Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a Strategist episode 1817. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Stephen Carter, thank you for starting with the yawn. Oh, I'm so tired. It seems like you've just gotten done eating some cantaloupe slices.
Carter
0:17
I was outside all weekend, Zain, and you know how that exhausts me.
Zain
0:21
Well, I don't know why you do it.
Corey
0:23
That's a choice you made. I don't know if you're looking for sympathy or what, but you're not getting it. I
Carter
0:28
I did it because I'm an athlete, an
Carter
0:32
Even though the Olympics are on, I go outside and I'm athletic. It's
Carter
0:35
It's what I do.
Zain
0:37
I do. Hey, Carter, do you think this six-point penalty against Team Canada women's soccer is justified? No,
Carter
0:43
No, it's not. Where
Zain
0:44
Where are you at on drone spying? three
Carter
0:46
three three points i totally would understand right three points because they were spying on new zealand uh so they had an advantage on new zealand i totally get that but they didn't have an advantage on france when they kicked their ass today there was no advantage to the uh to the canadian women's soccer team uh they sent home all the coaches were involved i mean six points that's a punishment on the athletes when this was a uh a crime committed by the uh the nso and the coaches that they employ.
Zain
1:16
Corey, this, of course, reminds me of the time Stevens sent a drone out to the Hurley Burley. It does. And he's still yet to collect the drone. Carter, did you learn anything from that?
Carter
1:27
Well, I learned that David Hurley is an angry, angry man.
Zain
1:31
That's not the energy we're looking for, Carter. That's what I learned. I set you up to add some nice words.
Carter
1:42
David Hurley. is angry. And he kicked
Zain
1:45
the shit out of my
Zain
1:47
Corey, this was a mistake on my part, clearly, walking into that analogy. You know, even though it's true, we did actually use some of our Patreon dollars to buy a drone and send it across the country to another podcast. In fact, Team Canada Women's Soccer is copying a strategy that is well known in the strategist's playbook.
Corey
2:03
It's part of why Carter is so defensive about the strategy. You got to ask yourself, who came up with the strategy? Let
Corey
2:09
tell you something. There's maybe a chain of custody to this strategy that people should be questioning. We
Carter
2:13
We have so much money coming in from the Patreon. I just don't know what to do with it all.
Carter
2:17
Like, what should we do with it all? I don't know. I
Zain
2:20
I feel like we need to find a local artist who can carve cantaloupe into whatever we desire. I feel like that is what needs to happen next. Yeah, me too. Cantaloupe
Carter
2:29
Cantaloupe was last week. Get under the honeydew.
Zain
2:32
We are moving on to our first segment. Our first segment, Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in love with their couches. is uh cory uh it's all happening it is kamala harris uh kamala carter just got it uh
Zain
2:47
uh for those who are not initiated jd vance may have fucked a couch i mean
Corey
2:52
mean he definitely did did
Corey
2:54
he didn't write about he
Carter
2:55
he did not fuck a couch can you prove to me he didn't
Zain
2:59
i'm not sure you can this is this is where this is where it gets this
Zain
3:03
this is where it gets weird right like this is where Do you know where it gets weird?
Corey
3:08
no. Three years ago, there was a coup after four years of Donald Trump as president. But this is the moment where you're like, hmm, a little strange. What's going on? Seems
Carter
3:15
Seems a little odd. Seems a little weird.
Zain
3:17
Let's start here, actually. Can I start? I wasn't intending to start here. But let's start with the, I wanted to talk about Kamala Harris, how the Democrats have fallen in line just so quickly. It seems like it's been a month. It's been a week. The excitement continues. We talked about the money and the initial excitement. I want to talk about what this sort of like media narrative and the media attention that the campaign has been getting, and including social media, I should say, over the last week means for the campaign. Have they set this impossibly behind bar for themselves? We'll talk about all that sort of stuff. But can we start with the J.D. Vance stuff? Because as much as I want to make fun of J.D. Vance, the memification of Vance, which is going on last week, it was Diet Mountain Dew, which led to the cantaloupe talk on our part. This week, it's this thing about, you know, couches and childless cat women that he's kind of talking about. I'd be scared if Mountain
Corey
4:05
Mountain Dew led us there, where this might lead us. Just saying. Dolphin
Zain
4:08
Dolphin porn, which is also now an internet meme. Here's
Corey
4:12
Here's what I find fascinating. I think I have his back on the dolphin porn one. Now,
Zain
4:15
Now, I actually don't like
Corey
4:16
phrasing of what I just said.
Carter
4:17
You just heard yourself, right? Yeah,
Carter
4:19
have his back on the dolphin porn.
Carter
4:23
Carter, do you have a
Zain
4:23
a pen? Can you just write that down for a potential episode title? It's a poor choice of words. Corey's got J.D. Vance, J.D.'s back on dolphin porn. just want to say something like that and cory will of course massage it out as usually does
Zain
4:38
um cory he's gonna massage such a bad choice of words
Zain
4:43
no no it's deliberate is what it is it's not bad or great it's deliberate um cory
Zain
4:48
cory here's the thing fine
Zain
4:49
fine explain to people what the jd vance dolphin porn situation is well
Corey
4:54
well he he tweeted at one point i think many months ago that they're what is the world coming to maybe society was a mistake maybe the internet was a mistake i can't remember the exact tweet but he was referencing a story about a woman
Corey
5:10
woman and a dolphin and you can use your imagination where that's all going but what the internet immediately realized when he tweeted out this screenshot of it is that the words woman Woman and dolphin were bolded, meaning those were his search terms, right?
Corey
5:25
right? So what are you doing, man? But I actually do think this one has a pretty innocent explanation, which
Zain
5:33
which is he saw
Corey
5:33
saw this story in his feed at some point, and
Corey
5:36
and then he sat there all
Zain
5:38
all day. By the way, before you keep going, folks, this is Corey getting JD's back on Dolphin Porn, just in real time. Okay, go ahead. Please go ahead.
Corey
5:47
So I'm imagining that he saw this story in the feed or he saw it on one of the news aggregators or something and he was sitting around thinking about it and he's like, oh, I've got a really witty tweet for this. And so then he went to try to find a picture of it to reference. And so he searched for the
Corey
6:02
the things that he thought would lead him back to that story so that he could effectively do a quote tweet. But then he decided to use the picture. And that's why the words were bolded. That's my theory.
Zain
6:10
theory. He sounds like someone who's done that before.
Zain
6:13
I feel like Corey's covering his own backlog. on dolphin porn i mean no i'm not i'm not searched dolphin woman i have absolutely
Corey
6:20
absolutely searched for like i saw a news story and i think i've got a good tweet about it and then tweeted i've absolutely done that i'm not even gonna like i'm not on twitter anymore uh
Corey
6:30
uh you know i'm four months sober in that sense but uh i
Carter
6:34
back i broke down did
Carter
6:36
yeah and then i got immediately got ratioed and
Carter
6:39
and i'm like why am i here and i left again here
Zain
6:42
here here's what i find interesting so the The meme-ification of J.D. Vance is one thing. We can talk about how we've hit meme overdrive, which I think is a fascinating political topic in some ways. Yeah. But what I find – maybe we'll discuss that second. Carter, what I find really interesting is the Kamala HQ Twitter account, the surrogates, including their most – what you'd call senior surrogates on the campaign, which has now become Pete Buttigieg everywhere on television all the time. Oh, yeah. are
Zain
7:11
using one word to describe J.D. Vance. It's weird. Weird. This guy is weird. And Trump, too. They say it in their press release. They call Trump a creep, and they say he's weird. No, they call Vance
Corey
7:22
a creep, and they said Trump is weird. Yes,
Zain
7:24
And they're using creep interchangeably for both of them, by the way. Yeah, creep and weird.
Zain
7:30
What do you think of that? It is not political
Zain
7:33
political language that we necessarily associate with the let's go high when they go low Democrats. Democrats. It is playing in the mud. It is fun. It is interesting. It's kind of everyday speak.
Zain
7:48
My question for you, Carter, as a strategist is, do you like it? And is it effective? Do you like it? And is it effective? Maybe those are two separate answers. And Corey, I want to ask you the same thing, because I find that to be really fascinating. We can talk about the tactics of the press releases, these three liners being like, this creep went out today and said some really weird stuff like i'm paraphrasing but that's kind of their their new tone of the press releases especially around jd carter do you like it and is it effective yeah
Carter
8:14
yeah i i love it and the reason i love it is it when you say donald trump is a threat to democracy people don't understand what that means but when when you say donald trump is uh is weird people know exactly what that means because that's coded language and the code on that language is keep a fucking eye on him keep an eye on him because he's doing stuff that's weird right it's weird and it's creepy and it is something that people and especially women are are locked into they know when the weird guy gets on the bus they know when the weird guy gets off the bus oftentimes that weird guy is cory i
Carter
8:53
don't know why he's on a bus i don't know why he's on a bus but that's that's what part of what makes it weird part of what makes it weird but this is people
Carter
9:02
know what's going on with weird people because they're a threat they're a threat and and the language that's being used now conveys threat so much more clearly because it is now personal i understand what that means and i understand how to defend against it that is the the subtext of the weird and the creep and all of the all of the the
Carter
9:27
language that's being used now, it's
Carter
9:30
it's simple, it's understandable, it's relatable, and it can be related to everyone's real life. And that's what's making this campaign suddenly feel a lot more winnable, in my mind.
Zain
9:45
Corey, in addition to Democrats getting so quickly in line, this language choice has not been traditionally in their lane. They've been more of the let's play it safer let's play it classy let's play it um you know big stakes what is your take on on on this language well
Corey
10:02
well first of all i don't actually believe the democrats have been classy by and large right like that's what the democrats say about themselves but i don't actually think that's true when you think back to obama we go high when they go low to that point I'm not sure I'd ever seen such it like in terms of like absolute dollar spend doing negative advertising on John McCain. I mean, it was it was off the charts. Carter, you have some experience of this locally. Everybody thinks about that first not had an entry campaign is such a positive campaign. Oh, such an issue based campaign. Do you feel like it was a positive issue based campaign?
Carter
10:37
It was not a positive issue based campaign. It was the most negative campaign I've ever been associated with to this day it was the most negative campaign i've ever been associated with it's just that he did it with a smile and he did it with positive messaging in his back pocket but you asked barb higgins i've said how many times have i said it on this podcast you asked barb higgins was it a positive campaign or a negative campaign and she knows to this day
Corey
11:01
day yeah it is a negative campaign
Corey
11:05
well and my point is just this we tend to see the other people as negative and our side is as not you know not negative they're positive they're standing up i
Corey
11:14
i i do also want to say this has been donald trump's superpower finding the nickname that just kind of like rings like it's just like that perfect you know it's like a tuning fork you hit it and you get 440 hertz and you're like ah that's that is sharp right crooked hillary lion ted cruz sleepy joe biden little marco for marco rubio you remember that one and of course a strategist his favorite low energy jeb bush right just he said something and it immediately captured a sense of the person even if it wasn't a hundred percent accurate it was it was truthy to use that old language we used to use back in the day right and um it does seem like the democrats are saying we could fucking figure that out too and that weird and creep are words that you know creep i think doesn't have a ton of art to it if i'm being frank i think weird is a little bit of a stronger one because this
Corey
12:06
this billionaire and his fail sons and their terrible family and the way they come in like a mafia family and everything like the guy's skin is orange his hair is fake like he's fucking weird like he's a weird guy and it's in many ways strange that it took us eight years of him being running for office for us to get to this fucking word but it
Corey
12:27
it does seem like that one is a a little bit i i think more to the heart of it all there but i don't know i i'm
Corey
12:35
i'm not so sure
Corey
12:37
as you've said zane this is a week we don't have an awful lot of evidence these things are going to work yet it is interesting to see this very aggressive tone change from what as we discussed last week is the exact same campaign team it was biden's team and now it's kamala's team it
Zain
12:54
it is quite fascinating
Zain
12:55
and in some ways you might be thinking like what was biden not not allowing them to do, or what was the fact that there was an incumbent president who still had the job to conduct, not allowing them to kind of be free and run joyfully or, you know, have a bit of fun with the campaign. But Corey, you know, you're right that it's been a week, but I'll stick with you. Do you like the attempt in this direction?
Zain
13:19
Maybe that's what I'm trying to get to. Do you like the attempt in trying to give J.D. and Trump a bit of a duo Do you like the whether it's the one that lands or not? Do you like this sort of like using
Zain
13:31
using their Democrats own language play low style of politics explicitly and owning it in this last week? I
Corey
13:42
I guess from a strategy point of view, I'm open to it. Personally, I hate
Corey
13:46
I fucking hate that a candidate for office fighting against Donald Trump put out a news release calling somebody a creep. I think that's just the coarsening of our democracy. It's a running down the drain. But I also acknowledge that Donald Trump has found an awful lot of success this way. And maybe the Democrats need to figure out how to throw an elbow in a way that resonates with people. So I guess I am open to it. But the other thing I wanted to say, Zane, is maybe
Corey
14:15
maybe Biden was doing these things.
Corey
14:17
I'm not sure many of us paid much attention to his social media strategy and tactics. But I will say there was one absolute lift from the Biden campaign that the Harris campaign did, which is a very short clip of Donald Trump saying something like, she's
Corey
14:34
she's a prosecutor and I'm a felon. And
Corey
14:37
then it said, I am Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. And the internet guffawed and laughed and went nuts about it. Joe Biden did the exact same thing four months ago with a very similar Donald Trump clip. And nobody gave a shit, because Joe Biden is an
Corey
14:52
81-year-old man who nobody believes is actually on top of social media. So a lot of it is, I
Corey
15:00
I think, the moment. And we'll have to see how this all works in one month, in one year. We're looking back and saying how this campaign was. was.
Zain
15:11
Carter, is there a strategic trap that this name calling, this making casual how you attack your opponents that the Democrats have now engaged in, the Kamala campaign is now engaged in, in the last week is directly a page from the Trump playbook? Or are you not concerned about that as a practitioner and a strategist? I'm
Carter
15:30
I'm not very worried about it. I wholeheartedly believe that negative advertising, negative campaigning works. It is part of our psyche. It's the way that we think uh we are far more likely to hold a negative message and retain the negative message than we are to hold and retain a positive message that is just part of the human condition um so i i think that this is great um i also think that one of the the the real risks of being in a campaign is starting to read you know really believe
Carter
16:02
believe your own bullshit right and i think that this that happened
Carter
16:05
happened with the uh donald trump's a threat to democracy type of attack where
Carter
16:13
you were you know i i think that donald trump's a threat to democracy but it doesn't matter what i think what matters is how does the audience perceived it perceive it and it was very clear that the audience was not perceiving donald trump as a threat to democracy so this way you are you're honing into the audience in a totally different fashion. And that, to me, absolves you in some respects of the actual sin that Corey's kind of focused on of doing the negative. I disagree. I don't think there's a sin to doing negative. I think that doing negative is just recognizing who we are as human beings, failed and as rough as we are in a society. But, you know, I win things, and Corey's Corey.
Zain
17:02
Corey, talk to me about this. I mentioned it earlier, the memification we've seen on Overdrive. Yeah.
Zain
17:07
Yeah. What do you kind of like, if we take stock of that, this moment, and if we take a stock of that as a principle of our politics, what analysis or insights do you have? Because there's something really interesting happening about how people are almost seeing a moment through a meme first, or at least, not a vast majority, but a subset of people. i'd say a greater share of people now than than before um perhaps what do you kind of take away from that i know we're living in it in some ways and we've have lived in it but if we take stock of it in this moment what what is your take well
Corey
17:41
well i wonder how many americans were introduced to jd vance through exposure
Corey
17:48
exposure to memes that he fucked the couch like
Zain
17:50
like yes it's gonna be a not insignificant number they're they're first
Corey
17:55
maybe they're like hail billy elegy maybe i've heard of that probably not senator
Zain
17:59
senator maybe not maybe i
Corey
18:01
i know that he was a senator who won in ohio probably not
Corey
18:06
trump uh trump put a couch fucker on the ticket you know like i feel like that is a not insignificant number of people who then immediately got to a point where like oh i guess maybe he didn't fuck it but do we know he didn't fuck a couch you know like i can't i just can't imagine how um not optimal that is for a campaign so when you talk about this meme culture on overdrive i think this is a perfect example they are the front door to so much politics right now people see things through memes and then either validate them or disprove them or go talk to people about them and again not something that i'm personally super thrilled about but it is um it's
Corey
18:46
it's hard to deny how much that is driving at least kind of internet culture right now again not the whole world but a
Corey
18:54
huge chunk of people like
Corey
18:57
alarmingly large number let
Zain
18:58
let me ask you this way carter you're sitting in the jd vance uh campaign
Zain
19:02
campaign office don't sit on that couch carter i'm not sitting on the chairs
Zain
19:07
trust me they're chairs only they're chairs only chairs
Zain
19:10
and and do we know he hasn't fucked a chair? Like, do we know? Like, more than likely, probably not. Probably not. But do we know? But
Carter
19:15
But do we know?
Zain
19:16
know? Right. But like, we don't, we don't, there's no guarantee. This is the issue. Carter, here's a way to ask the question slightly differently.
Zain
19:23
Are you actually legitimately concerned that regardless of outcome, it could be J.D. Vance couch fucker could be like part of this guy's bio?
Zain
19:34
Like, it sounds like the most insane question I've asked on a show that is used to asking insane questions but like if you are a strategist whose job is to protect this guy are you actually being like fuck
Zain
19:48
fuck this could actually stick yeah
Carter
19:51
because crook hillary stuck because uh because little marco stuck because uh low energy jeb bush stuck because this is the way it goes now right we're not but so
Zain
20:03
so that's not just internet culture to cory's point i guess This is the point I'm trying to understand is that we're just extend beyond. We're
Carter
20:08
We're defined by the social networks of society and the social networks of society get their information from TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and then they pass it amongst themselves. And they say things like, oh, my goodness, have you seen this thing about J.D. Vance? And that's how the information flows. And we're in the middle of the information flowing from, you know, the Internet into real life. I'll be honest. I got introduced to these memes and I was confused as fuck. i don't know where they were all coming from i'm not you know i'm i i know who jd vance is i know the politics of it i know all that stuff i don't know the meaning you came at it from a different angle
Carter
20:45
yeah yeah and all of a sudden i'm like just like jd with that couch and
Carter
20:48
and i'm like i have to learn what this means i have to learn what what's going on with a couch why is oh that's why it's significant i discovered the same thing about two girls one cup you know everybody was was talking about it and you have to
Corey
21:03
to go and find that was a long time ago car don't
Carter
21:05
don't do it don't google that i mean that stays with you that's well literally that shit stays well
Corey
21:10
you know so here's the thing about it do
Corey
21:12
do you remember back
Corey
21:14
back in 2016 2015 even where there was this whole internet meme about ted cruz being the zodiac killer do you remember that
Corey
21:25
people say You know, or his dad. He's obviously not the Zodiac Killer, right? Or that his dad killed JFK. But let's stick on the Zodiac
Zain
21:32
Zodiac Killer. I was going to say, that's the second one. Yeah, the JFK
Corey
21:35
He's obviously not the Zodiac Killer. He's not even old enough. He would have been one when the last Zodiac Killer murder ended, I think. I don't even know. But the
Corey
21:44
point is. Couldn't have happened.
Corey
21:48
isn't there a little truth to it? Isn't there just
Zain
21:51
just something in it where
Corey
21:51
where you're like, I
Corey
21:52
it's a lie. But doesn't it tell you something about Ted Cruz? Like, isn't there a more fundamental truth about Ted Cruz? Something like that exposes? Like, yeah, he'd for fucking sure be the Zodiac Killer if he had the means, motive, and opportunity. And is that what you're trying to say here? That, yeah, J.D. Vance looks like a guy who'd fuck a couch? Kind of, right? And I'm not actually saying that specific act. But I'm saying, to the point of weird that we started on,
Corey
22:18
kind of a weird thing, you know? You know, you could see him writing about it
Corey
22:22
it as part of his hillbilly elegy, just coming of age story. He's a weird dude and he says weird things and he has all sorts of weird opinions. I'm not even sure if couch fucking would crack the top 10 weird things about J.D. Vance. I'm just going to be honest. He has so many strange opinions and you're starting to see them all trickle out through the Internet right now, including my favorite one was he was talking about somebody said, well, I don't think crazy ideas should be disqualifying for a politician.
Corey
22:50
can't think of anything more disqualifying, but he is just so out there on so many things. And he's just so like, he looks like if you touched him, there'd be kind of this greasy spot on your hand. And there's just, you know, there's something about him that I think that the meme captures. And that
Corey
23:08
that does seem to be what
Corey
23:11
what gets currency these days. And
Carter
23:13
And there's no getting out of it, right?
Carter
23:15
right? Like, once you've been branded a couch fucker, you're
Carter
23:18
you're stuck there forever. It
Corey
23:19
It is not new, by the way. Like, call him a pig fucker and make him deny it, right? Yeah.
Corey
23:24
Yes, absolutely not new. And then we're
Carter
23:26
we're right into, if you're explaining, you're losing.
Corey
23:30
Call him a couch fucker
Zain
23:32
fucker and make him deny it.
Zain
23:33
Carter, here's one thing. The memification actually goes both ways, right? Like, there's the contrast memification, if we can call it that. I don't think anyone does, right? But it's the stuff about J.D. Vance.
Zain
23:43
Then there's also like the memes of Kamala Harris, the ones of previous clips, interviews, speeches, etc. And here's one thing I found interesting about that, is
Zain
23:55
the larger suite of memes about her on
Zain
23:59
on Twitter, on Instagram, are trying to spin what would be conventionally seen as a negative.
Zain
24:09
her charisma, which is certainly there. And man, oh man, she had a killer week. But
Zain
24:14
But they're effectively leaning into what many would call, strategists would call, potential
Zain
24:22
And they're making them into strengths. And
Zain
24:24
And I find that to be fascinating, right? Moments that the coconut tree thing is a great example. It was a weird line that was kind of word salad-y that kind of had some philosophical philosophical underpinning to it but it was you know it wasn't like a great heroic political moment being like wow no it was like a thing that was kind of weird maybe
Zain
24:45
maybe that's the key word of this of this episode that they leaned into and said you know what that's fucking great and
Zain
24:50
and there's something to be said about that i'm really curious about like what that says about politics which is are we using memes to take potential
Zain
24:58
potential liabilities or quirks and turn them into positives or is that Is that exactly what we're seeing in one case and one case alone, Carter? Give me your thoughts here. Who
Carter
25:06
Who owns the memes, right? Who's owning the memes? Who's taking ownership of them? Who's choosing to protect them? Donald Trump's people always took the memes and protected him. Whatever those memes were, they took them and they protected him.
Carter
25:19
All this is is Kamala Harris getting her people out there, and this is more organic. I'm not trying to imply that she's literally getting everybody out there to defend her, but her people are jumping on these memes and they are saying oh you're trying to make fun of her laugh we fucking love her laugh right oh
Zain
25:38
oh you're trying to
Carter
25:38
to make fun of coconut tree we fucking love coconut tree bring it the fuck on i oh she's shit in the woods i fucking shit in the woods with her that's what we do here it does not matter what she does in fact if it turns out that kamala harris has fucked a couch they will be like i also fucked a couch that is fantastic because
Corey
26:01
because they are protecting her but it's more than that you know it's like if if somebody is like giving you the gears nothing diffuses it more than just embracing it and be like yeah i fucking guess i am a bit of a couch fucker huh look at me and that's that's always been true and the fact that now this is happening in mass media in front of us is super fascinating but yes you can't insult somebody if they're like proud of it it's it's part of the problem people have attacking donald trump he just goes out and he admits these things yeah
Corey
26:34
these things that he's guilty of and then it's almost hard to land the the blow but now
Corey
26:40
now you're seeing this
Corey
26:42
shame but you're also seeing this now again this is kind of the theme the democrats have learned something from this the kamala harris campaign has learned something from this and you can't hurt somebody with something that doesn't hurt them i
Corey
26:57
know that sounds trite but if everyone says yeah the laugh it's fucking it's gold baby oh the coconut tree the coconut tree thing the number of times i have said to people and i've had people say to me in the past seven days do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree is is unreal it's absolutely unreal no
Carter
27:17
no one's ever said that to me because i you know don't don't look like so so what i'm understanding is
Zain
27:21
is that jd vance should look very exactly yeah
Corey
27:24
yeah get a little more hair on your head i think you
Zain
27:26
you look like a coconut yeah carter brown on the outside white as shit on the inside um yeah um so so just to be clear the logical conclusion here is that jd vance should acknowledge that he's fucked multiple couches and you know what if he had lean into it like
Carter
27:43
he said lean into it i'm
Carter
27:45
not gonna it's good
Carter
27:46
i'm not gonna deny that there's been nights i thought about that couch right
Carter
27:50
right like there's there's a bunch of ways around that but it's too late now now he's he
Zain
27:54
he doesn't usually have to go around he likes to go in but yeah i get it absolutely it
Carter
27:58
it all works its way out this is this is a fascinating turn of the tables we've not seen donald trump and his team actually on the defensive i'm loving it
Zain
28:08
it let me actually actually take that and expand it a bit. We've not seen them on the defensive. We haven't seen them necessarily, quote unquote, flustered. Guys, it's been a week, by the way. Keep going. No, no, no. It's been a week. For
Carter
28:18
For sure. We haven't seen
Zain
28:18
seen them for a
Carter
28:19
a week in the last, like, gajillion
Zain
28:22
gajillion years. This last point Carter made is the one I think is interesting. This might be the first time in a long time. I don't want to say the last 10 years, but
Zain
28:29
but this might be a first time in a long time that Trump is not controlling the agenda.
Zain
28:34
And I'm really curious about what that means for Kamala Harris, because Corey, Corey, it has just been a week.
Zain
28:39
And what do you do when you have a great fucking week? Can we give them the fact that they've had a, like, you extract this week and be like, take it, top prize, probably one of the best weeks in political campaigning.
Zain
28:51
But now what, Corey? Today's actually 100 days to the election. We record on Sunday night. Today's 100 days. The question I have for you as a strategist that would be in the Kamala Harris HQ today is, fuck,
Zain
29:02
fuck, do we have to just do this for the next 100 days? Volley it at this level?
Zain
29:06
Or can we actually dip and be a bit more human? How do we sustain what we've built without necessarily sustaining what's happening? This is almost like how do you try to capitalize on your success without having to keep going with all of this success in the same way? That's a question that someone might phrase much more articulately than I have to you guys in the HQ today, being like, fuck, this is great, but I wish the election were tomorrow in some ways. It's not. It's 100 days. What do we do? Corey, your take on that. And then Carter, your take on that.
Corey
29:41
think this is maybe a lesson that America is learning that a lot of us learned in 2015 here in Canada, which is sometimes a short campaign is better than a long campaign. It is really hard to sustain people over months. And we remember in that campaign, it started in the summer. It went to October. It's just like the longest campaign we could possibly imagine as Canadians. Yeah,
Zain
30:04
Yeah, it's like a double writ period almost. It was a
Corey
30:06
a double writ period. And here we are. We're still more than that. And maybe there is something to this
Corey
30:13
perpetual campaign has some downsides, right? Like there's just fatigue. There's fatigue on the staff side. There's fatigue on your supporter side. Maybe you need that moment, that jolt in the arm where people can just get really excited and propel themselves to the next exciting thing. thing. And so if I'm in the Harris campaign, if I'm sitting there saying, okay, we
Corey
30:32
we got 100 days to go, armed
Corey
30:34
armed with these lessons, I am thinking to myself, some tactical like, well, okay, well, how do we make sure that we always have that feeling of fresh legs? It's clearly got some advantage there. But the second thing I'm asking myself is how do I block this into
Corey
30:49
two week periods of excitement and interest? And so the first one's really easy. You've got got your convention coming up you've got your vp pick coming up that'll propel you what are you going to do for september 1st what are you going to do for september 15th what are you going to do for october 1st and really
Corey
31:05
really maybe almost board things out and carter you used to always do this you did it always around holidays but just to say we want to have a
Corey
31:14
a thing going on at
Corey
31:16
at this particular moment that will get everybody fired up maybe
Zain
31:20
it's as simple as that like
Corey
31:21
like maybe we maybe the Many Americans have been running campaigns for too, too long, and
Corey
31:26
and these two-year campaigns simply do not work.
Zain
31:30
guess another way to phrase this question is,
Zain
31:32
is, do you have permission to go under the radar a bit, or
Zain
31:38
or do you have to keep it at this level? Because, you
Zain
31:42
you know, yes, Corey, it's been a week, but holy shit, a lot has happened in a week, including the tightening of the polls, as we've seen from multiple polls, including the tightening of some swing state polls. It's been a week. By the way, tightening, still losing to
Zain
31:53
to Donald Trump. Still losing, still a lot of work to do. But the viability seems a lot higher than it was for Joe Biden, which
Zain
32:00
which I think is a fair statement.
Zain
32:02
Carter, do you have the ability to go under the radar? Do you have to volley and keep this level of momentum and publicity and owning the week going? How do you play this?
Carter
32:14
You have to keep owning the week.
Carter
32:16
You have to own every week from now until the election. It's going to be tough, but Corey described it exactly perfectly. You own this week. We know what next week looks like. We know that they're going to be in the convention. Once we get through the convention, once the, I'm sorry, first thing they're going to do is name their vice presidential
Carter
32:34
presidential pick. Then they've got their August 6th roll call. Then they've got their convention. Then they've got everything is going to go boom, boom, boom, boom, right? After Labor Day, it starts to get a little tricky, but from between September
Carter
32:48
September the 15th and September the 30th, because there's nothing really organic happening. Well, okay, well, what do we manufacture? What can we manufacture? And that is the way that campaigns are won. And the other way that I used to describe it is never let your opponents get oxygen. Every
Carter
33:08
campaign requires oxygen to fuel the fire. fire kamala harris has oxygen fueling the fire all over the place right now fantastic great keep running with it but recognize you're going to need oxygen to fuel the fire in two weeks does that mean oh we're going to push something off this week we're not going to take the oxygen and fuel our fire no that means we need to define and discover new oxygen and new fire next week that That has to be our goal.
Carter
33:38
That becomes tricky. It becomes troubling, but it is the end game of every political campaign. How do you manage to find the oxygen all the time? Sometimes you find it that day. Sometimes you wrote it up on the board three weeks earlier.
Zain
33:55
Corey, I'm hearing we have to own, if you're the Kamala campaign in this case, you have to own every week going forward, but you don't have to own it in the same way you owned this week. Is that a fair statement? statement
Corey
34:05
yeah it would be hard to you you gained five points in some polls and you raised 200 million dollars yes
Corey
34:11
you've got to be realistic about that you are going to come back down to earth at some particular point and again i do want to underline still losing the election so yeah she's gotten back to where joe biden was a few months ago before it you know before a disastrous debate god i wasn't even a few months ago my god do you remember that donald trump was shot less
Carter
34:29
less than two weeks ago i
Corey
34:31
i just it it boggles the mind remember
Carter
34:33
remember do you remember that because Because that was pretty fucking significant. I
Corey
34:36
I do, but just barely because it's been two weeks. Oh, my God.
Corey
34:39
But I do think that the lesson here is
Corey
34:43
is that you can change opinions in a week. And so there are benefits to that. There are cautionary tales to that, too. What was unique about this week that you might be able to replicate? Obviously, you're not going to be able to change your candidate out every single time.
Corey
34:58
there might be some learnings here in that you can give yourself a jolt in the arm by doing something totally unexpected or totally wild and snapping people to attention again. And it's easy to say that. It's hard to think of the things that will fill in that calendar. But, you know, the House and Senate will come back in the fall. You've got to get a budget passed or else you're going to have a government shutdown. You might even anticipate a government shutdown because there's going to be some games played ahead of the election here. Start thinking about the way you can bring that kind of drama, that West Wing-style drama you two love so much, to those particular
Carter
35:32
particular moments. Yeah, that's a great show.
Carter
35:36
Corey. Thanks for bringing it up.
Zain
35:39
You can change a lot in a week.
Zain
35:41
Yeah. That's the lesson here.
Zain
35:43
Carter. Might be. Is this a lesson that Justin Trudeau should be thinking about? Oh, man.
Zain
35:52
You have to ask the natural question from a strategy perspective. That Trudeau, you know, you've heard the rumors that he's just, you know, the PMO does not want to do anything until they see the result of the November election that they feel like a Trump presidency is the foil that they need to get their mojo again. Corey says the lesson here, and I know Corey I'm taking your words out of context but why wouldn't I, is that you can change a lot in a week. Carter
Zain
36:17
Kamala Harris has had an incredible week.
Zain
36:19
Is there any lessons that Justin Trudeau should learn from that week?
Carter
36:24
Yeah, I mean I think that we
Carter
36:27
I mean I I, for one, am very guilty of saying, well, you know, we're past his we're past the point where he can step down. We're past the point where he can step down. And that's been kind of an ongoing theme of mine over the last couple of weeks after the by-election loss where I thought, OK, if he moves this summer, then things could happen. And, well, he hasn't moved this summer. So obviously, ergo, the window
Carter
36:52
window must be behind us, except this
Carter
36:57
this proves that the window may be much shorter, the conventional wisdom tells us. And the window that's available is really quite short. Like, what
Carter
37:09
what if you had a new leader with 200 days to go? Maybe that's, I mean,
Carter
37:16
mean, maybe that's too long. why not
Zain
37:21
why not yeah exactly why not 50 you may if this is what you can do in a week you
Zain
37:25
may be same campaign
Corey
37:26
campaign team different person at the top yeah
Carter
37:30
all of a sudden all hell breaks loose i
Carter
37:31
i think that uh i
Carter
37:34
think the liberals will probably be watching this very closely whether justin trudeau is or not um
Zain
37:40
that's interesting yeah so it might it might help Help me clarify this. Lessons for the party, perhaps
Zain
37:47
perhaps even lessons slash hope for
Zain
37:49
for the party, not
Zain
37:50
not so much for the principal currently?
Zain
37:53
Is that what I'm hearing you say, Carter?
Carter
37:55
I think that the party itself has no lever to pull to get rid of them. So maybe it has to be a lesson for the principal.
Zain
38:03
Corey, what do you think? You're the Trudeau team. You're Trudeau watching this happen this past week. What are you thinking? How are you thinking about this? Well,
Corey
38:11
if I'm the Trudeau team, because we've seen no shortage of evidence that they can delude themselves on the drop of a hat, you are saying, trendline incredible for Harris, even though again, she's still losing, but trendline incredible for Harris.
Corey
38:25
We can do the same thing.
Zain
38:27
This is evidence to us that you can change
Corey
38:29
change the electorate's mind.
Zain
38:30
mind. We with Justin. We with
Corey
38:31
with Justin can change the electorate's mind like that. If you're in the party more broadly, you're looking at it and saying, holy shit, look what changing a leader can do. That can really change things, right? And it will be interesting. I mean, I tend to think the changing the leader thing is the stronger argument, shall we say, but it
Corey
38:50
be interesting to see those two arguments fuse and fight with each other. And obviously, they will be fueled somewhat as well by the by-elections that I suspect we'll get to at some point here, where two by-elections have been called. But yeah,
Corey
39:04
probably looking at it and getting a sense that things
Corey
39:08
things can change in a hurry. Maybe you've just got to pick your moment. Actually, I believe this probably provides an interesting talking
Corey
39:14
talking point for when the caucus does finally get together.
Corey
39:18
It'll be a tightrope to walk because you'll be sitting there saying, look how much Harris has changed things in at that point say one month and they'll say yeah they changed the leader and look what's possible but if
Corey
39:30
if you there's a way that you yourself can introduce it and say
Corey
39:34
look gang i know
Corey
39:35
know everybody's feeling like we are in a static universe where we are always destined to be down 20 points to pierre poliev but what we saw from this is the consequence of people paying attention i've always said this to you the consequence of people paying attention is they They will come back to the liberals. They don't want Pierre Poliev. What snapped Americans to attention was a change of candidates, an assassination attempt, RNC convention, because it's not just that Harris's positives are bigger than Biden's. Trump's negatives increased with exposure over that time. As people pay attention, the results can change pretty significantly. That's what you're saying if you're Justin Trudeau going forward into kind of the caucus season, I suppose. pose.
Zain
40:19
Carter, which message? I like Corey's point that he split these down the middle in the sense of changing the leader. And when people pay attention, they snap into focus. Which is the stronger argument to you? Is it the leader one? Or is it the electorate one?
Carter
40:36
I think it's probably the leader one. As
Zain
40:39
As well? You think
Carter
40:40
think that's a stronger
Carter
40:41
Yeah, I think that the rest is kind of delusional um i
Carter
40:47
yeah i think it's a little bit delusional to think that the general population i mean i have this you know i have the theory of the less engaged and the theory of the less engaged is at some point they turn on but they don't get engaged they don't suddenly learn a lot of things they just turn on enough they get their single fact they get their one fact and that one fact couch
Zain
41:05
couch fucker yep and
Carter
41:07
and that one fact drives their outcome and that's all all they need. And that's okay. That's the way they choose to make the decision. That's not
Carter
41:15
way I would choose to make that decision. But you know, that's okay. The decision is going to be made.
Zain
41:22
Carter, let's talk about these two by-elections for Trudeau for a second here. Yeah.
Zain
41:25
He's got one in Quebec, Lamedis,
Zain
41:27
Lamedis, old seat. And he's got one, if I'm not mistaken, in Manitoba,
Zain
41:32
an ND seat that former MP
Zain
41:35
MP hasn't gone to go work. Yeah, that's right. That has gone to go work for the uh wab canoe government has
Zain
41:42
has he got to win both he's
Zain
41:43
he's got to win both right oh
Carter
41:45
oh he has to win one yeah
Zain
41:46
yeah i don't think he's i don't
Carter
41:47
don't think i don't think you could be expecting to pull off elmwood transcona it
Carter
41:52
it just feels like it would be a bit of a lift to suddenly pick off bill blakey's riding i mean if it happened it would be it'd be quite the the positive uh for for him uh but this when When you're looking back at this particular riding, they've had New Democrats except for 2011 to 15 when they had a conservative. There's not a real history here of
Carter
42:16
doing well. Now, LaSalle, all
Carter
42:20
all of a sudden, if they lose that one, then we're going to interpret it. We, the punditry. If we're allowed to call ourselves punditry, and I'm not sure that we are. Corey's looking at me. He does not like me calling us punditry. But the punditry will say, oh, my God, they're
Carter
42:39
they're going to lose Quebec. And if they lose Quebec, it's all over, right? So if they lose in Quebec, I think it has a lot more challenge
Carter
42:48
challenge than if they were, even if they were to win in Elmwood, it would be less important than losing Quebec.
Zain
42:58
Corey, does he have to win one? or does this, he has to win one. What do you think about the second one? I find the second one more interesting. What does he have to do in Manitoba then?
Corey
43:09
I don't think he needs to do anything in Manitoba. What I find fascinating about the Manitoba situation is if
Corey
43:16
if the NDP lose it,
Corey
43:20
not sure, I mean, I'm so curious
Corey
43:21
curious how much the strategy played into it. But if the NDP lose it,
Corey
43:29
this a way that you're putting pressure on your coalition partner like hey man you're going down too like we all go down together if so you
Zain
43:36
you mean you mean on this so these are going to happen on the same day yeah make sure everyone understands that so you're saying that on that same night if the ndp lose it and the liberals lose it or if the ndp lose their like do you feel like i'm trying to like game both of them out together in
Corey
43:51
yeah there's there's There's two parts to it. One is if you both – let's put it this way. If the NDP win and the Liberals lose, the NDP might think, well, we can hold what we got. You're the one in trouble. Let's go.
Zain
44:02
go. You're fucking us. Like you might start thinking – We've seen in Toronto and now as we've seen in Quebec. Yeah,
Corey
44:06
Yeah, maybe now it's time to go to the polls is what the NDP might start to think in that scenario. But if the NDP lose, A, it says, after this election, you're not going to have anything either. so let's start talking collaboratively not as a coalition but let's start thinking about how we make sure that we can govern for the next year and put ourselves both in a better place i
Corey
44:27
i guess those are the two things right so if
Corey
44:29
if you're the liberals it just makes it yeah
Corey
44:32
yeah it makes it worse like a loss becomes worse and the other thing i suppose i want to throw on the table is if the liberals and the ndp both lose there might be some thinking from the pmo brain trust well then it it doesn't hurt us as much i think that's wrong but i could easily see people thinking that and saying it
Corey
44:51
it just looks like it's a by-election and the conservatives are on the lead or on the on the grow and i i think that still hurts them i could easily see people talking themselves into that not being as bad if the ndp also loses seat carter
Zain
45:06
carter what do you think of cory's kind of theory around the coalition and the pressure points with the the informal coalition the supply and confidence I should call it. What do you feel like or how do you think about Corey's points on the pressure that each could provide to their partners? Well,
Carter
45:22
Well, I think that, you know, it's
Carter
45:24
it's hard to speculate on all the various iterations of what could happen, right? Is it going to be the liberals? Is it going to be the conservatives? Is it going to be the bloc? Is it going to be, you know, anyone can win and anyone
Carter
45:38
anyone can lose. lose the the the thing is does this if if this is a loss does this have any impact for justin trudeau and i suspect
Carter
45:48
suspect that it'll have very little impact at all because i think they live in the house of delusion and in the house of delusion you get to do whatever the fuck you want to do so
Carter
45:57
so in the house of delusion that that none
Carter
46:00
none of this really matters none of this is is particularly particularly impactful i think that uh you can tell yourself all kinds of different stories so my view would be that these
Carter
46:13
these by these by-elections are highly unlikely to have any impact whatsoever not because they're not going to be impactful but because the person that they're designed that has to be impacted by them will be in denial about that impact i
Zain
46:26
mean finishes off off here yeah
Corey
46:30
it's tough to say right obviously the competition to the um to the liberals in quebec is the block in this particular seat i think they've come in second most of the last few elections right yeah the competition to the ndp is the conservatives i can easily again see the pmo saying well ndp lose the conservatives we lost a block it's just a bunch of stuff that happened it doesn't mean anything just
Carter
46:53
just a bunch of normal course of action you know of elections elections and
Corey
46:57
and maybe that's how they get maybe
Corey
47:00
maybe that's is how it will feel and maybe steven will be correct but i do want to say the
Corey
47:07
the pressure was getting pretty intense on the prime minister for about 40 seconds before joe biden blew it at the debate and everybody's attention flipped so aggressively towards that particular story and we all moved on with our lives another by-election loss might just pull that attention all the way back, especially in, you know, Le Salomard-Verdun, which is at
Corey
47:29
at least half, it's Paul Martin's old seat, right? Like this is again, like it's a new riding-ish, but it is not supposed to be a place where the liberals are that badly on the defensive. It is another riding where the liberals won two to one.
Carter
47:44
Yeah, it's a 50% riding.
Corey
47:46
And it once again brings back the story you're
Corey
47:49
you're gonna lose in montreal you're
Corey
47:52
you're gonna lose in toronto where do you expect to win at this point justin and that is i think possible
Corey
47:59
possible that it will propel the caucus to action at that point but
Carter
48:02
but again what's the action that they can take there's no action there's no i
Corey
48:06
mean i guess but the
Carter
48:07
the action that could have been taken wasn't taken
Carter
48:10
there's they're not going to do anything so
Zain
48:12
so lessons learned for the conservatives from Toronto. What do they do here in these two? They could potentially pick up both. You know, one seems like further out of reach, further... There's no conceivable
Carter
48:26
notion where they pick up both.
Corey
48:29
Yeah, the Conservatives ran in like fourth. I'm just pulling it up now. In the last couple of elections there.
Carter
48:34
So the Conservatives... But there's an
Zain
48:38
There's an expectations game here, right? And in terms of like, Conservative expectations could actually actually inflate.
Zain
48:43
And, and conservatives may have to be careful. Your parapollia may have to be careful to be like, oh, here's what success needs to look like for you.
Zain
48:51
How do they manage? Well, a lesson learned from the last time where, you know, they, they tried to expectation manage near the end. Uh, how do they manage here?
Carter
49:03
I think the way to, to manage here is to just go, just to say we're going all in on uh on manitoba and
Carter
49:11
and that becomes your your marching orders we're going all in uh in manitoba and then in terms of the rest of the you
Carter
49:20
you know in terms of quebec well
Carter
49:23
know quebec's an interesting place but we're going all in in manitoba uh
Carter
49:26
uh but what about quebec well we're going all in in manitoba like
Carter
49:34
it's entirely conceivable that they could win i'll
Corey
49:37
i'll tell you this about quebec how
Zain
49:39
do you how do you expectation man yeah go ahead cory they
Corey
49:42
they got seven and a half percent their last election they could get 15 there and he could legitimately say we doubled the vote in quebec so
Corey
49:51
so there it really is about we want to make sure that there's a strong conservative option available to the people of this riding this is of course going to be it is historically been a fight between different parties, but we are going to make sure there's a conservative choice for them there. We understand that the voters might be looking to send the Liberals a message through other means. And frankly, this is part of the danger of Justin Trudeau. When Justin Trudeau is so weak and erodes the nation so badly, parties like the Bloc do well. And so I think part of the expectation game when you're the Conservatives, and you're
Zain
50:23
you're looking at this
Corey
50:24
this Quebec by-election is saying, Justin
Corey
50:26
Justin Trudeau is such a threat, he's a threat to the nation. And that is evidenced by them losing to the bloc in a seat that was historically a Federalist seat.
Zain
50:36
We're going to leave that segment there. Stephen Carter, move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. We do everything for you, you know, on this show. Thank you again. Including asking the following questions. Stephen Carter, in or out, give me a clear take on this. In or out on weird.
Zain
50:52
I want this for the historical record. record this
Zain
50:54
is the nickname this is the brand they have chosen weird and creep let's go with the weird uh as the defining one are you in or are you out with what the kamala harris hq is is going with on weird for jd vance and i have
Carter
51:07
have defined cory hogan as weird for the last what 15 years cory and
Carter
51:12
and it has worked wonders for me so i think that it is i am in you're
Corey
51:16
you're the normal one compared to us that's what everybody always says people always
Carter
51:20
always say you know what i thought I thought Stephen was really weird, and then I met Corey Hogan, and it brings everything back.
Zain
51:25
Carter is in on the political messaging of weird. Corey Hogan, are
Zain
51:31
are you in on weird? No.
Zain
51:33
No, you know what?
Zain
51:33
You're not in. I
Corey
51:34
I think that it is very popular with a group of people who were always going to love it. I am not convinced it's going to have a ton of currency. I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not in. It's been a fucking week. Like, the number of people who are saying, we got to throw out the campaign playbooks. Everything is different now. Harris is showing us the way. She's managed to get to where Joe Biden was three months ago. Let's all cool down, people. Let's actually see some real, listen, momentum matters. She's got a ton of momentum. Awesome. I'm excited. I don't want Donald Trump to destroy the world. But
Corey
52:12
let's fucking just calm down a little bit here.
Corey
52:16
Carter, would it have been better if they went
Carter
52:22
weirdo is a a that's a word that
Corey
52:25
that somebody who's weird says
Carter
52:27
it's also describing the person whereas
Carter
52:30
whereas saying he's weird is
Carter
52:32
your reaction to the person oh
Corey
52:35
oh that's a good point i was just thinking weirdo is a weird word no
Carter
52:39
no i know that you often wind up thinking It's like what a stoner in the 60s
Carter
52:44
say. The base level, whereas I take it to the bigger levels, right? Corey,
Zain
52:49
Corey, can we somehow sample, represent
Zain
52:52
represent a sample of Americans and understand if weird or weirdo would be more apt to describe J.D. Vance? I guarantee you we can.
Corey
53:00
Okay. That Patreon money's got to be spent somehow. Patreon!
Zain
53:05
Okay, moving on to our next question. it carter uh in or out on the first week of kamala harris uh in terms of what she's seen in
Carter
53:13
in in in in in it has been spectacular i it has been so good that people around me are saying it had to be staged it had you know she had to know in advance and i'm like no no one's this good this is just
Carter
53:28
just the way it's going cory
Zain
53:31
cory are you in or out on what you've seen in the first week i know no, Corey, it's been a week. It's been a week for you. Just tell us again. Tell us again how much it's been a week. Obviously, this has
Corey
53:37
has been a great week for her. And we
Corey
53:40
we will see if it becomes a great week next week and the week after and the week after that. But I
Corey
53:45
don't want to take anything away from the woman. Five points in a week is pretty impressive. $200 million in a week is pretty impressive. The consolidation of all of those delegates and getting fucking everybody in line behind her is incredibly impressive.
Zain
54:01
I'll get to her once again in a moment here. Let me go to Trudeau, Corey, and I'll start with you. One to ten, how much does this week of
Zain
54:09
of Kamala Harris help Team Trudeau?
Zain
54:12
Not the Liberal Party, but let's go with Team Trudeau.
Corey
54:13
Trudeau. Doesn't at all, in my opinion, because it shows what a change in leadership can do, which is the easiest read on this. I gave you a bunch of ways.
Corey
54:23
like I gave you a bunch of ways that Trudeau can spin it, but I think it's spin. Like we agree that's spin, right? I do spin for a living. I like to spin. I'm good at spin. But that's
Corey
54:36
no, come on. Like the more obvious read is they change their leader and look how much better things are.
Zain
54:42
Carter, Corey on the 1 to 10 scale is giving me a zero.
Zain
54:46
Are you going to do the same in the sense of how much does the Kamala Harris first week help
Carter
54:54
It's a big no for me. It just didn't work. It didn't work at all. And, you know, my problem is that he's going to try and interpret it as a victory. But bottom line, change your leader, get a five-point bump.
Zain
55:08
Carter let's go back to Kamala Harris and her campaign they released their first video with the Beyonce song and the whole underlying theme was about freedom freedom
Zain
55:18
this was about uh reowning freedom a largely you know conservative term that they've kind of owned and operated for the last number of years are you in or out on freedom as being a potential through line and of course it was used in multiple ways freedom from gun violence you know freedom for uh the the right to choose as well. Are you in or are you out on progressives or Democrats or liberals, whatever you want to call them, trying to own freedom, a historically conservative term or what you'd call a message box, so to speak? What's your take? I
Carter
55:54
I am totally in. I'm not sure why the left gave it up. I mean, the freedom to love who you want, the freedom to, you know, not get shot, the The freedom to, you know, take care of your own personal health. I mean, all of this is freedom. And
Carter
56:12
And to have given it up at
Carter
56:16
all was just an enormous mistake. Now the left is reclaiming it.
Zain
56:22
Corey, you in on the Dems trying to recapture
Corey
56:26
I mean, I'm so in. I think when you say it's a conservative word, that is evidence of an incredible failure by the Democrats because it's an American word, right? Anytime you embrace the civic religion of the place that you represent, that's a smart idea. And the Democrats have done a shit job of that, like a really piss poor job. in
Corey
56:49
some ways that are absolutely understandable like re-evaluation of people like george washington and thomas jefferson and and the things that they did and their place within history people
Corey
56:59
don't like it though right they want to feel proud of their country and
Corey
57:02
and so if you can find a word like freedom that you can embrace and interpret through your values focus
Corey
57:08
focus on that people are joiners they want to be proud of their team they want to be proud of the democrats they want to be proud of America. They want to be proud of the whole thing they got going down there. And that's actually a lesson I think that politicians here in Alberta, progressive politicians in particular, really need to figure out in a hurry. And it's also something I think the liberals are kind
Corey
57:27
kind of losing the plot on federally in whether
Corey
57:31
whether they are seen as pro or against Canada and what Canada has historically been. People are joiners. People want to be proud. These civic religions don't come from nowhere. They take centuries to build up, and it is such a foolish thing to ignore them or worse, fight against them. You co-opt them, and that is what she's doing, and that's a good thing.
Zain
57:52
Corey, final question. Give the Kamala Harris HQ some advice on how to make the Veepstakes entertaining.
Zain
58:00
Obviously, they've given themselves a deadline. Internally, we talked about that last episode the names
Zain
58:08
names are kind of being floated it's seeming like okay she's eventually gonna give them a sense of with the idea of maintaining momentum maintaining
Zain
58:16
maintaining the owning the weak aspect of it how do they make it entertaining how do they make it interesting how do they make it a
Zain
58:21
a bit of a spectacle i
Corey
58:23
i don't even know they need help with that what you've got just by putting the names out there is everybody interpreting the actions of these people when they go as surrogates on on these various news channels when they tweet it's all being over analyzed and it's created an entire ecosystem let it thrive for a bit let it go crazy and then pick the one that you
Corey
58:44
you know the cream will come to the top like the list today the people who i think are probably most likely today is different than the list even four days ago i
Zain
58:52
i feel like there's been additions with walls and budaj for example potentially being thrown out yeah
Corey
58:57
yeah well walls like right now seems seems like the top of the list and we i think we both said it was probably going to be kelly or shapiro last
Corey
59:04
last that's right last week right yeah carter
Zain
59:07
carter any ideas blinding insights and how you you know armchair would would make this more interesting entertaining uh make the stakes feel real own the week on the day yeah
Carter
59:20
yeah i'd do like a powerball draw you
Carter
59:22
you know just have a name game spit out of the power bar thing
Carter
59:27
thing and uh that's
Carter
59:28
that's how i would do it okay
Zain
59:30
okay great excellent thank you carter for that totally useless insight we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1817 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time
Corey
59:47
way to end strong stephen i'm
Corey
59:49
know i was it's his bedtime you know it's
Carter
59:51
it's what do you want for me. I'm tired. Look at it. It's like 9.56.