. Not Carter's pretty good, right? Right? Like, you know... Yeah, really good. it uh yeah and so obviously i had a second name yeah but let's hear carter yeah for sure
Zain
2:26
sure we'll go one at a time for sure uh carter um you've got you've got a couple of names uh you know the prime minister has tasked us for our top six to to submit through the public airwaves and of course this is a public service suite we do ourselves by the way thank you for your service carter um thank you please uh can you can you uh drop at least one of your two that you have for the new wnba team uh in in toronto you
Carter
2:47
you guys know how important regional is the region is right how And how important regionalization is in the Toronto metropolitan area. You mean the
Zain
2:54
the six. I've called it the six even before. Yeah.
Carter
2:57
So I'm going to, I'm going to call them the Toronto Mississaugans.
Carter
3:01
Okay. So that's, that's my, yeah. Okay. Toronto Mississaugans. That's option number one. Okay. Yeah.
Corey
3:05
Yeah. That's, that's bad,
Carter
3:07
okay. I feel like
Zain
3:07
like he was ready to give us a hustle. Option number two, Carter, go ahead.
Carter
3:11
Option number two. I wanted to differentiate from other, from Toronto's other sports teams. Yes. And, you know, you can't do everything based on regionality. So I decided to call them the Toronto Success, because
Carter
3:22
because that would really differentiate them from every other Toronto team.
Zain
3:26
team. You know what? I
Zain
3:27
I actually don't mind the Toronto
Zain
3:28
Success. That might actually be
Zain
3:29
top of the list. The Toronto
Corey
3:30
Toronto Success is pretty nice, actually.
Zain
3:32
actually. It's actually, it might stand second to one of my picks right here, which I'm going to give you right now. The Toronto Superiors, okay?
Corey
3:41
Oh, same vein. That's weird, because that's not the Great Lake they're on. No, I know, I know. No, but that makes it
Zain
3:45
it better. It makes it better. Corey.
Zain
3:47
Yeah. They have a
Corey
3:48
a superiority complex. Maybe the Toronto Ontarians would be
Zain
3:51
be a good name. Okay, so my
Zain
3:52
my second one right here,
Zain
3:55
Now, you need to think about it for a second. And you're like, and then after you think about it. I don't need to think about it. I don't
Corey
3:59
don't need to think about it. I already love
Zain
4:00
love it. It feels right, right? It fuels Toronto.
Zain
4:03
The Canadas. Because, look, they're the only Canadian team. America doesn't understand. And Toronto wants to make everyone feel like they're the only part of Canada. Carter,
Zain
4:14
Toronto Canadas. It's a winner on all levels. The Toronto Canadas. The
Carter
4:18
It's no Toronto success. It's
Zain
4:19
It's no Toronto success. Corey, you know, we have all realized you've only given us one name.
Zain
4:27
Oh, shoot. So unless you want to give us the Toronto Trudeaus, which we're not going to take, because that sounds like something Carter would give us, right? I pitched it. Yeah, I know, for sure. No, you didn't pitch it to me. There's a lot of things you thought you did on that show. You might have wanted to, but you were— You might have wanted to do a lot of things. It didn't— Corey, go ahead. What are we calling it? it
Corey
4:44
know an actual name i would give them is the toronto aurora i
Corey
4:48
think that's the toronto aurora
Zain
4:50
aurora no i know but i'm
Zain
4:52
just trying to say it like oh
Zain
4:53
oh you're saying it's about yeah i'm trying to say like okay these are these are people who needed a fucking 13th grade okay
Zain
5:00
okay yeah these are not these
Zain
5:03
are not sophisticates okay
Zain
5:06
the toronto auroras is going to confuse these people unless
Zain
5:09
unless Unless, unless, now I am, I want to spend some time with this because we are marketing and communications branding experts. We go Toronto, auroras as one word, but you spell auroras rather than AU with the, just continue with O-R-O-R-O-S. The Toronto auroras.
Corey
5:26
What about the A-auroras with E-H like that Canadian A
Zain
5:29
A-aurora? I think we're done. Oh, that's great. I think we're done. You know what? I think we've reached it. You know what? I think, hold on, hold on.
Corey
5:36
Okay, text JT, let him know. Toronto A's.
Zain
5:41
That's good. Pretty good. That's really good. That is it. The Toronto A's. Watch out, Oakland. We've done it. Okay,
Zain
5:46
Okay, Carter, we're going to stop right there. We're going to move on to our first segment. Our first segment, Brown Men Can't Lose. Guys, you know, there have been people who've been saying, you don't talk about the Alberta NDP leadership race. You know, you always deflect. You don't talk about your candidates. You always deflect. You always deflect. And I'm like, no, I don't deflect. Guys, it's not over. We have to work hard until there's a sure thing. and now, Corey, a brown man has emerged that is a sure thing in the Alberta NDP leadership race. That's, couldn't
Zain
6:15
more. We're talking about- 100%. We're talking about myself. Been there
Corey
6:18
there for a while. Well,
Zain
6:19
Well, my alter ego, Zane Velji. Zane Velji for a leader, Carter. And Zane Velji for a leader has some fresh new polling, doesn't he?
Corey
6:27
He does. You will recall that our good friend and pollster for Zane Velji for a leader, Dan Arnold, was on the pod a few months ago. A bit of
Zain
6:34
of a get for us, actually.
Zain
6:35
He dropped, not on the pod, but data, but as a poll fact. Yes. Yeah.
Corey
6:40
Yeah. You know, real get in that context. Yeah.
Corey
6:43
Yeah. And it provided information on how people feel about Nahed and how people feel about Sarah and Kathleen and, you know, the list goes on. But the interesting thing, the
Corey
6:54
the interesting thing is we all sort of forgot that one of the people he polled on was one Zayn Velji for leader. The
Carter
7:01
leader. Yeah. Now, Dan. Zayn Velji. Dan just released new data. new
Corey
7:05
new data it showed how people felt about the candidates after all this time who's kind of made up ground across the province it was just not had nobody else has moved anything how people feel about the candidates when you put videos it's just not had they like that's all that's all that really matters i mean it's so over but he did also ask about a
Corey
7:26
a dark horse candidate a
Corey
7:27
a dark horse candidate named zane velgey for leader darkish
Zain
7:29
darkish horse not like that now
Corey
7:31
now i know that a lot of people are going to think this is not
Corey
7:35
not real because most of what we do isn't frankly but this
Carter
7:38
this is real this is real so we do we have
Carter
7:40
updated polling we do we have got updated
Carter
7:43
updated name recognition levels after an entire campaign of
Corey
7:47
zane velgey being right there drafting i would say on not had nenshi's name and success ready to kind of pull out behind that semi-truck and just hit the accelerator where
Corey
7:57
where are we guys where are we
Carter
7:59
we the share of people who claim to know zane's name is still after all of this all of this campaigning it is
Carter
8:05
is still at 25 percent one in four people in alberta uh
Carter
8:10
uh no zane velgey uh it's unchanged unfortunately unfortunately this is where things look bad for you and me cory because we were running this thing oh
Corey
8:19
oh shit the share
Carter
8:20
share of albertans who say they know a few things about zane is down one point from february from four to three percent so they still know them they just know less about them can
Corey
8:31
really know zane though like are we going to take that as a negative piece of data like i don't
Carter
8:35
don't really know zane after all this time i mean it is surprising given that he's pushed out 300 podcasts in the time period this is by the way quoting dan arnold this isn't my you know witty repartee zane's familiarity levels remain strongest in calgary uh primarily due to the success of the The Che Bus Bench Signs. That makes sense to me. Corey, Bus Bench Signs. Congratulations on that.
Carter
9:00
But he's doing very poorly outside of the two big cities. To
Zain
9:03
To be clear, my names are not on the Bus Bench Signs, which is a net additive for my campaign.
Carter
9:08
I think that's why you've gone up.
Zain
9:09
Yeah, okay, perfect. Just so we're clear.
Carter
9:12
But I think that the real key to this, Corey, the real key to this is the word association that comes with it. Oh,
Carter
9:17
From the 3% that actually know something of Zane. So why
Carter
9:21
why don't we throw to you, Corey, who's got the name recognition information? That's
Corey
9:25
That's true. So people were asked what words come to mind when Zane Velji comes up. And, you know, it's a list
Carter
9:32
of attributes and include things like opinionated, strategist, loyal.
Corey
9:42
Campaign manager, extremist, corrupt. These all make sense to me. there's a few though that i think are really worth highlighting cook
Corey
9:52
somebody put cook on the list just straight up cook like
Zain
9:56
just to be clear
Corey
9:58
uh doesn't cook not about if i cook well or i cook poorly no just not
Zain
10:02
not if i'm like not even like is it like a gen z this guy's cooking it could be it could be like i'm cooking uh and also not chef i see that it's not chef but it is cook that's
Corey
10:15
A couple of people seem to attempt to say that you were excellent, but neither of them spelt excellent properly, which I think says a lot about the kind of people who
Corey
10:24
who think you're excellent. Do you think they were trying to say crook? Do you think they were trying to say crook?
Corey
10:29
Crook? They might have been. Yeah,
Carter
10:30
Yeah, it's hard to say. Okay. A couple of people said cool, but again, they spelled that wrong. Because crook was on the list,
Corey
10:35
list, yeah. You think it could be crook? Okay,
Zain
10:37
makes more sense. Could
Corey
10:37
Could be, yeah. Listen, I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. You're
Corey
10:41
You're going to win, so you need to think about what you're gonna do when
Zain
10:44
when when you win the election here's my transition plan very simple okay
Zain
10:50
have no transition plan i have no time that's where you guys were supposed to step in what is the transition plan guys we're
Carter
10:57
i think it's the same as nine
Corey
11:04
it's like no transition plan because it's not over so he's all focused that's
Zain
11:08
that's correct cory Don't worry. There is no transition plan because it's not over yet. Okay. So there's no hope for me. We also have to mention the elephant. No, no. I just.
Zain
11:18
Well, I'm going to win. There is. I'm going to win on the ninth ballot probably. But we have to talk about more serious things in that regard, which is not only do we have new polling data, but we have to admit that this campaign by the two of you has not been run well. Our pollster has been fired slash let go. Well, he quit. Okay, sure. He's been fired subsequently. Okay. We didn't need him. We got his data. We don't need him. Okay? Didn't you see the great read that Carter gave us? Why do we need Dan? I
Zain
11:44
Yeah. That's true. He didn't struggle through Che bus benches at all. Okay?
Zain
11:48
Okay? That was really tough. Rewind it back. He did not struggle. And if you missed it, just make sure you understand he didn't struggle with it.
Zain
11:57
I have to, as a candidate, have a conversation with you guys.
Zain
12:00
What went off the rails here? Do you? What went off the rails?
Carter
12:03
Candidate attitude was pretty shitty.
Corey
12:06
Yeah, I think bad candidate's what I'd go with. Bad
Carter
12:08
Bad candidate. sometimes you just can't do anything with a candidate you know what
Corey
12:11
good campaign manager bad candidate that's a bad campaign it's
Carter
12:15
bad campaign good campaign manager can't fix that screw
Zain
12:17
you guys okay we're going to move it on to the next segment within this segment oh yeah let's keep it on brown men who can't lose segment in the segment this is very meta
Zain
12:27
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday said July 4th
Zain
12:32
no connection to British history July 4th as the date for the national election that will determine who governs the uk uh this is on of course cory or while the conservatives in the united kingdom are down a
Zain
12:47
a little bit a little bit 20 points 20 points
Zain
12:50
points across oh i don't know all the polls sunak
Zain
12:55
sunak sunak calls this election he
Zain
12:58
he goes outside 10 downing street before he had to he calls he calls this election way before he had to it's a snap election election calls this election uh goes out on 10 downing street declares this election called gets drenched in
Zain
13:13
in rain that was no one offers him an umbrella uh it was a callback the visuals are we'll talk unbelievable about it uh in a sense like even like case study worthy all while outside of 10 downing street a labor party song a historic labor party song that was uh the anthem of what i I believe their 97 victory plays outside, he announces he's calling this election, Carter. He goes back in, and within a matter of 24 hours, Labor, the party that he's running against, have released their first and their second ad alongside a media buy. And conservatives, just to be clear, the party that the prime minister belongs to, also the party that is down 20 points to Labor, is struggling to find candidates, and several Several Tory MPs within the party have no idea why Sunak has called the election and there's a small movement to try to remove him before this election is officially declared. Corey, these
Zain
14:13
these guys never stop entertaining.
Zain
14:16
This is the greatest show on. Let's talk about the entertainment factor first. Hilarious. And then let's talk about the strategic factor because this seems illogical and kind of idiotic, but maybe I'm wrong. But I also wanted to start taking it into lessons in terms of what maybe Mr. Trudeau can learn here, in a sense, or not. But Corey, let's talk about the entertainment factor first. Pontificate, please.
Corey
14:39
Through the roof. What you fail to acknowledge, though, is that Rishi Sunak is very rich, and I'm sure he would rather just have his summer free. That's my work in a sense. Oh, I don't think you're wrong.
Zain
14:51
I don't think you're wrong. I mean, he could. We should do this. This is kind of like, will Taylor Swift make the concert after the Super Bowl? Or will Taylor Swift make the Super Bowl after the Tokyo concert? We should see if Stuneck can have this election on July 4th and still make a direct flight to California to celebrate American Independence Day by then. We should track that down. That should be something we internet hobbyists do. Well,
Corey
15:14
Well, it certainly has the political energy of somebody on death row saying, fuck it, fire up the chair. I'm done here. Let's
Corey
15:23
Because there's not a lot of other suggestions here. And yeah, maybe fortune favors the bold is kind of a thing you can tell yourself. But the reality is you're down 20 points in the polls. And rough
Corey
15:36
rough start, rough start, my dude. like you were clearly going for some cinematic thing like i am the guy standing in the rain who's going to i took i took the uk through the rain you know all of those difficult things and i had this plan and the plan has worked and i've recovered the economy and i've i've reduced the inflation rate and you gotta trust me i'm the guy who's gonna put a bunch of you know you know very poor refugees onto a plane and send them back to africa and that's an actual policy no it
Zain
16:01
it is send them back to rwanda where let's be spoiler
Zain
16:04
alert most of them are not from well
Corey
16:07
well and each of these will cost on average over a million pounds to do that so you know rather than being a human with that million pounds you are you're almost like what was that you're
Zain
16:18
like a billionaire that's kind of how he's looking
Corey
16:19
looking at it he's just like to solve this problem uh but carter yeah anyhow he was going for a thing obviously he was looking for like i'm this tough guy out in the the rain and
Corey
16:30
and uh instead he just looked like an asshole out in the rain was this
Zain
16:33
this carter was this the element of surprise disguised as a strategy and i also want to give you your time in the light to talk about the entertainment factor that is uk politics yeah
Carter
16:43
yeah i mean even the cat didn't uh didn't come out and watch the the there's a cat that lives at 10 downing and he didn't even come out and watch i mean it's too much rain for a cat to come out i mean it was just it was it was stupid have been on a number of levels uh and it was entertaining on all of those levels watching the conservative backbench mps uh try and distance themselves from this guy is fantastic to watch i mean we've seen people distance themselves from other leaders but this is like everybody's just running as fast as possible and keep in mind that he almost launched his campaign uh
Carter
17:18
uh one year to the the day of rick of ron desantis launching his ill-fated campaign on twitter uh we remember that went so well i mean this is i don't understand how politicians
Carter
17:31
politicians can be so bad at a launch like the advantage that is given to you as the prime minister you alone get to choose when the election date is one would think that he'd at least choose a date that he was ready for um
Carter
17:46
crazy thought it's not gonna rain if
Carter
17:48
if he doesn't have a fucking umbrella well
Corey
17:50
well it's london but you know i don't know how much time you spent in london but get
Carter
17:54
get a fucking umbrella everybody has an umbrella in london that's
Carter
17:57
that's the whole beauty of london that's
Corey
18:00
that's the beauty of london just the ubiquity
Carter
18:02
ubiquity of umbrellas in every in every club you just walk right out with a new umbrella you're just stealing
Corey
18:07
stealing people's umbrellas yeah that's
Carter
18:09
that's not a communal thing no
Zain
18:11
no it's not a communal thing carter got one it won't be you'll be well you know what carter i owe some people some apologies listen next time carter steals an umbrella okay we're sending that fucking guy to rwanda okay carter you're getting sent to rwanda you're you
Zain
18:25
are you are going back home okay you're going back to the motherland that is where you need to go listen outside of the entertainment factor can we talk about the strategy of there's two strategies i want to talk about and you dispel me of if there's any strategic merit in the strategy of surprise and
Zain
18:42
the strategy of getting it over with.
Corey
18:46
Which one do we want to start with
Zain
18:48
with first? Wow. Okay. Surprise. And
Zain
18:50
And I guess the question is, is there a strategy in either one of those things?
Zain
18:54
And so, Carter, you want to start with surprise? Lay it on me. Give me your take on the strategy of surprise. Does it work? Does it it override strategy is it strategic at all does it have a shelf life of 10 milliseconds you give me your take well
Carter
19:12
well i think that one one way to think of it is that you
Carter
19:14
you know modern day campaigns rely a tremendous amount on digital media and media in general um people you can buy digital media very very quickly but traditional media having it booked in advance having all the billboards booked having the printers ready to print your signs all of those things um take time And when you are ready for an election, if you're the only group ready for an election, then springing something on the other side, and having them in a very short election period, unable
Carter
19:44
unable to respond for a part of it, like, for example, in Alberta's 28 day election period, if the opposition is scrambling for seven days, trying to find a sign supplier, that's one quarter of the election gone. gone very true so the supply or the the surprise campaign is a legitimate strategy uh but in order for the surprise campaign to actually work you have to be 100 ready to take advantage of your own surprise and i think that that's where this particular strategy has failed is that he's not actually ready to take advantage of this of this particular surprise which
Zain
20:19
which cory jump in on here because i almost think these two things are related you know in some ways the two strategies Well, really
Corey
20:26
really interesting open question. Did he surprise himself? Certainly, he seemed to surprise a lot of the people around him. And so, I mean, I agree with what Stephen said. I think there is a real advantage to being prepared when your opponent is not. I mean, we use campaign. These are all war metaphors for a reason, right? One of the main considerations in any war is logistics and how are you going to make sure your troops have what they need when they need it. truly surprising somebody gives you a massive advantage. They're not going to have those things. And they're not even going to have kind of the human capital ready to go because you've got to train up volunteers. You've probably got new systems. You've got distributions that you've got to figure out. There are always challenges that need to be moved through here.
Corey
21:10
I was a bit struck, I have to say, like Starmer's, and it's actually pretty hard to do that. Maybe I'll start here. It's hard to surprise them because you
Corey
21:18
you see government go a little bit silent. You start You start hearing rumors like media is being purchased in blocks and all
Zain
21:25
all of a sudden
Corey
21:25
sudden somebody else can't buy this because somebody else has bought all of that. This happens in kind of modern campaigning. A little different in the UK because
Corey
21:31
because they have different rules around advertising and what you can purchase. It's quite restrictive.
Corey
21:36
But still, there are usually signs that something is going to happen here. And those signs allow the other organizations to react. act it
Corey
21:46
seems to me that
Corey
21:48
that in the interest of surprise that the tories were so closed about this that i don't even know if they're going to get the benefit of the surprise because they seem to catch their own party off guard and like when that's happened like what the hell is going on in in the organization and it speaks to the level of trust that exists within uh the uk conservatives and and it's a real problem for them i did also want to add one other thing though i was really I'm really struck by how quickly Starmer had all of his stuff up, you know, the labor leader, right? They were ready. They were ready. So, I mean, I don't know if this was just that, you know, the UK conservatives are a dumpster fire, you've got to stay in a state of perpetual readiness, because you never know when this party is going to collapse and you're going to have to go. or if maybe they did see some signs and maybe we'll understand through reporting in days to come here but like printed signs like printed what looked like full bleed production print signs that said change on day one of their they
Zain
22:45
they were ready as
Corey
22:46
as their slogan for the campaign you
Zain
22:47
you know they were ready i'm
Zain
22:48
i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about this this strategy of getting it over with because i think that ties in more to like maybe the current political reality here but let me um introduced the Trudeau element a little bit earlier in a different way, which is this is not a perfect comparison, but I think Labour is going to win the first week. And
Zain
23:06
And you know who won the first week in the 2021 election when the Prime Minister called a snap election, and we asked ourselves, why the hell are we here?
Zain
23:15
was the Conservatives. And so what's linking those two things together? Is it the fact that, you know, modern day campaigning no longer has an element of catching anyone off guard in a four-year continuous campaign cycle, that that's not possible? Is it the fact that getting over government—I'm just throwing a few propositions at you, you guys take this wherever—is it that getting over government-itis actually takes a lot more time and energy to fully convert your mind and your body and your sense of campaigning from government to—what do you think it is? Because as much as, like, we want to poke at Sunak and and say that Labour was ready, Conservatives were ready. They were ready in 2021. O'Toole had, let's remind ourselves, a policy platform book, fully done, baked, cover shot, and ready to go with digital and online.
Zain
24:08
Suneck guy's arms. Dude, yeah, I remember them. Mr. Clean Arms. Mr. Clean Arms, yeah, that's right. He had that all ready to go. Suneck's competition in Starmer and the Labour leader seems on a similar week one trajectory. Now, I'm not going to, you know, guess what happens at the end of this campaign, though the spread is significantly different in the UK than it was in 2021. But Corey, your thoughts here? What's happening? Is there a lesson or rule to understand or learn?
Corey
24:34
It's a really interesting observation, Zane, that those two cases you've talked about in both situations, the government chose the timing and the opposition fed them their lunch in week one, right? And that's fascinating to me because it does suggest maybe there's something to your your arguments there. And the one that I would sort of maybe,
Corey
24:55
maybe, which immediately sort of rings true to me is this government-itis idea. And
Corey
24:59
maybe not entirely in the way you mean, but I'll just say, when
Corey
25:02
when you are moving from a government apparatus to a campaign apparatus, that's a big lurch. That's a big shift. Yes, you're getting ready for it, but you're also trying to settle things on the way out the door. When you're in opposition, you are sitting there with a campaign apparatus. That's your apparatus. That's it. That's really all you got. Yes, you've got like like a caucus team and all of that but that's your organization and you're just you
Corey
25:24
you're not even turning anything on it's already ready to go and and obviously they were in a certain state of readiness in both cases where they were able to move fast and i will also say as much as i said clearly that stuff for starmer was pre-printed and it was because it was like day one it doesn't take that long to get things printed these days because everything's digital you can if you really are dedicated you can throw those things up in a day or two but
Corey
25:46
but that's that's an interesting interesting observation and one i think i'm going to chew on for the next few minutes here carter what do you think i
Carter
25:53
think that it comes down to an interpretation of what the jobs are i mean i think that government has the the job of governing it's a big job that every day uh
Carter
26:02
uh the bureaucrats walk into your offices and and ask you to do things the the people who aren't you know busier or maybe the backbench mlas but then you know each one of them is kept busy by various
Carter
26:13
various appointments to committees and things like that but when you're in opposition um
Carter
26:17
um you only have one job and
Carter
26:19
and that one job is to get ready for the next election so that you can become government and i was talking with an operative today and we were talking about how you know there was one of the lessons that the the ndp hadn't learned before the last election your only job is to be ready for the next election that's your only job and you
Carter
26:38
you know when then she wins this thing zane um i thought i was winning it ninth
Carter
26:44
ninth ballot i forgot my bad on the ninth ballot when you win i mean you will have but one job and that job will be to get ready for the next election anything else you do should be in service of that job um so it looks like starmer is ready for that job he was ready for this election call whenever it came and uh it would appear that sunak just
Carter
27:07
just simply wasn't cory
Zain
27:09
cory let's Let's talk about the strategy of getting it over with. Is there any value in that? At some point when you read the tea leaves, think the future might be worse than the present, think the present isn't going to get a lot better, have a lot of pressure on you, and have an off ramp like this guy might, throwing
Zain
27:24
throwing up your hands and saying, fuck it, I don't care if I go down in the history books as the biggest conservative loser of all time. It was predestined. Let's just get this over with. bandwidth is
Zain
27:34
is there a strategic thinking there or is that is
Zain
27:37
is or does that not compute for you as like an operative or strategist is that you're like no i can't square that um
Corey
27:45
um it's interesting because it's very common in the business world right this notion of fail fast like call the question figure it out early don't waste a bunch of time when when perhaps that time is not going to be well spent there and move on to the next thing and it happens in the business world all All of the time.
Corey
28:01
It's pretty uncommon in politics, especially when you're government, because there is a general sense that we
Corey
28:09
we say it all the time, like a bad day in government beats a good day in opposition. And why not hold on to government for a few more months? If you assume that they want to be successful in politics, because they want to govern. govern and
Zain
28:21
on principle and values and policy exactly yes yes yes well
Corey
28:25
well this is the end this is what you were doing it all for so why would you not have it for as long as humanly possible yes
Corey
28:32
people make the calculations they can go early to get even more time and that's a bet that they're making but it's really all about governing but if you're sitting there and you're like fuck
Corey
28:41
fuck it i don't care anymore i don't want to govern well then what in the world are you doing in politics
Corey
28:45
right that's just that's just like you just care about out the sport then. And you should really give your head a shake and say, I'm not in this for the right reasons at all. Like, at all.
Zain
28:55
And Carter, what do you think? Can you squint and lean and stretch and do all the things, pretzel your mind and your body to say, yeah, there is strategy behind just calling the question and saying, fuck it, if I know that I'm going to ultimately lose as soon as possible. Because Corey presents a very cogent, logical case around why why you do any of this. And the logical case says, even if you're going to lose, at least maximize or entrench the policies that you can get passed or dealt with in your time in office. But Carter, do you as an operative see just calling the question as strategic?
Carter
29:34
Well, I mean, I think it could be strategic if you think that the election is going to focus the minds, right? If you think that you're up against a candidate that is a particular lunatic, pick um you know and and you think that the
Carter
29:48
the closer you get to election day the worse that that person is going to do and i don't think that that's necessarily the case in the british election but i could certainly i remember when we had the prime minister on uh this was some of the advice that i wanted to give him that i was afraid to um you know i think that once it's him actually against uh pierre pauliev uh that will focus the electorate's mind and people will be saying do we We really want Skippy to be running the government.
Carter
30:15
Now, I think that the answer is going to be yes, but I still think that that might be a viable alternative for Trudeau to think about getting it done early.
Carter
30:26
you know, I'm not sure that there was a viable option for Sunak.
Zain
30:29
But as a principal, Carter, do you see just calling it early as like strategically
Zain
30:34
strategically and even as a campaign strategy, just like morally, you know what, I'm going to let you do that. Corey, you want to get in on this. I'll go to you, but then I'll come back to Carter.
Corey
30:43
Yeah. I mean, if you ask me to spin
Corey
30:46
spin why this might be a good thing, right, I could do that. I could say, listen, we need to do it now. This party is kind of just like a festering fucking mess. And actually, you know, who's going to look at that and not nod in agreement? Like, yeah, it kind of is, right? Have the election, clear the blood, let the conservatives start to rebuild. The long-term success of the conservatives depends on them moving on with it, right? And so maybe you make the argument to yourself that you're actually helping the movement by just calling the question now, and as you said, getting it over with. Now, I don't actually know that that's what's happening. I doubt it is. But for sure, if you ask me to make the argument, that is how I would make the argument. And
Zain
31:25
And to be clear, we don't know, like, obviously, we're speculating, we're analyzing, we're giving our best shot. I'm just using this as an extrapolation point to talk Like if this was a conversation in the back room, Carter, being like, we have to get this over with. As the chief strategist of the Tories in the UK, could you have greenlit that if that was the PM's justification? justification prime
Carter
31:45
prime minister walks into the into the uh into the into my office and says you know what um i don't want to be prime minister anymore this thing is a shit show on fire uh it has been absolute disaster and you know between
Carter
32:00
between trust me and and johnson we have put it severely i think it's
Corey
32:05
it's funny you forgot about like elizabeth may too but
Corey
32:08
but i guess she was before yeah
Carter
32:10
yeah come on that's way back um that's way back but bottom line these have all been since the last election right
Carter
32:16
right so the idea that there's going to be a fourth conservative prime minister
Carter
32:21
like fuck that can
Zain
32:22
can i just say can i just say her
Zain
32:25
name was not elizabeth may it
Carter
32:27
it wasn't elizabeth may oh
Corey
32:30
which i think is actually even you know what
Zain
32:32
because he forgot it so
Zain
32:34
so who Who actually doesn't remember?
Corey
32:38
Oh, my God. Yeah, a lot of A's, you know? Yeah,
Carter
32:41
but she was before the last election, right? You're
Corey
32:43
You're right, she was. So, you know what? You were just right all around. I fucked up twice in that. Oh, my God.
Corey
32:48
God. That's so embarrassing.
Corey
32:51
best day of my
Zain
32:51
my life right now. Let's call this episode 3249, and people can just go right there. Okay, that's very good. That's good, just to hear the infallible Corey Horgan. Hey, Corey, could you have greenlit that strategy?
Zain
33:01
If the PM said, this is actually what's going on. like i i i fucking cannot do this get me the fuck out of here i don't want to do this job this is a show yeah you told me you could spin it i appreciate that could you have as a practitioner justified it and been part of that decision in a memoir somewhere years later be like and i went to cory hogan and and you know he was a second person because carter said fuck it do whatever you want right he was checked out and then i went to cory and cory said you know he thought about it he's a thoughtful one um you
Zain
33:32
you okay having that on your record that's that's the type of question i want to ask you yeah
Corey
33:36
yeah i don't think i would be comfortable doing that but i can tell you i don't have direct comp experiences but there's oftentimes where the leader will ask to do something that you just think is a really bad idea but you can convince yourself of another argument that gets to the same place and you
Corey
33:52
know what i would probably tell myself at a moment like that i'd be like he doesn't want to do it because he can't hold this party together other this party is going to come apart at the seams we've just got to go to the election that's how we get the discipline that's how we get the best shot to move on that's what the party needs right now and
Corey
34:07
and and honestly like i think that that might not even be a lie i think the uk conservatives are such a mess the only chance that sunak has to run this thing through the summer is is
Corey
34:19
is really to kind of put his own stamp on it through an election carter
Zain
34:23
lingering inflation job losses crime uh the the same party in government for a very long period of time. Sound familiar?
Zain
34:33
There are some differences. In our case, it's one guy across that entire nearly nine-year stretch. In their case, it's at five. But it's the same brand in some ways. It's the same attacks being leveled.
Zain
34:46
But what you saw from Sunak in the last 48 hours, or I guess 36 hours or so, any lessons for Justin Trudeau to learn or not learn? turn, any lessons for you to be like, you know what he did there?
Zain
34:58
Don't do that. Or you know what he did there? Interesting.
Zain
35:02
What do you think? Yeah,
Carter
35:02
Yeah, I mean, I think
Carter
35:04
think that when you're trying to solve a strategic mistake, you can't do it just by pulling a tactic out of your ass. And I think that that's probably, you know, like this... Slow
Zain
35:13
Slow down there for a second. I think that there's some insight or wisdom there. And I don't want to like race right past it. What do you mean?
Carter
35:20
Well, I mean, so the strategic problem with the conservatives is they're not governing, and they're not winning over the people the strategic problem for justin trudeau is the exact same problem yes
Carter
35:29
it doesn't seem to matter what he does he is not able to move the electorate the
Carter
35:33
the tactical choice that was made is then we're going to call the election right and that tactical choice probably will not fix your strategic problem it might fix it in two election cycles or another election cycle
Carter
35:46
but you're probably like i
Carter
35:49
think that rishi sunak said i can't afford to go to another leadership race. And I am not doing this anymore. I actually think that that's a story that he told himself, especially given the disarray that everything seems to be in.
Carter
36:04
Justin Trudeau is telling himself a different story. He's the only person who can hold this whole thing together. And
Carter
36:11
the stories that they're telling each other, the stories that they're telling themselves, they're
Carter
36:15
they're very self-centered stories. They're not the story of how the party actually survives um you know like this is both
Carter
36:24
both of them need to kind of make sure that they're not bigger than the parties that they serve or the government that they serve uh and i think that that's probably where you start to see some some
Carter
36:34
some strong correlation between the
Carter
36:37
the tactics that are available to justin trudeau to try and solve a strategic problem and the tactics that were used by sunak to try and solve his his strategic cory
Zain
36:45
cory i'm coming to you in a second carter would i be wrong in saying in terms of what your beliefs are that that sunak like
Zain
36:51
like finally caved to that and put the party above himself by calling this election or no is that not what you are saying not
Carter
36:57
not above i'm not going to care i'm not sure whether it's above or not i'm just thinking
Carter
37:02
it was an out it wasn't and he's
Carter
37:04
he's he's taking it because the odds of them winning this particular election are slim to none and slims left the building cory
Zain
37:11
cory what lessons should should trudeau learn or absolutely avoid from what he's seen in the last 36 hours well
Corey
37:18
well you i gotta tell you your your comment about the value or maybe lack thereof of surprise is something you know it didn't really work for him it doesn't look like it's going to work for sunak he should keep that in mind
Corey
37:29
can i suggest though we
Corey
37:31
we won't know until this is over but can i suggest like maybe we give this a bit of a charitable read for a second absolutely what do we what do we think sunak was trying to to do here and i think carter poked
Corey
37:42
poked at a few things i think you poked at a few things zane i'm just going to try to summarize i think that he was trying to focus the minds first of all i think that's a high-minded way of saying he was probably pulling his hair out saying people aren't paying any fucking attention like you talked about inflation inflation's down in the uk a
Corey
37:59
lot of the metrics are actually looking a little bit better he believes his plan is working he wants to focus minds he thinks they have good stuff but nobody's paying any fucking attention to the good stuff and i'm sure by the way justin trudeau feels the same way you
Zain
38:11
you know in his budget
Corey
38:12
budget no budget bounce i'm sure he's saying why aren't people paying attention to all of the great things we're doing that we don't pull really well when we get them into focus groups blah blah blah all that shit right you
Corey
38:21
you know when people pay attention elections
Corey
38:25
so maybe this is the opportunity to kind of pull everybody out of their torpor and just sort of break
Corey
38:31
break the trend that's in place here right i think if you're trudeau you say i can't slide anymore like nobody's paying attention i'm going down in the polls if you are a sunak type you're saying i can't move these polls i can't get past this point until people are willing to consider me versus the alternative and we need to focus the mind on that the
Corey
38:50
the other one we've talked about more so i'll just say it there is value in surprise so if you think people aren't paying attention and i can surprise them and that's one hell of a tactical advantage i
Corey
38:59
think i could talk myself into that election for
Corey
39:03
carter could Could you talk
Zain
39:04
talk yourself into that election?
Carter
39:06
No, but I also, not
Carter
39:08
not really. I mean, I would struggle with something like that. I couldn't talk myself into an election I wasn't ready for.
Carter
39:15
I don't think there's any circumstance by which, you
Carter
39:18
you know, sending the prime minister out to a rain-soaked lectern, Corey. Thank
Zain
39:28
10 drowning straight, am I right?
Carter
39:29
right? Do you remember? remember do
Carter
39:32
you guys remember the um do
Carter
39:35
you guys remember when jason kenney was in the midst of his various amounts of troubles with his caucus and and there was a number of times when he threatened to go to an election if
Carter
39:44
if if if they didn't want to follow him if they didn't want he just said well we'll go to an election we'll go to an election and he never went to the election well i just think that maybe sunak if i'm charitable i
Carter
39:56
think maybe he just
Carter
39:58
just got to that that place where he has to go to the election uh you know there's no sense threatening this group i mean they're not listening to anybody so
Carter
40:06
let's go to an election and hopefully the good ones stay and the bad ones go any
Zain
40:11
any final lessons for the pms here this pm trudeau yeah
Corey
40:15
yeah don't don't try the whole i'm here in the rain looking to win you back thing that sunak was going for that
Carter
40:21
that was very uh that's a rom-com thing very like
Zain
40:23
like first spider-man toby mcguire style yeah yeah yeah
Carter
40:27
like that movie. That was a good movie. I didn't see it, but I heard it was good. Did
Zain
40:31
you like the scene in the movie or did you like the scene as it was done again on the OC?
Carter
40:38
Yeah, I mean, you know that I preferred the OC version. You
Corey
40:41
You know, I've seen like a lot
Corey
40:44
lot of commentary about what that was like. And apparently it was just like an incredibly
Corey
40:48
painful and terrible kiss because that's not how people kiss.
Zain
40:51
kiss. Which one? The one on the OC or the one on Spider-Man? The
Zain
40:55
OC one too. I
Zain
40:56
I don't know. I think the LC one was pretty low budge. I don't know how you guys kiss. Pretty low budge. I
Carter
40:59
I kiss all kinds of different ways. I
Zain
41:02
I feel like Adam Brody should have had a better career.
Corey
41:08
I just don't know
Zain
41:09
know that we're going to just blast past that. Let's move on to our next
Corey
41:10
next segment. Come at
Zain
41:13
President Biden, former President Donald Trump, Corey, agreed also on Wednesday that they're going to hold campaign debates. The first one in June. Soon. Soon. June 27th, so about like a month. And the second one on September 10th, setting the stage for the presidential race to face off. Now, the interesting thing here is that these guys are going head to head. That shouldn't surprise you. But they're going outside of the standard presidential debate commission organization. These were like hashed out amongst their people. Biden puts out a almost like, come at me, bro. Like, you're afraid to debate, like geriatric video. And Trump is like, yeah, fuck you. and then they hashed out two dates. There was a bit of theater involved, but they're here.
Zain
41:55
I actually, I want to not really talk about Biden and Trump other than maybe what to kind of expect top line if you guys want to get into that. I do want to, though, however, say
Zain
42:06
say if you are Justin Trudeau or Pierre Polyev seeing this play out, you know the consortium debate was kind of a mess here in Canada, right? If you remember the consortium debate, it was, you know, He had a person from every single news outlet ask a question. The moderator was getting pummeled on. We made a lot of fun of that, if you remember, on the pod with the crosstalk and such.
Zain
42:29
Should either Pierre – and here's how I want to start this conversation, Corey – should either Pierre or Polyev or Justin Trudeau approach
Zain
42:37
approach the other with a head-to-head debate ask outside of any sort of consortium, outside of any sort of commission? We don't have a commission, but consortium here in Canada. and adopt this sort of strategy? Is this strategy portable and strategically beneficial for either of the two here? Hence the segment title, Come Happy, Bro. Do you know,
Corey
42:58
know, really, really interesting question, because first of all, it obviously advantages Trudeau. Head to head, you try to get all of the NDP vote to come to you, right? And for that reason, the conservatives would not want to do it. But there's
Corey
43:12
there's been some interesting messaging since oh i don't know forever about the liberal ndp coalition so if you're trudeau and you say i want a head-to-head debate and then in pierre polly f says no you know nice try justin but the ndp are going to have to be there too you could say i thought we were a coalition i thought you saw us all as one party i thought i was supposed to be the leader of it so why not why not a head-to-head debate why
Corey
43:38
that's interesting to me you
Corey
43:41
think it advantages trudeau as like a default in this 100 percent advantages carter start there even if trudeau loses it it advantages
Zain
43:48
advantages carter start there does it advantage trudeau head to head yeah
Carter
43:51
yeah i mean if there's only two parties it absolutely advantages him you just you want to remove the options of i don't want to vote for this guy i'm going to go vote for that person right you want to pull all of those options off the table and you know the the spoiler your ballot type of of choices um disappear and if it it can be between two parties, then maybe you can start to see some lift. You know, the tertiary parties tend to go down during the elections, because people start to move towards the party that they think will be able to govern.
Carter
44:25
And the liberals being the only party that can beat
Carter
44:29
Pierre Polyev's conservatives, serves Justin
Carter
44:34
Justin Trudeau more than it serves Pierre Polyev. But Pierre Polyev may feel fairly
Carter
44:42
You know, I know I would. And getting a
Carter
44:45
a one-on-one chance to beat the crap out of Justin
Carter
44:49
Justin Trudeau might be fantastic. But as Brazeau found out, sometimes the Trudeaus are a little tougher than people think they are going to be. So I don't know. Pretty interesting idea. So
Zain
45:02
So my question is at the heart of this conversation. It's not about whether it's a good idea or not, but can you guys, if you're working for the PM, how
Zain
45:11
how would you help make it happen?
Zain
45:13
Because I suspected you were going to say this is advantageous, Trudeau, vote consolidation, Pierre even exposing himself on the national stage in a way like this to who he is, really, and can't keep the act up, although he's done a poor job of keeping the act up recently and hasn't really seemed to make a big difference. That being said, Corey,
Zain
45:36
we assume it's a good idea. We think it's a good idea. Justin Trudeau, Pierre Pauliev, head-to-head, choose a network, make it even a streaming event, I don't care. How do you as a strategist make this happen? That to me is the main question. You acknowledge it's a good idea, but what are the steps you need to put
Zain
45:57
put in place, or how do you think about this in terms of making this happen for your guy?
Corey
46:03
well if you can pull it off baiting uh
Corey
46:06
Pierre Polyev into saying something that
Corey
46:09
that sort of lends to a debate I'm not saying he has to say geez I wish I could debate you but if he did say something like I can't wait to debate you say great don't have to wait we can do it next week you know you
Corey
46:19
you let it go but if he makes some sort of commentary about how your
Corey
46:23
your ideas don't stand up like you know you can't like go head to head with our ideas you say yeah I disagree so let's do it let's just do head-to-head let's just have a debate and um look he's gonna if he's smart ignore you and say yeah he'd love that if he wants a debate he should call an election like you're gonna see a lot of hold me back activity
Corey
46:40
activity from both parties i think at that point but um yeah carter
Zain
46:47
carter help me construct this help help me think this through you and cory have been tasked with the sat the pm like the idea someone in the pmo meeting in the morning pitched it wasn't the two of you but he carter the pm says He says, you know what, Carter and Corey, they've got this. They can make this happen. Give us an update next week on where we're at and where I'm meeting. Why does his name come first? It always does. It always does. It always does. It always does because, you know. In the
Zain
47:13
contract. The thing is, both in the contract, but also who's thanked them more for his service, right?
Zain
47:18
Zero thanks of service from you, right? That's true. You have a very professional working relationship, right? You think the PM gets thanked enough. Carter, not true. The opposite. Carter, how do you make it happen? Corey's put some ideas on the table. I think they're kind of weak sauce. You need to back clean up. How are you going to make this happen for the PM?
Carter
47:38
Well, I would send an emissary to the Conservatives. And the first thing in the opening salvo would be,
Carter
47:45
we sure as hell don't want to do that consortium again, right?
Carter
47:48
That consortium was crap. And everybody talking over everybody, it really hurt the two of us the most, the Conservatives and the Liberals the most. It gave all of this tremendous opportunity to the Greens and the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats, but it didn't – or not Bloc Quebecois, Party Quebecois.
Corey
48:11
Bloc. Bloc was right. Bloc,
Carter
48:12
Bloc, sorry, I'm backwards again.
Carter
48:18
4810. 10 um but it just it just it
Carter
48:24
it just avails us not the opportunity that we need um i suggest we we step outside of the consortium and you do it like you
Carter
48:33
you do it with an emissary um i've been the emissary in
Carter
48:37
in a bunch of different campaigns where you have to go over and talk to the other campaign about a different idea and you literally go over and you start with what's our common enemy right
Carter
48:46
right Our common enemy is the consortium.
Carter
48:49
And then if I can get them to agree that the common enemy is the consortium, then
Carter
48:53
then it's just a simple matter of negotiating who's going to be on the stage and when it's going to happen.
Carter
48:58
So I think that that's how I would approach it. Corey,
Zain
49:00
Corey, anything to add to that?
Corey
49:03
You could also just do something kind of crazy and dickish and cause problems for the conservatives where you say, let's do a charity debate, $10 per person who tunes into it, all of the proceeds go to the convoy defense fund not not
Corey
49:19
actually a good choice but that's you know it's something that would be awkward for them to say no to yeah
Carter
49:25
yeah children without homes fund
Corey
49:28
children with too many homes they
Carter
49:30
they don't know where to sleep too many homes really dug it dig into that uh conservative demographic
Zain
49:36
okay is there any strategic value for peer polyam to say yes before we move on
Corey
49:41
You could make an argument that allows him to elevate himself to the prime minister's level, but he's already ahead so much in the polls, I just don't think that there's a lot of argument there. Carter, any strategic
Zain
49:51
strategic value? I don't know why you
Corey
49:52
you would say yes. For
Zain
49:55
For the PM? For Pierre, to take on- For the future PM. Sorry, yeah. Sorry, we're already there. No, for Pierre to take on the PM. Would he be the one initiating this idea? I don't think so. No,
Carter
50:06
No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that- But any strategic
Zain
50:08
strategic reason for him to say yes?
Carter
50:15
why do you think trump it would be a very difficult ask who do
Zain
50:18
do you think was the winner cory let's go to the u.s here who do you think was the winner of just the debate happening the two dates being hashed out locked ready to go negotiated who was the winner regardless of who the winner is in the debates preppers
Corey
50:34
yeah for sure uh
Zain
50:35
uh carter who is the winner uh
Zain
50:41
that's good i liked his answer better i would other answers i'm just gonna that that would have also worked would have been um insure oh
Carter
50:49
oh yeah that would have been good insure
Zain
50:50
insure would have been good that's good um yeah and polygrip okay
Zain
50:54
okay poly can i
Corey
50:55
that's it i really actually think this deserves a real answer and i'm not sure i know the answer who do you think it advantages i'm asking you i
Carter
51:03
give my opinion on the show the show i
Carter
51:05
think it advantages biden why
Corey
51:08
why do you think that because
Carter
51:09
because i think that biden comes has been characterized improperly as this doddering old fool and i think he's going to be able to come out and hit trump hard enough trump's got no experience debating uh since 2020 um and so So that advantage is gone. And this is the opportunity for Biden
Carter
51:30
Biden to prove that he's not a doddering old fool like I am tonight. You
Carter
51:36
You know, like this is a great opportunity. You
Zain
51:40
You buying it? And
Carter
51:40
And the fact that they're done in September, no
Carter
51:43
no matter what happens, Biden
Carter
51:45
Biden gets to have a clear run for the finish line.
Zain
51:49
You mean Trump doesn't have that guaranteed same opportunity. Understood.
Zain
51:53
Corey? Do you buy that?
Corey
51:56
Not entirely, simply because I don't remember the debates being that great for Biden. And, you know, Trump is annoying to watch, but he just, he talks and he talks with such an energy and his whole presence is just a little more domineering than Joe Biden. And I think Joe Biden four years ago was better than Joe Biden today. Every time I see that, man, I think, oh
Carter
52:20
No, I'm not trying. He's just, he seems, he's getting
Corey
52:23
getting kind of that whisper. whispery voice thing he's uh he's
Carter
52:28
fuck i'm getting that whispery voice i know
Corey
52:30
me too pal all of us not saying though no
Zain
52:33
no no i've got the energy oh
Corey
52:34
oh yeah you got the energy i
Corey
52:37
gotta say though i i think that it's a risky look we were always going to end up here and so i think like the benefit is at least we see it early and it allows campaigns to adjust and maybe that advantages biden because i believe the biden campaign can adjust and i don't believe the trump campaign like he's just an animal like he'll just do whatever donald trump is going to do but it provides us a certain bit of intel we're
Zain
53:00
we're going to leave it there and move it on to our final segment stephen carter are over under in our lightning round you know we do this for you right i don't know if you've ever yeah and
Carter
53:06
and i'm always grateful i'm always grateful especially that whole toronto wnd oh yeah what
Zain
53:11
what was your you've got a you've got a third and a fourth choice that you had to leave on the cutting room floor but i think we've got a bit of time can we can we hear it um
Carter
53:18
um toronto divas that didn't go anywhere divas
Zain
53:21
divas spelled how it's d-i-v-a-s d
Zain
53:25
d-e-v-a-s okay what does that mean yeah
Carter
53:29
it was it's a it's an homage to devo i'm
Zain
53:32
i'm sorry what's that devo
Carter
53:34
devo is a rock band from my era okay
Zain
53:36
okay yeah were they from toronto they played whip it whip it were they from no
Carter
53:40
no they're not from toronto there's no time i'm really
Carter
53:43
i didn't say we should call
Carter
53:45
are the ones that were on the cutting room floor.
Zain
53:48
Toronto Roros, which is Corey's. Toronto Roros, which is Corey's. Toronto
Carter
53:53
Toronto Beach. Toronto Beach. I also was going to go with Toronto Beach. Toronto Beach is interesting. Kind of like Ken. You know, it's like Ken did Beach. This team would also do Beach. Toronto Beach. Okay. Beach.
Zain
54:07
Sorry, the Toronto Beach or Toronto Beach?
Corey
54:12
Toronto Beach. What about, like, the Toronto-Montreal's? Like, what if we just try to get more of the country in on this?
Zain
54:19
That would be fine. I'm in with that. I'm sorry, did you not hear the Toronto-Canada's?
Corey
54:23
That's the whole country. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah,
Zain
54:27
Corey, you also had a few that were on the cutting room floor there.
Corey
54:31
I did. I was thinking we could have the, well,
Corey
54:35
you know, I'm just not sure if the world is ready for these particular ideas.
Corey
54:39
Oh, I think they
Carter
54:40
they are. Oh, I think they are. I think they are. Absolutely
Carter
54:41
they are. Oh, yeah, they are for sure. okay well
Corey
54:42
well i guess the toronto titans toronto northern lights toronto maple leaves toronto huskies toronto thunder toronto starlings or toronto north stars would be okay too wow
Zain
54:51
wow look at that someone's got a premium chat gpt subscription someone did
Carter
54:54
did yeah chat gpt oh
Zain
54:56
oh my god gpt
Zain
54:58
was it what was it toronto sterling is that what you said is that one of them i
Corey
55:01
i i don't know it's chat gpt i just i did the list they gave they had maple leaves that's already the name of a team so i that's probably not a good idea okay
Zain
55:08
okay but here's what i read it it
Corey
55:09
it was in the middle of of the list. You know, we
Corey
55:11
we need a bit of a derivative. I think
Zain
55:13
think the Toronto Maples.
Corey
55:13
Maples. But there was a historical basketball team called the Toronto Huskies. The Toronto Huskies. I don't like it. Sounds too Alberta. Okay. Sounds too Alberta.
Carter
55:21
Well, I'm not sure you want to name a female basketball
Carter
55:26
I'm just throwing it out there.
Carter
55:29
think you're going to get in trouble calling it. With
Zain
55:31
With no rationality. Okay, well, Carter, it's clearly a good rational reason.
Zain
55:35
Hey, Carter. Overrated, underrated. Early debates. debates. This first debate between Trump and Biden is June. Now, you guys could tell me I'm wrong. That seems historically early, if
Zain
55:45
if I'm not mistaken. It is. Right?
Zain
55:48
Overrated or underrated, this concept of debating early. And I guess this idea that we were talking about Trudeau and Polyev, let's go, would also be like a T minus one year thing if it ever got off the ground, which we doubt it would, but it's fun to talk about.
Zain
56:01
What do you think? Early debates? They they don't really set narrative. They don't actually, you know, build upon anything. They're, they're, they, they, you know, are a data point too early or, you know, underrated. They actually could generate, create, change trajectories or momentum. What do you think, Carter?
Carter
56:17
I think, I think it's actually a great idea to get out of debating when you have to actually campaign. You know, one of the reasons that, that the conservatives traditionally do not not debate is that there's more valuable campaign activities available to them at that time um one could argue in june or so there's just not that yeah there's well that's and it's a big lie but it's one of the things that they say um but
Carter
56:43
but this is a great way to uh
Carter
56:46
uh get a campaign debate out of the way at the time when there's there's
Carter
56:50
there's fewer opportunities for real campaigning i i'm kind kind of like it i kind of wish that cory had come up with it earlier so i could have said how smart cory was especially after his snafu at 32 49 oh
Zain
57:02
oh my god he's
Corey
57:02
he's never gonna let that that then cory no 48 10 overrated
Zain
57:06
overrated or underrated early debates
Corey
57:12
go back to the sunak charitable read which is how do you shake people out of their disinterest well you do something different and maybe this is something different i
Corey
57:22
i think in the canadian context if we had an early debate between well between all of the party leaders or just between uh polyev and trudeau i
Corey
57:31
think it would also provide us an interesting data point in like can is there any chance of trudeau turning this around right because they are telling themselves a story like once we get to an election once people see this guy well then we're going to be able to turn it around but i don't see any evidence of that right now and
Corey
57:48
and i actually mean that less in the it's impossible, and more in the I don't see any evidence of that. So if I'm the liberals, maybe I'm looking for that evidence for the good of the party. And so
Corey
57:59
so that would be one advantage, maybe not the type of advantage you were talking about. But I think that there is some benefit both to the liberals, and frankly, the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States to sort of see, is
Corey
58:13
is this going to fucking hunt at all? Like, is this once people start to to see it?
Zain
58:18
Corey, I'm, of course, headed to Washington, D.C. tomorrow for our Patreon-funded trips where I go out and meet our foreign listeners. One
Corey
58:26
One of my very best friends in the world lives there, Josh. Josh. Do you know Josh?
Zain
58:30
Josh? I do know Josh very well. I think I introduced you to Josh. Did I introduce you to Josh? No, I think I introduced you to Josh. Do we have anyone else? That's not possible. I want to use this podcast to say, because it is getting expensive on a per capita basis if I'm just going out there to meet Josh. That's true. Do we have any other listeners in Washington, D.C., Corey? No,
Corey
58:46
No, you know, tell Josh I say hi. So it's just
Zain
58:53
meet him. I'm pretty sure
Zain
58:54
sure I made that introduction. Absolutely, you did. Yeah, no, that's right. Carter, any advice for me in Washington, D.C. tomorrow?
Carter
59:00
No, I'm still pretty stung that Corey's
Carter
59:02
best friend isn't us. Yeah, it's extremely
Zain
59:05
extremely upsetting. Hey, Carter, final question for you.
Zain
59:08
You know, I made the not perfect comparison of Conservatives 2021, week one here in Canada, Labour, they
Zain
59:17
they haven't gone through the first week, week one in the UK. What advice would you have for Labour? You're still 20 points up in the polls. The Prime Minister may have just called the question to get this over with. All of that stuff considered, you can't really let any of that affect you. What advice would you have for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party in the UK as they embark bark on the next six weeks sprinting to the july 4th election this
Carter
59:42
this is this is don't take anything for granted this is the real deal and uh all the polls everything that happened up to this point isn't real so don't even think that you've got a 20 point lead um you're equal you're starting at zero and you have to push your way through all the way to the top and i think that a lot of a lot
Carter
1:00:03
lot of ideas will be thrown away because they're too controversial or they're too difficult or they're you know i think you should go for you know go
Carter
1:00:12
go for things that really solidify you with your your cohort don't worry about trying to win any more voters just find
Carter
1:00:20
find the ones that really want to vote for you and give them what they want cory
Zain
1:00:23
cory advice for starmer and labor heading into the next six weeks you
Corey
1:00:27
you got a 20 point lead i mean that's nenshi style it's over it's done start Start measuring the drapes. Stop.
Zain
1:00:33
Stop. Stop doing that. Okay. Ninth ballot. Zane Velji for leader. Like,
Corey
1:00:37
labor voters even need to show up and vote? Shut up. That's
Corey
1:00:40
going to leave it there. That's a wrap
Zain
1:00:41
1805 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.