Transcript
Zain
0:00
This is a strategist episode 1858 my name is Zain Velji with me as always a core no no
Zain
0:06
no he couldn't make it
Carter
0:08
chased that fucker off the podcast last oh
Zain
0:11
oh my god and
Zain
0:12
and probably off the campaign trail do you think he's out um door knocking right now at whatever he's on a phone call
Carter
0:18
call with the campaign leadership trying to explain why he hangs out with us two losers that's what he's wait
Zain
0:24
wait are we not
Carter
0:24
not the campaign leadership
Zain
0:25
leadership i thought this podcast was the campaign
Carter
0:27
No, we, obviously we are. I mean, we're listened to by everyone, uh, and they take our strategic advice and then they, uh, fuck it up. Yeah.
Zain
0:35
give me an example.
Zain
0:38
name names. Thank you.
Carter
0:39
Oh yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yeah. That Jerry Butts guy. Mm-hmm. Nothing but trouble. I try and give him, I've sent him memos. I've done it all.
Carter
0:47
And no, to no avail. Are
Zain
0:49
Are you trying to communicate
Zain
0:51
Jerry on this podcast like I do with my new best
Carter
0:53
best friend? Jerry, if you're listening. Call
Zain
0:54
Call him the land. If
Zain
0:55
If you're listening. The
Zain
0:55
The best vetter that the Liberal Party has ever had. Yes, hey Colin,
Carter
0:58
how are you doing? Probably
Zain
0:59
Probably listening to this episode too. He
Carter
1:00
He did listen to the last episode. Did he actually? Wait, how do you know that? We got texts. We got texts. No
Zain
1:06
No one sends me texts. Why am I forgotten on this show? It's maybe because I have my own show card. It's available at whateverthisis.ca. I
Carter
1:14
I don't understand you. Anything you want to plug? You don't want to do this show, and then you add another show on top of it.
Zain
1:22
That show's more fun because it's just only the talent.
Zain
1:25
it's only it's only it's only the talent you
Carter
1:27
you don't have to carry me and hogan hey is that what you're saying um no
Zain
1:32
no i'm not going to say that i refuse to say that i
Zain
1:36
will internally acknowledge it uh but i refuse to
Carter
1:39
to say it yeah that's nice carter it's just
Zain
1:41
just gonna be you and i today um for a friday morning podcast there's so many directions we can go like there are like 50 different directions and i'm not saying other people have mowed the lawn already so let's not go there. And I do like to periodically check in with you in particular about if you were there right now, what would you be doing to the pivot for Jagmeet and Pierre? So maybe let me start there because I want to see if you've got any fresh ideas. And if the answer is no, I'll move on to something else. But I don't want to get into the story of the day. The polling is rather stable right now. Pierre's rallies are huge and getting huger. They're more impressive. They're very Very interesting. They're like rock concerts now. So there is that particular sort of response
Zain
2:25
response rebuttal that peers got to the polls. I think that's an interesting dynamic. Candidates are being dropped left and right across, you know, ridings in this country. So there's that storyline. line but i kind of want to put most of those things aside unless they particularly interest you start you with two questions on any moves you got carter for the conservatives and the ndp right now and then if not let's talk about um let's talk about polling and data in this uh in this particular patreon okay
Carter
2:53
okay sure i mean i i i really don't think i have anything new for pierre probably have that we haven't already said on the show uh i think no additional moves
Zain
3:00
moves no like brilliant insights of what he should do this week or what he should start thinking about on monday or anything like that no
Carter
3:06
no i really don't think i have much i mean we've said
Carter
3:09
said already that he needs to try and find a way to kind of um you know break
Carter
3:13
break up with a new question drive people to a new question avoid the question that that uh everybody wants to drive him to which is um you know how did how he'll address the u.s uh trade trade war um you know he's he's
Carter
3:29
he's got to to come up with his own solution. And his own solution right now appears to be developing something that vaguely resembles momentum. And I can actually get behind that. I actually think that that's not
Carter
3:39
not a bad play to make it just look like his events are getting bigger and bigger and he's able to drive, drive, drive. Because Mark Carney seems to be stuck at the office, if you will.
Carter
3:48
He's had to go back and two times in two weeks, play the role of prime minister instead of playing the role of candidate for movement
Carter
3:58
you know, know i i think that that's pretty good i think that that's a a decent um way of of managing this uh
Carter
4:04
uh campaign if you're pierre poliev and jugweed saying i i literally have no advice for um i think he's so deep in the hole you
Carter
4:12
you know like i take candidates from zero
Carter
4:15
zero to a hundred um you know
Zain
4:19
many candidates how many candidates that you've worked with have gotten to a hundred percent all
Carter
4:22
all all of them oh
Zain
4:23
oh they've all gotten to a hundred percent because
Carter
4:25
because the win is a hundred Oh,
Zain
4:26
Oh, I see. That's how we're defining a win. Yeah. Okay. A
Carter
4:30
A win is 100%. Gotcha. Because I'm
Zain
4:32
I'm like, you were, and this is probably an appropriate time because it's within good company. You were on the Al-Assad campaign.
Carter
4:40
Thank you. Thank you. It's a question. It's
Zain
4:41
It's a question that you can- No,
Carter
4:43
No, I'm not answering it.
Zain
4:43
it. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. You're taking the bow. Sorry. I asked you a question and you took a victory lap. Oh, okay. Sorry. I
Zain
4:50
didn't realize that's the way this
Carter
4:51
thank you. Yeah. Okay.
Carter
4:54
No, there's- For the era. Yeah, there's some issues there. Listen,
Zain
5:00
take candidates from zero to 100. Where
Zain
5:03
Jagmeet Singh on this spectrum?
Carter
5:06
He's at a zero, but the problem is he's got a declining... His name recognition is just about... It's got to be in the 80s. I mean, most people know who he
Zain
5:15
he is. Who he is at this point. Most people have decided... Three national campaigns. This is three of three. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They
Carter
5:20
They have decided what he stands for, and they've decided frankly that they don't much care for it um the precipitous fall that we've talked about with the conservatives yeah is nothing compared to the precipitous fall that the ndp can you
Zain
5:33
you workshop an idea with me i've i've been throwing this around with
Zain
5:38
with a bit of thought but maybe not with like having someone poke holes at it and there's holes like no doubt about it sure my thought was a version of jagmeet singh coming out and
Zain
5:48
and saying canadians historically want a minority government there's
Zain
5:54
there's probably holes in that already let us be the the the moral conscience of the banker here's 50 to 70 writings that if you live in you have to vote for us because and they're and they're honest they're like honest analysis of like edmonton strathcona
Zain
6:10
jagmeet's own writing uh
Zain
6:12
uh wherever nicky ashton and and and the replacement of uh charlie angus will be right those like like honest writing start with your incumbents extend on one sort of ring and say if you live here you got to vote for us my
Zain
6:25
my my theory is a it acknowledges that he's not going to win people could reward honesty um
Zain
6:33
um b it's true to you know what it you know where where the ndp are more broadly and the writings that they could play in and see i think the case around carny being unchecked especially with the type of leadership and the and the and the lack of examination the public has gotten with them is
Zain
6:51
is an interesting and compelling point in its own right
Zain
6:55
where are my holes like first of all do you find any of that compelling as a public message and be like walk me through the logical holes there and there and there are a few but i want you to list them i
Carter
7:05
i think that the most compelling part of it is the you know i i think 70 writings is too far But let's say we said 45 writing. OK,
Carter
7:11
I can totally wrap my head around that. I think that 70 just indicates, you know, almost record highs for the short of the New Democrat. Forty five.
Zain
7:19
Choose 45. Balance of
Carter
7:21
of powers. Five writings. And those 45 writings are going to be I like I like the moral compass component, whether it's whether it's the banker or whether it's Pierre. We have the opportunity to hold this government to account with as few as 15 to 20 writings. right but we're going to try for 45 this is where we're aiming for we have the capacity to win these we have the historical advantage some of these have been our writings for decades right so let's not let that go to waste let's create the moral fabric of this government I think that that could work I think that the problem with it is that I think Canadians don't
Carter
8:04
rally behind a minority government that's
Carter
8:07
that's not i mean i don't think that we're aiming for an outcome
Zain
8:09
outcome that even if they prefer it they don't want to engineer because they don't know yeah
Carter
8:14
yeah i hear you it's
Zain
8:15
it's a tough one it's a tough
Carter
8:17
tough one right i mean you
Carter
8:18
you you only get it's not like you're even voting for the uh you know in the u.s you can you can split ticket right and you can vote uh for the for the republican for the presidency and the democrat for the for the house to kind of hold each other in check sure Sure. There's a there is a midterm correction that's coming probably in in 18 months or whatever, where we'll see a midterm correction and the the Democrats will take over the house. Right. Yeah. And that midterm correction will slow Trump because that's what the voters may want. Sure.
Carter
8:54
We don't have that. We elect one person in one riding and then
Carter
8:59
that person helps to elect, if you will, the prime minister. And that is it's a really tough needle to thread, Zane, when you're when you're talking is you're just saying and you're trying to keep your party alive. Does
Zain
9:11
Does it does it help then in
Zain
9:14
in a very twisted, ironic sense? And I'm just trying to work this out with you. Right. Like almost trying to work out a game plan for the NDP. And by the way, this would be a swing. It's not like you just announced this casually on a Tuesday. This would remind me of what Hurley engineered for a win in that election. Right. Which is we're not going to win. Right. Like remember that wins final election. So it'd be parallel to that, perhaps.
Zain
9:38
Is it would it help the NDP in the short term a cute week or two if the liberals just took off? So it looked like Carney was going to be a sure thing. So he could then come in with that appeal or
Zain
9:53
course, and the irony there to spell it out to people is that if Carney takes off like a like a bullet train, even furthering his his current sort of advantage of the conservatives, good chance it's going to come off. the backs of the NDP.
Carter
10:07
I think the problem is that, uh, the,
Carter
10:09
the, the new Democrats, uh, are, are just kind of lost, right? Like they don't, they don't have a policy position. They don't have anything that they can really point to. They kind
Carter
10:20
like, and I think. Tell
Carter
10:21
me what it is because I don't
Zain
10:22
don't see it. So, so policy position. No, I agree with that in the sense that like, but, but the central focus on while the back and forth goes on and you take a hit, we're going to be the party that is there for you. And I think that as the worker, social support party, literally like the simple message is we care about the social supports in this ongoing back and forth, both domestically and internationally. Are you saying that simple message?
Carter
10:49
Or are you manufacturing a simple message?
Zain
10:51
Yeah, I would almost say that if they were to take on this strategy, moral conscience would ultimately equate social support. We are the party that produced all the national cares, taxpayers, child pharma dental, and we're going to be the party that ensures, forced Trudeau to do the COVID payments at the rate that he did. We're going to make sure that we're there again at that table. Imagine if that had happened. It was a lot of their message going into this campaign. And I feel like they should own that. We're the party of being able to unearth and put together social supports. Now, I also see my own logical holes here in the sense that long term, Could this invalidate the party as ever touching a economic election ever again or invalidating them from from touching the economy? There's a good point there. Could they lose? But there's something to be said about like this move for the moment and the and the honesty of what the NDP are to many people, which is a useful piece of the Canadian. Like, I think they're on the verge of being wiped out to
Zain
11:53
to the point of people saying, yeah, they're like the same as the liberals. And I think their final gasp, even if it doesn't land, needs to be, we are different. We are indeed different. It's one-on-one value proposition stuff, which is one of the other reasons I would argue that they do a big swing. It doesn't have to be what I'm saying, but they consider something in that ballpark.
Carter
12:15
yeah i mean you you're constructing a model that doesn't exist which is which is fine which is the social
Zain
12:20
social support stuff i mean you don't
Carter
12:22
don't think that exists
Carter
12:23
don't think that i
Carter
12:25
think you don't think it's true or you don't think they're communicating broadbent i
Carter
12:28
think ed broadbent had a had a you know a message and and carried a brand i don't think the jugmeet singh has a messenger carries a brand and
Carter
12:38
so you're constructing something for him and that's good we can you know we'll send them this episode and
Carter
12:42
and tell them to do what zane said um
Carter
12:44
um but the they're
Carter
12:46
they're based right now on two fictitious elements one is the
Carter
12:49
the fictition the fiction that they are uh driving
Carter
12:53
driving these changes i think that the
Carter
12:56
the the government of the day is still driving the changes right like the minority is yeah they weren't they weren't
Zain
13:02
weren't able to sell that in advance so
Zain
13:04
if they were you'd see that their numbers would be more robust than they are they wouldn't have the floor the modern floor that we're seeing them at right now of single digits
Carter
13:12
yeah that's a fiction and the second fiction that you created for them is is a is this we're competitive in 45 writings fiction um
Zain
13:22
a number i threw out i threw out a number right no
Carter
13:25
no but right now the problem is that the the party is pretending like they are like they're putting a bigger fiction forward i'm you know jagmeet singh's going to be the next prime minister so
Carter
13:36
can i what do you you think of this? Those two fictions crushed your arguments. First
Zain
13:40
First fiction, interesting. So maybe it's about owning that message better. I understand time may not necessarily allow that. What if they were to run Carter? And
Zain
13:51
And it almost sounds like I'm running a let's save the NDP strategy, but I do think it is like, this is me talking. I do think it is important to save the NDP because I do have a lot of values aligned with them. Am I happy to see what's happening with Carney right now? Absolutely. Especially compared to what the the alternative could be no doubt about it, right?
Zain
14:07
But what if they were to run a Save Our Incumbents? All
Zain
14:11
All our incumbents are like great players. Like every single one of them brings something to the table.
Zain
14:18
What do you think if they tried to run that strategy? And I guess the version of that that they would do is that they wouldn't do the broadcasting of that on the air war. They would just focus the ground resources and get the job done. What I'm talking about here is, yes, of course, get the job done. And there's even new reporting today in the CBC that suggests Yes, the NDP are targeting their ridings and they're going to do what the NDP, I think, do best, which is eke out victories in those ridings. But
Zain
14:42
But what do you think about broadcasting that on an air war basis? We're running an incumbent only campaign.
Carter
14:47
I think that you're way better off to go towards your messaging of we're the protectors in the air war.
Carter
14:54
We're the generators of new ideas. We're the protectors of the cares, health care, pharma care, child care, dental care, whatever. ever we we author we author care
Zain
15:05
care and right now you need to be cared for like there is a lane for them i
Carter
15:10
know they're choosing workers but
Zain
15:10
but i think if they chose care and you need to be cared for like fuck man everyone's i don't know about you carter like you're my rsp is taking a hit today my tfsa is taking a hit today everyone's is you're
Carter
15:22
you're an rsp barely barely
Zain
15:25
like it's it's making bad choices and while that happens and people get anxious and nervous about you
Zain
15:32
you know what looks like their future um
Zain
15:35
um you do have a lane for the ndp in this extremely acute three-week period left i genuinely believe it um
Carter
15:42
other thoughts you believe it yeah
Carter
15:45
i believe it the leadership of the ndp uh needs to pull their head out of their asses and actually do something
Zain
15:52
yeah i'm curious i'm curious to see what they do um we'll
Zain
15:56
we'll free flow this because we are patreoning it um that was a good 15 minutes i think i think that's really good how do you think our boys doing by the way i
Zain
16:02
think he's doing good i
Carter
16:04
think he's doing good i think that there's um
Carter
16:09
there was there was a time when we could count on like hundreds of volunteers for a campaign and
Carter
16:15
and i'm also i'll shift it from cory to to vancouver here yeah
Carter
16:19
i mean same dynamic getting a hundred volunteers in
Carter
16:22
in a city of the size of vancouver shouldn't be that hard yeah
Carter
16:26
it has been pulling teeth and
Carter
16:28
i don't think it's just us i just drove past a uh a team
Carter
16:31
team so team is one of the parties here in vancouver uh a team burma shave with three people at it um it
Carter
16:40
pathetic absolutely pathetic so you know i think that everybody's struggling to get people to volunteer and i'm wondering how that's impacting the elections uh not just of our guy in in confederation well that's an interesting yeah
Carter
16:55
every person in every person running for office um you know is there you know and i think that there's a lot of organized a lot of organizations that are saying oh yeah we're doing really well we got uh we got a team of six or eight door knockers out there um
Carter
17:11
where are the teams of 20 right
Carter
17:13
right like where where's the we're we're gonna crush
Carter
17:16
crush a whole poll or two polls today right
Carter
17:19
right like there used to be big fucking groups of of like i remember the joe clark campaign and having 40 or 50 volunteers at any given time
Zain
17:28
time i've got a theory on this and i'm curious i'm i i've got it i've got a political organizing theory
Carter
17:35
hit me brother i
Zain
17:36
i don't think it's the volunteers i
Zain
17:39
don't think it's the people i think it's the people who organize the people i
Zain
17:43
i think we have lost the volunteer coordinator who goes out who
Zain
17:48
who doesn't just schedule but makes you feel guilty about not showing up tells you what you're gonna do where you're gonna do it who you're gonna bring we're missing that like what what i'd call like that grandmother energy right like that
Zain
18:04
who's nice but firm the nancy close energy right you and i both know who
Zain
18:09
can just be like well fuck i don't want to let this person down And we've moved from that version of volunteer coordination to a world in which volunteer coordination is now fill in this Google Doc, and they become schedulers. And I think that is a massive part. I sent a memo to a mutual friend who's running for the first time and said, this is point number one for me. find that like school teacher grandmother like that person who can make you feel guilty i'm giving you composite profiles right like there's a lot of people can have these characteristics but they're gentle they're nice they make you feel good but they're you're they're also going to make you feel bad if you don't execute if you don't do what you committed to do if you don't show up if you don't and they're good at that and i think to me that is part of it as much i think we've moved into a scheduling mindset on involunteers in terms of i
Carter
18:56
i don't think that That person gets their phone calls answered anymore. Like
Carter
19:00
when Helen Redford used to call, you know, like Helen Redford is one of these people. Who
Zain
19:04
Who is that? Yeah, who is that? Tell me the
Carter
19:05
the letters. It was Alison Redford's mother. When Helen Redford used to call, you would answer the phone and then you'd go, oh, fuck, it's Helen. Right.
Carter
19:14
And you knew you're done. And your best bet was to just get the easiest volunteer shift you could get for that day, right? Or for the next day or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
Zain
19:25
yeah, yeah. Just say, sure, I'm in. whatever i'm
Carter
19:27
i'm in you know
Zain
19:28
know and she knows you she's seen you she's seen the
Zain
19:29
white of your eyes sort of thing yeah
Carter
19:30
yeah she's she's gonna make sure that you're doing something also
Zain
19:33
also the also the you know the candidate's mom so well
Carter
19:38
she'll remember this is back when she wasn't the candidate okay
Carter
19:42
but this is um oh you mean helen volunteered
Zain
19:43
volunteered even when allison wasn't oh
Carter
19:46
oh yeah oh i didn't know that involved way before oh
Zain
19:49
interesting that's just like an interesting piece of trivia
Carter
19:51
trivia i had no idea yeah
Carter
19:53
yeah so these these these you know grandmotherly uh yeah people that would get you on the telephone that you could you didn't know they were calling you right
Carter
20:03
now the telephone number pops up and you just hit uh send a voicemail right
Carter
20:07
right or i'll call you later or whatever right because you know what's going to happen to you so what you don't want to be trapped do
Zain
20:14
do you buy my theory though that this is part of the problem that that oh
Carter
20:17
absolutely so So how do we solve for it?
Carter
20:19
do we solve for
Zain
20:19
for that, though? Like with the modern tech and the lack of barriers one can put up, how do we solve for it? I'm actually really
Zain
20:26
really curious to solve this organizing problem in some way.
Carter
20:29
I don't know. Because I've
Zain
20:30
I've been giving this
Zain
20:31
advice to people without necessarily having actioned it in a couple of years. It's
Carter
20:35
It's been a few
Zain
20:35
few years since I've done the ground game. I
Carter
20:38
I have one of these volunteer people. Maybe 2018, 2019.
Carter
20:41
Yeah, I have one of these volunteer people who you can't say no to working on this campaign. and she's brought in like she just filled out my scrutiny list for saturday and
Zain
20:49
and you know they're going to show because it's a it's a personal connection thing and she's good at what she does yeah
Carter
20:55
filled it all out everything's going to go perfectly i mean someone might get sick or something sure
Carter
20:59
sure but realistically i've got a uh i've got a scrutiny list and i'm ready to go with scrutiny right um but you know there's a limit to how many phone calls she can make there's There's a limit. And the technology, I know how not to solve it. You don't solve it by push notifications to the phone. You don't solve it by emails. You don't solve it by texts. And right now, you're not solving it by telephone numbers.
Carter
21:25
None of these things are working. Hell, I've gone to paid volunteers, and it's still not working. Fuck me. So I
Carter
21:31
I don't know that we have the volunteer culture. And
Carter
21:35
And this would be something that I'd like to see tested in the broader realm. Are
Carter
21:39
Are people still volunteering? You
Zain
21:40
You mean like in the charitable realm? In the
Carter
21:44
I mean, is this something that just exists in politics? I mean, I'd love to know if this exists across industries. Are we seeing people in different cultural organizations? Are we seeing people in different nonprofit organizations struggling to get volunteers? I'd love to see that. I think we struggle with volunteers in politics now. Let
Zain
22:06
Let me talk about the second half of this equation. Maybe there's more than two halves, Carter, because we always give 150% on this podcast. Always.
Zain
22:13
Yeah. Which is we used to volunteer for two reasons. Number one, it was a candidate we believed in from a political perspective I'm talking about.
Zain
22:21
A candidate we believed in or we thought was viable or we liked, whatever version of that you want to choose. That was the first part. The second part, though, was the people we got to do it with.
Zain
22:32
and i'm really curious working on the ground game right now as you are and projecting into what our friend cory will see and every local campaign and everybody across this country will see have we lost the culture of wanting to do something big together too i know these are big existential questions but part of one of the reasons that i got involved back in 2010 11 12 was you to have the ability to have a fleeting opportunity to work with you right you were at at a much higher level i was doing a local organ but i knew there'd be interaction i
Zain
23:03
knew i'd be on your radar but i knew that there'd be like-minded people right
Zain
23:07
and that ecosystem was then kind of built um in a sense and i'm wondering if we've lost elements of that because i always like to talk about the campaign ecosystem that you're building win or lose and how that can kind of metastasize which is a negative connotation but become its own thing right
Zain
23:22
right you can become little
Zain
23:24
companies that start people joining non-profits civic organizations advocacy they
Zain
23:28
they just do all all their campaigns together. Now they socialize that they place out like all these things can happen.
Zain
23:35
for me, it's been a few years, and I need to get back out on the on the doors. And I need to get back into campaign office to see what's what's kind of happening.
Zain
23:42
And COVID probably took a bit of a hit on this. And I'll get to your question. But I'm kind of just giving
Zain
23:47
giving you a sense of where my head's at on where do you think that doing things together pieces right now for people in terms of what you're observing?
Carter
23:55
Well, I think that it's really been slaughtered
Carter
23:56
slaughtered by the The idea that, you know, you're
Carter
24:00
you're doing this to get something, right?
Zain
24:03
do you? So would you say that is a primary motivation right now for a lot of people on the campaign?
Carter
24:08
I think that it's assumed by people who are outside the organization.
Carter
24:14
You're volunteering in politics to get something. You want something. Really? I
Carter
24:17
I think that people judge people who volunteer in politics. That
Zain
24:21
That is wild to me. I
Carter
24:23
I think that you get judged. But I get it right away.
Carter
24:26
Yeah. because it's like oh what do you think you're going to get some sort of fucking contract in ottawa you think you're going to be working as a political staffer right
Carter
24:36
all of these jobs are civic jobs like they're they're civic minded jobs and i mean honestly
Zain
24:40
honestly the time we've contributed to this stuff we'll never get back in our lifetime if we wanted to build for it it's not it's not the purpose for the vast vast majority of us absolutely
Carter
24:48
absolutely you're giving because you believe in a in a better society and
Zain
24:52
and an outcome yeah i mean
Carter
24:53
mean i didn't get i mean i barely got paid forever in politics i mean it's just it's
Carter
24:59
it's a give give give environment and um you know i i would argue we've gone too far you know if someone volunteered on your campaign you can't appoint them to something now um you know like that's why that's
Zain
25:12
that's insane i think you
Carter
25:12
you know like yeah
Carter
25:14
there needs to be there needs to be some sort of perk i think for people who volunteer not because they're volunteering for you but because
Carter
25:22
because they're showing commitment to the country and
Carter
25:25
and i think that you should be willing to grab someone from the other guy's team and appoint them too because
Carter
25:29
because this is part of the ongoing
Carter
25:31
ongoing nature of politics you know it is anybody who's playing the game anybody who's playing the game i have more in common with than people who don't give a fuck i
Carter
25:41
i don't care which team you're on except maybe the the ppc i
Zain
25:45
i you know it's interesting and because we don't have the the same culture around money on politics if you if you're giving money to politics it's almost assumed you want something but it doesn't have that negative connotation which is like that's just how you do it right yeah
Zain
25:58
like or even people think money would be like it's still noble to be like oh you donated wow you must really but time you're right has a real connotation like i often say that if if carter you and i had an objective to make money in life and find societal accolades and do all that sort of stuff we would stay completely out of politics we'd be politically influential but adjacent right
Zain
26:19
right yeah but stay completely out of it so that both lanes are open to us we we can play without playing in politics with our money energy advice but never actually get our hands dirty and we'd have all the corporate lanes open to us because we wouldn't have a reputation as being partisan or whatever and frankly that is the posture a lot of people take right
Zain
26:40
right and and they've kind of figured out the math which is they get in but they don't go go too deep so as to not you know tarnish uh or
Zain
26:47
or close out any opportunities in in in a corporate lane or any other lane that might be available to them even if it ties back to political right like the likelihood of becoming a political appointee increases if you haven't been as deeply political involved it's like it helps your chances it helps your chances then it automatically hurts your chances and a lot
Carter
27:07
lot of these people
Zain
27:07
people know the mind math of where that line is right donation advice Advice, phone calls, but officially volunteering, yeah, that's going to put you out. Or managing a campaign, thanks for your effort. You've now invalidated yourself for a lot of these. Isn't that wild, though? The deeper
Zain
27:24
deeper you get, the less chance you have. And there's a sweet spot that a lot of people don't talk about, but have figured out in politics.
Carter
27:31
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's quite a challenge, really. And we've crossed that
Zain
27:35
that line, to be clear, like both of us have, which is that we've
Carter
27:37
we've got to build
Zain
27:38
build careers on this thing. but for other people in our lives they know where that sweet spot is and they're never going to cross it no
Carter
27:45
no i mean could you imagine one of us gets appointed senator like
Carter
27:49
it's seems impossible yeah
Carter
27:52
not gonna happen possible
Zain
27:54
are we done with this topic do you have more shit to talk about here no
Carter
27:58
no i think we're done with it i i mean i probably should answer the original question which is but how do we think our boys do it i think our boys doing great but
Carter
28:05
but i think that uh we need more volunteers and we need to get need to get teams of 20 instead of teams of six.
Zain
28:13
Our friend Bruce Anderson at spark and North star is doing this panel where he's asking you and I, and alongside a couple of hundred other, like maybe a hundred, I should say it looks like
Carter
28:24
like a hundred, I think a hundred
Zain
28:25
hundred political watchers across the country to fill out a weekly
Zain
28:31
leaders campaigning, how, how well they're campaigning, uh which parties have been involved with your sort of your involvement as like a tethering so like a demographic question which parties have
Zain
28:42
you been involved in who's got the best events who's the best candidate most effective leader most impactful message um
Zain
28:49
it's a panel it's like a short survey monkey we're doing and
Zain
28:52
and you've got thoughts i
Carter
28:54
do because it's it's the first time in my uh
Carter
28:57
uh recollection or knowledge that
Carter
28:59
that anybody's actually you know polled
Carter
29:03
right like normally what we do is we're trying to get a representative sample by definition that means that we're and and even if you identify yourself as you get a polling call and you identify yourself as someone in marketing or communications or in politics they'll often end the call because this is someone who knows too much and you know is going to skew the result not a gen
Zain
29:24
gen pop sample and that's what we're after with the yeah right yeah
Carter
29:26
yeah we're not Not Gen Pop. We're experts. And these experts that have been gathered represent, I think, some of the biggest names in Canadian politics. You and me, for example. Not
Carter
29:39
Not Corey. I noted that. Not
Carter
29:41
Not Corey. Even before
Zain
29:42
before he became a candidate, not
Carter
29:44
Even before he was a candidate. It's almost like he knew he might be
Carter
29:46
Ken Bozenkul was invited. I don't have the list in front of me. Oh, yeah. These are
Carter
29:51
are names people would
Zain
29:52
would know. You got Bruce. You got Kathleen Monk. You got Jamie Watt.
Zain
29:57
katie telford boson cool lisa
Zain
29:59
lisa ray like i mean it goes across the board like these are people that you see on tv uh
Zain
30:02
uh all the time these are people who have run campaigns sean spears scott reed like these are people that everyone knows um if you're in this role our friend good friend brad levine um
Zain
30:12
okay there's a hundred of us on this panel yeah uh we're being asked to weekly survey i think the second one's in our inbox right now i haven't done it yet but i should
Zain
30:19
um i did it yesterday what what what are your thoughts on this like so a the novelty of the the first time asking experts but my question for you is less useful more useful for i don't
Carter
30:31
have no idea there's two potential outcomes here we are either so fucking bang on as
Carter
30:37
as a group of professionals like this group of professionals is going to have uh their finger on the pulse they are going to know 100 what's actually happening or we are going to see the influence of of confirmation
Carter
30:51
confirmation bias uh 100 and we are going to be so fucking wrong that it's going to be comical so
Zain
30:58
so you're just interested in like the how um and
Zain
31:03
and if our if our like internal partisan biases
Zain
31:07
are going to play out but i will say that like this is a pretty diverse list i'm just looking at the hundred and the week one results are on national news watch where bruce is publishing these um this
Zain
31:19
is maybe a third a third a third but maybe let's just let's just make it more progressive and conservative it's a 50 50 ish list yeah and i'm just the reason i'm slowing down my speech is because i'm trying to read some of these names and assign a yeah
Zain
31:32
75 of the listings pierre's got the best events and he does he
Carter
31:36
he does we were asked that question again to this week i said absolutely fucking killing it i mean uh there's
Carter
31:42
there's something to be said for i'm
Carter
31:44
i'm not using that as the like
Zain
31:45
like i so like if i'm just saying like yeah
Zain
31:48
yeah as an honest broker it seems like people are not going down the 50 50 partisan line no
Zain
31:53
one's saying jagmeet singh's killing it here right like yeah no
Carter
31:56
even brad levine isn't going that far so
Zain
31:59
so it's interesting yeah i'm really curious if if any of our and this kind of extends to cory's sort of thing like do campaigns matter and the extension to that is do ads matter do events matter do Do campaign strategists matter, right? Do any of this sort of like, does this expert class, you know, I know you argue for professionalizing it even more, but what's the value of it has actually
Zain
32:21
actually not been, I'm not saying this survey is going to prove that, but I get what you're trying to communicate here.
Carter
32:27
Well, the science on this says that even if you're aware of your bias, the odds are that you're not going to be able to deal with your bias, right? right, you're going to still be biased, right? I know my bias. I have a bias towards those that I am hired by, obviously. So what is my bias and how do I address that bias? It doesn't matter. It's still going to exist and it's still going to exist in a format that is tangible. This poll, I think it's going to be, or a survey structure, whatever we're calling it, panel. I think that people should really be paying attention to it. If for no other reason, then it could go horribly wrong. And you get to mock us and make fun of us for
Carter
33:15
for the better part of our lives. But I think that right now, it
Carter
33:21
it might be better than the polling that we're seeing on some levels. Some of the polling that we're seeing is just insane.
Carter
33:31
I don't believe that the liberals are approaching 50%. I
Carter
33:35
I don't, I think that that would be, you
Carter
33:37
you would find you'd have a hard time finding even the most pro consultant
Carter
33:42
consultant for the liberals to say that they're approaching 50%. I think that the, the, the most
Carter
33:49
consultants would say we're probably still in a horse race. It's probably still within three or 4%, depending on which could be the margin of error depending on the size of the sample i
Carter
33:59
think that that's where most political consultants would put these
Carter
34:02
these types of races because we're
Carter
34:03
we're not risk takers you
Carter
34:07
one jumps in and says oh great i've got great internals everything's great then everything's going to be fantastic anybody
Carter
34:12
anybody who's a true professional says okay let's take that with a grain of salt and weigh it all out with everything else and approach this like we're still behind i'm doing that right now in vancouver yeah
Carter
34:22
yeah i'm approaching things like we're a thousand votes behind because hell we could be a thousand votes behind i don't know the data doesn't tell us the answers to these questions initially
Zain
34:32
initially i was just excited to participate but now i'm actually like you you've convinced me that this is this could be meaningful in terms of um the overall sort of impact i'm just kind of reading the list once said so it's it's nearly a 50 50 split as i mentioned so it's like yeah
Zain
34:46
just a bit more well
Zain
34:48
well you actually when you add the reform pc yeah it's they it's oh they've done a good job curating the hundred and so you've got a pretty good split 66 percent of them think the liberals are going to win the most seats um 52
Zain
34:59
52 percent of them like to see the
Zain
35:02
the liberals win um
Zain
35:04
um very interesting i'm curious i'm really curious where this ends up even from a week one to week two uh conversion because you could argue that you know carney's been in more prime ministerial mode and polyev's events are getting even bigger does that lead to any other difference beyond best events which 25 of people are lying about because that should be a number which is so fucking clear that that we have not seen the crowd spirit polyev is bringing to these national events in fucking oshawa and kingston i don't care if he's bussing them in the logistics of bussing i don't care it doesn't matter like i don't think anyone understands the work effort energy and the fact that there needs to be even if it's a seed and you want to be an asshole about it of organic uh support for for polyev and everything else around it is engineered
Zain
35:46
Impressive shit. At the very least, incredible organization. At the most, the polls are wrong, and this guy's going to win.
Carter
35:51
The only way I can see the 25% saying that Carney's having better events is that they're looking at it and saying he's getting prime ministerial events, and there's a value to being the prime minister. Sure, but these people
Zain
36:05
people know what events mean.
Carter
36:07
don't think that that's intellectually honest. No,
Zain
36:09
No, I don't either. I don't either. I mean, it's clear, right? And a lot of these others are like- I think that
Carter
36:14
that this is... But
Zain
36:15
But although this group is saying 95% is... One
Carter
36:19
more thing about this panel, and then we can move on and the podcast. I think
Zain
36:22
think we're done. I think we're done. What do you want to say?
Carter
36:24
But I want to say I would have loved to have been in the room when they were devising the list.
Carter
36:29
I would have loved to have seen... In terms of who's in or
Carter
36:31
Who got put up on the list, how big the list was when they sent out their invitation list, because it was probably bigger than this, right? Who chose to join it and who chose not to join it? I got a follow up being
Zain
36:44
being like, hey, are you in? Are you in? And it wasn't like panicky, but I feel like some
Zain
36:49
some of my like Alberta NDP sort of roots maybe meant that they didn't really have a lot of folks that they could classify as like switch hitters between liberals and NDP, which I think, to be fair, I kind of am on the federal scene, right? Not like fully committed to one of those brands per se.
Zain
37:06
But yeah, that is really interesting because they've ended up with a pretty decent split. Carter,
Zain
37:12
we're going to leave
Zain
37:13
that's a wrap on episode I
Zain
37:14
I think we did great without our boy, it was casual it
Carter
37:19
to be for the patrons
Carter
37:20
oh then fuck it, I don't care, we're done we'll
Zain
37:22
we'll do a full thing for the people with all the topics on whenever
Carter
37:27
yeah, one of the nights
Zain
37:28
that's a wrap on episode 1858 of the Strategist my name is Zane Velgey, with me as always Stephen Carter and on the campaign trail one would assume it's Corey Hogan and we'll see you next time