Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 1893. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Annalise Klingbeil, and Shannon Phillips with the live audience in Calgary.
Annalise
0:25
Carter's way over there.
Zain
0:26
sitting very isolated. Some
Annalise
0:28
Some distance between us.
Zain
0:31
oh we also have this music playing that's good i like this haxum i like i like the echo of the organ but i think christy's gonna top it goddamn
Zain
0:45
it's good just it's just a thing i thought about five minutes ago when you
Zain
0:50
you hire an organist gotta
Zain
0:52
gotta use the organ
Zain
0:53
organ your money's worth yeah i
Carter
0:55
mean really this is is important okay
Zain
0:56
okay so we're here for stephen
Zain
0:58
stephen carter yeah the the nine lives of stephen carter actually actually let's just move it on to our first segment uh our first segment as you will see on the slide uh yeah you can you can click on that god
Zain
1:11
god damn it the nine lives of stephen carter presented by flare airlines not
Shannon
1:16
not a sponsor look
Zain
1:17
look at that christy got it too on the title Carter
Zain
1:20
Carter yeah we are here to talk about the municipal election in Calgary we
Zain
1:25
we are here to talk about your work on that municipal election in Calgary yes
Carter
1:30
yes we are for
Zain
1:31
for those that are not familiar let me set the stage anytime any of us gets involved in a political campaign whether it be in this city this province this country we do what we call a accountability episode
Zain
1:42
and accountability is generally not done in a church like this but
Zain
1:47
it's next level accountability this is this is next level accountability so Carter Shannon myself and Elise we're all gonna get into the mix asking you frankly a question that I suspect has not been asked in this church in a long time how did you fuck this up it's
Shannon
2:04
it's a United Church of
Zain
2:08
the country keep it going and whatever the fuck
Zain
2:18
We're going to have to really
Zain
2:19
really pay Christy well. Carter, so we're going to give you an opportunity to set the stage. Rather than peppering you with questions, we'll let you defend
Zain
2:30
defend yourself, talk about, explain wherever you want to take this in terms of what happened in the municipal elections with the Calgary party. And
Carter
2:39
I get to do this in front of the mayor?
Zain
2:50
you're standing. Okay. That was...
Carter
2:54
of the Calgary Party. You're giving
Zain
2:55
giving a eulogy. Okay.
Corey
3:02
Stephen, this is your conscience speaking, Stephen.
Corey
3:07
that's right. Your conscience sounds exactly like much better than Zaram Mamdami Corey Hogan, MP for Calgary Confederation.
Corey
3:19
your conscience, I don't want you to lie to these people. I don't want you to bury your feelings in this weird post-modern thing you're doing tonight where
Corey
3:29
lawn signs and stuff at a funeral. roll.
Corey
3:35
I want you to tell the truth about
Corey
3:37
about the many, many nights you toiled away on this Rube Goldberg machine-like campaign in 34 different places, and
Corey
3:46
and how that may have perhaps contributed to
Corey
3:49
some of the failure you're basking in tonight, Stephen.
Corey
3:54
Stephen, over to you, Stephen. even forgive
Carter
3:59
me father for I have sinned wrong
Zain
4:17
that it you fucked up yeah
Carter
4:18
yeah I fucked up folks
Zain
4:20
folks if you did not listen
Zain
4:22
listen if you did not recognize that that other voice that that voice of consciousness that emotional support member of parliament should we bring him up on stage let's bring him up i
Zain
4:36
think there's a bit of demand for him to come back
Zain
4:39
ladies and gentlemen wherever he is probably making his way down the steps can he make his way down the steps has he made his way down the steps oh my goodness there he is canada's favorite parliamentary secretary the mp for calgary confederation and our podcast former co-host Corey Hogan I
Zain
4:59
bring the good word Oh 2025 oh Jesus fucking Christ grab
Zain
5:08
a chair Hogan grab a chair and show and join us for the accountability of your budget where are the climate initiatives
Zain
5:19
imagine if we pulled
Corey
5:20
pulled a fast one out of carter could we could
Corey
5:22
could we open this feels like a bit of bait and switch here i thought we were making fun of this guy could
Carter
5:27
could we open with a reading from the book of carney go
Shannon
5:32
the women's gender equality section and reach to us yes the
Corey
5:38
the fully funding of gender programs yeah oh great i'll
Corey
5:47
That's great. The word of Carney, so
Corey
5:49
so saith the Prime Minister.
Corey
5:55
for this August honour of now being and also ran on a podcast that I founded. And hey, congratulations on getting a church, apparently. I know, it's a big deal.
Carter
6:06
People in a balcony.
Corey
6:07
Yeah, I know, it's really cool. It's really cool.
Carter
6:11
Okay. Okay. I'm not very enthusiastic, people in the balcony.
Corey
6:13
balcony. I know. Listen, well...
Zain
6:19
you know what? You know what they did do tonight? They saved $45.
Zain
6:28
We're like 12 minutes in and we haven't asked you a question.
Carter
6:31
I'm making sure that it goes longer.
Zain
6:34
Carter, we'll actually give you a fair shake. Let's get started because I want Annalise, Corey, Shannon to all get in. what the hell happened man we
Carter
6:42
lost the question we
Carter
6:44
lost the question and when you lose the question you're not able to control the outcome of the election so
Carter
6:49
so the question became who
Carter
6:52
who do i want to vote for to stop joe t gondek who do i want to vote for to stop uh sonja sharp and the person that they chose is the one wearing the chains of office and they chose jeremy instead of uh instead of brian and that was we started to lose control of the question probably pretty
Carter
7:10
pretty early in september um but by the time october rolled around we had well and truly lost the the actual question
Corey
7:20
yeah can i i agree with you and i don't well that's a good conscience right i do think you lost control of the question but i actually think the
Corey
7:28
the question ended up being a little bit different uh
Zain
7:30
uh and and it was a challenge for you and maybe if the election had gone an
Corey
7:33
an extra month maybe the outcomes would have been different in unpredictable ways but for
Corey
7:37
for me i think a lot of calgarians started to see 2025 as a rerun of 2021 i mean you still had the main characters still right you had davison you had jeremy
Corey
7:47
jeremy farkas you had jody gondek they were all running again and they were you
Corey
7:51
you know they were the big dogs in that race until sonja sharp started moving up in in kind of the polling and
Corey
7:57
and they said the ballot question became did
Corey
8:00
did i make the right decision in 2021 and
Corey
8:02
as long as that was the ballot question you were you never had a chance now in the last month i think as sonia sharp started to increase i think the
Corey
8:11
the dynamic started to shift in interesting ways uh but i don't think you lost because
Corey
8:18
of the question you think you lost for well
Zain
8:26
remember he could be a minister one day go
Carter
8:30
he was a minister, I probably wouldn't tell him to go fuck himself, but he's not.
Zain
8:40
I actually appreciate that analysis. Annalise, you follow Municipal probably with Carter as close to Carter as possible. You were on TV on election night talking about the state of the race, the state of what happened.
Zain
8:55
-ups for Carter? Any analysis?
Annalise
8:56
analysis? Oh, I have follow-ups. Yes, you do. team in carter to cory's point though the way you frame the question is like the mayoral race you weren't just doing one race you were doing 15 14 14
Annalise
9:09
14 in calgary uh another 15 in edmonton when did you start to know i
Annalise
9:15
i guess walk back about like how hard it was to run that many races at the same time because it was a very different experience for you then last time and when When you started to know that it wasn't just mayoral, it was also these other races. Well,
Carter
9:28
Well, I mean, the councillor races were really interesting because they were really prompting up the mayor's race. We were able to do things that other campaigns couldn't do because we had ground game in 13 of the 14 wards. So we had our brochure distribution, I think, was better. I think our door knocking was better. I think our ability to do a ground game was better. And it actually showed itself in the councillor races, not in the mayor's race. Our councillors got about 25,000 more votes than the mayor's race got. So I think that we were able to capture people in a different way with the councillor races. Now, we still were only successful with one.
Carter
10:08
So ultimately, they weren't as successful as we would have liked, but they
Carter
10:14
provided a ground game that didn't exist for any of the other mayoralty campaigns, in my opinion. Do you think you made the wrong bet on parties?
Carter
10:26
Did I make the wrong bet on parties?
Zain
10:28
I'm plus one-ing the question, not his answer. No.
Carter
10:32
No, I didn't. Why?
Corey
10:38
all evidence to the contrary asks you, why? No,
Zain
10:42
No, I don't think the question... Ladies and
Zain
10:44
and gentlemen, thank you very much for having Corey Hogan here today.
Zain
10:49
you want to read something else? Any other sections he's missing? I'm sure there are, Shannon.
Zain
10:54
Carter, there's a two-part question. Two
Zain
10:56
Two-part question. You think you were wrong on parties. I'm going to add a second part to Annalise's question. Do you think you were wrong on this party in terms of what the name of this party was, the positioning of this party, or lack thereof, in terms of what you were trying to promote? So the party question, sure, but this party, the Calgary party?
Carter
11:14
Well, I mean, I wanted a party that was centre-left, not a party that was centre-right. In hindsight, I think that if we'd run a center-right party, we could have done better, but I don't think that that would have been as—we
Carter
11:29
as—we wouldn't have captured the same type
Carter
11:32
type of attention. But I still think—I
Carter
11:34
think—I know that evidence to the contrary, because we did get a lot of negative feedback at the doors, and people did poll
Carter
11:42
about 50-50 on parties, but we really ran into a lot of headwind in the inner city and a lot less headwind in the suburbs. There was a lot more openness to the party ideas in, for example, Ward 1 where Joey Nowak was within a few hundred votes of winning. We did Ward 12 where Sarah Ferguson was within 100 votes of winning. Yes, Sarah Ferguson.
Carter
12:09
We had – but
Carter
12:11
but then in the inner city, the inner city wards, we did much, much worse because of the party. The places where the quote-unquote progressives separated from us and had their own candidates, we did much worse. But it was mostly because those candidates were really rabble-rousing against the parties. Those three candidates in 7, 8, and 9 especially. So
Annalise
12:35
So if you were to do it again, you would still go all in on a party? I
Carter
12:40
I think that we had the best literature. I think we had the best policy structure. I think we had the best ability to to do the door-knocking. I think we had the best ability to do air war I think that our
Zain
12:52
is there is let me just uh, there's
Zain
12:55
there's laughter coming from the audience
Zain
13:01
think I like the build of your momentum. I think that's why they're
Corey
13:07
Encouraging laughter keep going
Annalise
13:10
How did you get one seat if you had all of that?
Carter
13:13
Oh, no, we didn't have we We didn't have what would win an election.
Corey
13:18
No, but y'all had a great time, I guess, right? Like, what is success? I'm serious. I'm not trying to be too mean, but, like,
Corey
13:26
isn't... Like, you say you had the best of these things, but isn't best in the context of a campaign best able to deliver votes?
Carter
13:33
Oh, yeah. I think, ultimately, that's what you want to measure.
Carter
13:37
I think, yeah, I think you're probably correct in that that is the ultimate measure.
Carter
13:41
Should we just turn it over to them? Listen,
Carter
13:45
the question was, would I do it again? And the answer is, yes, I would. But you haven't answered my question, which is, did your party stand for anything? Well, fuck you and your question.
Zain
13:55
one deserved a longer one.
Zain
13:56
My question is, I
Zain
13:58
I think you had more than what you said. If I were to buy everything you said, ground, game, lit, organizing, I also think you had a very, all due respect to the current mayor, I think you had a really good mayoral candidate, one that should have won and could have won on the question of best mayor in my mind.
Annalise
14:11
Thumbs up. From the current mayor.
Zain
14:14
I mean, I think that Jeremy... Don't be a sore winner, Farkas.
Zain
14:19
You've got a fucking chain around your neck.
Zain
14:26
I love Thyssen. I just, I think you guys had a
Zain
14:30
party that stood for nothing. Exactly. What was the fucking Calgary party, my
Corey
14:34
my man? Can we talk about that name?
Corey
14:36
Can we talk about the name? It's a serious question. Sorry, I think Shannon was going to go there. Okay,
Shannon
14:40
let's talk about the name and then I have a follow-up. on this assertion that a center-right party would have done better.
Corey
14:46
Yeah, I actually totally disagree, and so maybe it's a lead-in, too. Like, the
Corey
14:51
this is such a low-information landscape in a municipal election, right? You're trying to figure out who somebody is. I remember, I've told this story before, I'll tell it again. I remember one election, it was the one that Nahed won, so, like, 2010?
Corey
15:05
I went to my parents' house that night, and I said, well, who'd you vote for? And they said they were voted for Nahed, and then I said, well, who'd you vote for? for
Corey
15:12
for councillors, like, I don't know, one of them had stickers that the firefighters supported them on, and I voted for that one, right? And so when I think about that, I
Corey
15:23
what does the Calgary Party communicate to people?
Carter
15:26
Well, the Buffalo Party was already taken.
Zain
15:31
No, no, but can you bring us inside the story, Carter? It
Carter
15:34
It was for one person.
Zain
15:35
person. How and why the Calgary Party? If you wanted to go centre-left, why not It's not even an indication, though. Progressive.
Corey
15:42
Progressive. An indicator to a low-information voter who is bombarded with candidates that this is the progressive candidate. You know,
Carter
15:48
that's an excellent question, and I think the answer is we wanted to have our cake and eat it, too, right?
Carter
15:52
right? We wanted to be in a position where we could appeal, you know, be centre-left but pick up voters. Municipal elections are weird.
Carter
15:59
People vote, you know, all over their place on the ideological frame. So we didn't want to say, we're the progressive party because,
Carter
16:07
because, you know, for a progressive of Calgary first
Carter
16:09
first of all I think that there were we did run into some problems with the word progressive there was just some legal issues but what
Carter
16:20
never run into a legal issue yourselves I guess no
Carter
16:24
no but there was some challenges with some of the names and we wound up choosing the most watered-down version because we were right off the bat right
Carter
16:31
right off the bat we tried to assemble the largest possible team to make decisions collectively as much as possible that
Carter
16:38
that That was a massive mistake.
Carter
16:41
Why did you do that, though? Because we're trying to get buy-in, especially from the fucking progressives.
Carter
16:54
know, when you're trying to win over a group of voters, you can't have them split, right?
Carter
17:00
right? And so this group was splitting almost from, like, it was a group that is bound to fracture structure because progressives all like to test each other's blood and make sure they know whether or not
Zain
17:09
not i need i need to get shannon in here in a second so keep going but this i think this hits on shannon center right and i'm sure you're probably going to want to jump in on the progressive element they
Carter
17:16
they break apart like brittle glass and
Carter
17:20
and so we tried to bring them together and tried to include them in our decision making and
Carter
17:24
and so from the very beginning we had a group of 50 60 70 70 people sometimes that would gather in Brian's boardroom, and
Carter
17:34
half of them, at the very least, you
Carter
17:37
know, would be, would object to something, and
Carter
17:40
and then they would object to something else, and
Carter
17:42
and then there would be something else, and then they wind up fucking you anyways.
Shannon
17:47
perhaps you're familiar. Shannon, get it, get it.
Shannon
17:49
Welcome to the NDP.
Shannon
17:58
It's a mistake to invite too many new Democrats. One of the first jobs I ever had, my friend Marilyn Hooper, who went on to work in City
Shannon
18:07
City Hall in Edmonton, used to say, you know, you can please some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but you can never please
Shannon
18:13
please a new Democrat. So that is true. That is an iron law of politics. But it doesn't... It's also true of the cranks in the other parties. It's true of politics. ticks so what i don't get is there was a clear lane here
Shannon
18:32
here uh a center left lane because jeremy just pretend you're not here um you
Shannon
18:39
you had a very crowded uh right flank davidson sharp nobody knows what he is um we'll
Shannon
18:48
we'll get to that
Shannon
18:51
and you had an incumbent who had essentially disqualified herself from reelection so you had a clear center left lane so
Shannon
18:59
so i i i have a question about how it is that um like you what you said once on the podcast that as soon as you're talking about viability that uh that's all you're talking about but it would seem to me that the first question to take on was viability in the center her left lane well
Carter
19:18
well the the left versus right question that was developing was entirely around housing and
Carter
19:24
and housing was a nightmare for us housing was a problem for money and housing was a problem for people hold
Zain
19:29
hold on one sec you think people voted on issues in this election no not at all okay
Zain
19:33
okay keep going i just want to make sure i'm clear with that this but
Carter
19:36
but the vote wasn't about issues our lane was on that issue we
Carter
19:40
we had we were the only ones beside a mayor who had
Carter
19:45
to our previous four years we were the only ones who
Carter
19:50
had the ability to take housing and make housing our show but
Carter
19:55
but we were so pressured
Carter
19:57
pressured from so many different people though because it turns out that housing people the people who like housing and the people who like parties are in a Venn diagram two
Carter
20:09
two different circles right
Carter
20:13
so we were pressured in a massive fashion because we couldn't
Carter
20:18
ultimately we had to back away from housing we had to back away from our left-wing
Carter
20:23
credentials if you will because
Carter
20:25
because there was so much pressure from the center and so much pressure uh
Carter
20:28
uh from others do
Corey
20:29
do you think that was complicated by being in a party where it cut differently on on the ward level like you you talk about Shannon a really crowded race and you're totally right on
Corey
20:39
the mayoral side but you know on some of the riding level or ward level fights it was a bit different which maybe made it a bit harder to carve out like a victory path that was 35 percent say instead of 50.
Carter
20:51
Yeah I mean that was one of the challenges because you would have certain wards where you couldn't even mention housing you
Carter
20:57
you know if you mentioned housing you were dead in the water and those
Carter
21:01
those words are now represented by troglodytes so I
Carter
21:09
think that's the right word oh yeah I
Zain
21:12
don't know what that word means but Christy can you just add one for just in case I
Zain
21:17
don't know what I don't just add one just in case it means something that I don't want to be sinning troglodytes
Carter
21:26
what would you play as a chord for troglodytes
Carter
21:33
just anything come on Christy yeah
Zain
21:35
yeah that sounds right I would have said yes to anything
Zain
21:38
but Carter I know Shannon wants to get in and Annalise wants to get in so can
Zain
21:42
can you help me summarize a bit
Zain
21:45
what do you think you guys let's start this what would you do again
Zain
21:50
what would you do again party I have as you would do again And this party, this
Zain
21:55
this sort of mealy mouth stand for nothing, my definition,
Zain
21:59
like, your candidates I thought were great, but your party stood for nothing. This is my analysis. Would you do this party again? Let's just, like, get to the facts. I would do this party
Carter
22:07
party with a different name. Okay.
Carter
22:14
would hold on to housing tighter.
Carter
22:17
Really, really jump on housing.
Carter
22:19
Like, we're the only ones who are going to go for it.
Zain
22:22
you're talking about future election or if what if you would redo this one just redo this election okay that's what you would have done we
Carter
22:27
we only needed like what what did jeremy he won with four percent six percent of the vote something like that um the
Carter
22:35
vote total was so bad in hindsight we were shooting for a hundred thousand votes hundred thousand votes you can get on housing let's
Carter
22:43
let's go housing all the
Annalise
22:44
the way how how would you have got like in a low information voting era we can talk about media we can talk about social media like how would you have gone all in on housing well
Carter
22:56
well now you're bringing up the impossible the the impossible challenge that we're running into in politics right now so
Carter
23:04
you're right i don't have the answer for the impossible challenge so the impossible challenge is
Carter
23:08
is there is no more traditional media social
Carter
23:12
social media is a best assessed pool but there is no communication structure around it anymore not
Carter
23:17
not the way we used to be like Like Jyoti,
Carter
23:19
Jyoti, in her first run, we would put out four or five, you know, tweets in a tweet stream, right? And everybody would read them and think that she was taking on Jason Kenney. There was none of that. You couldn't put things up on Twitter X now and have it seen by people. Everything had to be paid. Everything had to be produced.
Carter
23:40
produced. And it was just really, really hard to get anybody's attention. attention. And so to that point, I think that that's where housing would have actually worked.
Carter
23:49
Because I think that housing was the one issue that everybody was talking about. And it would have done us just fine to have 900,000 people walking around the city of Calgary saying, I'm not voting for those pricks because they're pro-housing. And the 100,000 people that are pro-housing go, oh, those
Carter
24:05
those are my people. That's who I need to go to. I
Zain
24:08
I get head nods from Shannon. So if
Shannon
24:10
you had more money then, how would you have bought your way out of that to make housing the vote
Shannon
24:16
vote determining issue for the progressives? Because clearly we have to buy it in order to get the eyeballs, but there's a problem of fundraising there. But if you had the money, what would you have bought to do it? Apparently
Carter
24:31
Apparently I didn't spend the money very well because, what was the thing you said about votes?
Corey
24:37
You need them to win.
Carter
24:38
We need more votes to win.
Corey
24:41
Ladies and gentlemen, you're a member of parliament right here.
Corey
24:44
Something I learned, by
Zain
24:51
maybe not with that budget.
Corey
24:54
I are sitting here being like, yeah, so what? Who
Zain
25:01
What was the question? How would you structure a party?
Zain
25:03
party? How are you buying
Carter
25:04
buying it? I would just
Carter
25:04
just buy housing ads. I
Carter
25:06
I mean, we bought ads on all kinds of different issues. didn't resonate apparently
Carter
25:12
no I mean we weren't getting the
Carter
25:16
only metrics we could get from our advertising is how many people we showed it to there was no other metrics that were really starting to come you know like there was no um organic views there was no organic sharing there was no organic comments all of that was gone it just didn't exist and I don't know if it existed it in other people's pages. I mean, we would go and do spot checks on Jeremy's page.
Carter
25:41
We'd go and do spot checks on Jyoti. Jyoti's page was quite an adventure to go do a spot check on. Don't read that page. That was nasty.
Carter
25:49
But, you know, we'd take a look at everybody's stuff, and no one was getting organic stuff. No one was getting anything that had any real jump, because we were like, if someone's got jump, we'll copy what they're doing.
Carter
26:02
I wasn't above it, you know.
Carter
26:04
But no one no one was really getting the big jumps let
Zain
26:08
let me okay so let me get in the bucket of what you would do again party but not this one what else would you do again let's say you're running it back we give you hindsight tonight as as in your favor what would you do and leave the same because i want to make this constructive this is as much as it gives some of us in this room satisfaction to shit on carter i
Zain
26:29
want to actually figure out
Zain
26:33
i see that chris that's good wasn't
Zain
26:35
wasn't wasn't part of the example set but christy's like learning
Zain
26:38
on the job uh carter what
Zain
26:41
what else would you leave in the i would still do this bucket i'd
Carter
26:44
i'd keep the candidates okay
Carter
26:45
okay i was super pleased with our candidates there are candidates that are great big round of applause for our candidates do
Annalise
26:54
do you think it would do you think it was easier to recruit those candidates with a party? Oh, absolutely.
Carter
26:58
absolutely. I mean, keep in mind that in
Carter
27:01
in terms of progressive people who are running in this election, and just, you know, define your own level of progressive.
Carter
27:08
If you were running as an independent, you were a white man.
Carter
27:11
If you were a progressive, and
Carter
27:13
and you ran in this election, if you weren't running with the Calgary party, you were a white man unless your name was Courtney Penner.
Carter
27:20
Everybody else was, you
Carter
27:22
I mean, you can, They're cookie cutters except for the mustache,
Carter
27:28
another small bit joke there. It was good, though. Harrison, yeah. Harrison, yeah.
Annalise
27:35
It's pretty good. Funny.
Annalise
27:37
Who beat your candidate? The
Carter
27:39
The party enabled us to recruit visible minorities. The party enabled us to recruit women. The party enabled us to recruit people with different means. we were able to put people into competitive
Carter
27:54
we weren't able to win but
Carter
27:56
but we put them into competitive races because we had a party structure if
Carter
27:59
if you look around at the other people who were in those competitive races they didn't have the party structure they there was a lot of people I mean obviously a lot of people fail when they run in these elections but the people who failed the hardest was anybody who's kind of reached out of out
Carter
28:18
of the generic white male stereotype what
Zain
28:22
what would you change what's that it looks okay so you've got your pluses I'm not gonna dress some of those cupboards you're entitled to what you kind of think on the on that stream of things in terms of what happened and what should leave the same what
Zain
28:33
what would you change because
Zain
28:35
because if you're keeping your candidates and you're keeping your party and you're you're tweaking the name, what
Zain
28:39
what would you change? Is it financial allocation? Is it leadership? Is it people? Is it structure? Is it timeline? Is it when you started attacking Danielle Smith? Like, I'm giving you some ideas. Can
Annalise
28:50
Can you talk about that momentum to Zane's point? We talked in the summer on an episode, and you're like, 10 seats? We're going to do 10 seats. What am I going to say?
Zain
29:03
don't know. We're trying our best. Did
Annalise
29:05
Did you really think, like, did you just not hit the momentum at the right time? Did you need three more months? We were doing
Carter
29:13
doing really well right after Stampede. Our
Carter
29:15
Our money was flowing really well. Right after Stampede, when we'd done that first poster thing, everybody was talking about us. We were doing very well right after Stampede. Then we hit... When most of
Annalise
29:26
of Calgary was away. When
Carter
29:28
When most of Calgary was away, yes.
Carter
29:31
Great, great time. Then we hit August, where it got even worse. No one was around in August. I would definitely change when we started to go after Danielle Smith.
Carter
29:41
I think that if we'd gone after Danielle Smith, you know, starting just before Labor Day, we could have really established ourselves as the anti-Danielle Smith party. Even, in fact, we could have gone after Danielle Smith more in July.
Carter
29:56
It was kind of the silver bullet that we were saving, and we saved it too long. We
Carter
30:00
We only did three weeks of really anti-Danielle Smith rhetoric, and I really wish that we'd done that much earlier, before the race had started to coalesce around, what did you characterize it as, the 2021 redo?
Corey
30:17
redo? Yeah, it was a mulligan on 21. want yeah yeah
Carter
30:20
yeah so when it started to coalesce around that that's when we really started to go after danielle and
Carter
30:25
and i think that if we'd gone after danielle you
Carter
30:29
three weeks four weeks earlier than that we could have started to switch the the temperature gauge what
Annalise
30:34
what what about tying sharp to danielle smith and i think it's what we haven't really talked about that but sharp was 500 votes away from being mayor like 700
Carter
30:44
700 no one's counting um
Annalise
30:47
um But, um, yeah,
Annalise
30:48
yeah, I mean, Sharp.
Annalise
30:51
Like, Sharp was part of a party.
Carter
30:53
Yeah, Sharp was really scared.
Carter
30:56
Sharp was the only one we really attacked.
Carter
30:59
And really, Sharp was attacked by everyone. Sir, clarify
Zain
31:02
clarify what you mean by scary. Do you mean as an opponent, or if she became mayor, she would have been scary as an outcome, or both? Oh,
Carter
31:07
Oh, if she became mayor.
Carter
31:09
She was positively the worst possible person to become the mayor of a city.
Carter
31:21
not for cory though cory thinks that she's okay i
Corey
31:25
am stone-faced on all things uh not in my political lane but
Corey
31:30
look you know steven i i gotta tell you this we haven't even gotten to edmonton jesus we're not doing edmonton yet gotta
Annalise
31:39
gotta go to edmonton
Corey
31:39
edmonton christy um but you're you're kind of introspection right now seems to be along the lines of the operation was a success it's too bad the patient died you know
Carter
31:57
only won the one election so
Carter
32:02
you're probably not familiar with how it feels when you start to get the momentum
Carter
32:08
once you start to get the moment so the
Carter
32:12
wave that passed us and hit jeremy and hit sonja and hit uh jyoti to a degree because jyoti did pick up a lot of of the wave that i i think was there for us to pick up the wave that we missed could
Carter
32:28
could have been our way yes
Zain
32:32
wait wait got me You
Zain
32:34
have won. Say that again. The wave.
Zain
32:38
could have won, Zane. I don't know. I'm sorry.
Carter
32:42
The wave we missed. Yeah.
Carter
32:44
Had we gone after Danielle Smith perhaps three weeks earlier, that
Carter
32:48
that wave could have picked us up and taken us somewhere. Do
Carter
32:52
really think that? So
Zain
32:52
So it's not that the Calgary party didn't stand for anything. Got it. Okay. Yeah.
Carter
32:56
We stood for all kinds of things. We had 11 policy books. I
Zain
32:59
I mean, you had a party that rhymed with the Alberta Party, in a sense, that has not been a vehicle that didn't go anywhere for a decade. Like, I don't mean to be like, hey, it was a failure on day one, but...
Carter
33:09
Yeah, there were so many ways. I remember working with you and Corey on a campaign
Carter
33:14
campaign for the Alberta Party. It was really close to actually going somewhere.
Corey
33:19
Yes. Yeah, that's not part of the website bio, but yeah.
Zain
33:24
We did. We worked on Great Talks
Zain
33:26
Talks by-election campaigns. Great Talks by-election. This is a great time to mention that this is when mall security at Sunridge Mall
Zain
33:34
okay, this is a real story. Can I share a real story? You can, and I know it. This
Zain
33:37
such a pretty good
Corey
33:37
good story. To be fair to them. To
Zain
33:39
To be fair to them, I was a brown man buying 50 burner phones from...
Corey
33:46
the 50 burner phones part, I think, is maybe suspicious behavior.
Zain
33:51
And because my credit limit was not high enough, I was paying on debit. debit.
Zain
33:59
Very popular. Car to the northeast. Anyways.
Zain
34:03
Optimum points. It all ties back. Galen Weston approves science. Anyways.
Zain
34:09
I'm buying 50 burner phones from the Best Buy mobile and mall security pretty much keeps me there for three hours because they think I'm doing the most biggest drug deal ever.
Zain
34:19
That was the Greg Clark campaign by-election. Unrelated to anything we're talking about, but maybe.
Shannon
34:24
maybe. So, like the Alberta Party, standing for nothing, but also, I want to put a thesis to you, Carter, and that is this, that the waves that were missed, that you could have caught and would have been yours, I
Shannon
34:40
I think. Yeah, you got it.
Zain
34:42
Waves just create themselves.
Zain
34:45
They're not generated. Campaigns don't matter, and then you just ride them. That's
Shannon
34:49
That's how budgets balance themselves. I'm reading a Murakami novel. Okay. But, okay, so in my view, this is my thesis. They were, and this is as a Calgary politics adjacent sort of normie. I don't really care about Calgary politics. But you
Shannon
35:07
you missed the villain and
Shannon
35:10
you missed the viability.
Shannon
35:12
That's my thesis. That there was no villain, whether
Shannon
35:15
whether it's that guy sitting right there or daniel smith or like there was a a defining who the opponent is who are we trying to beat and why but two we are the person to beat them uh
Shannon
35:26
uh because you had to establish that to get the incumbent out of the way that's
Shannon
35:30
that's the thesis i totally
Carter
35:32
totally agree with that and
Carter
35:33
and i think that we missed on both the the villain which is why i wanted we should have moved daniel smith up earlier we didn't go after i don't think we mentioned jeremy once um why why who
Carter
35:44
who could remember how to spell his name the
Shannon
35:49
voters the voters remembered how to spell jeremy are you uh
Zain
35:55
the mayor of calgary it's good
Carter
36:00
it's good it's nice it's pretty good it's
Zain
36:02
it's nice yeah it's nice the i actually agree with shannon says but i'm let you if you're if you're on a wave here that's just been created it out of nowhere please write it no
Carter
36:11
no I think that if we if we viability
Carter
36:14
viability was our problem from the very beginning and
Carter
36:16
and we struggled with viability and
Carter
36:19
think that we did a pretty good job of viability right after again when everybody was on vacation as Annalise pointed after stampede
Carter
36:26
stampede and then we couldn't we
Carter
36:29
we couldn't get it back fast enough in in late August and early early September, and by the time we'd lurched to the attack Danielle phase, we'd
Carter
36:44
we'd missed the wave. The wave had passed us. I do think that there was a wave for us to catch. I do think that there was a mechanism by which we could have won.
Carter
36:54
We just missed it. And that is foundationally different- I want to bring something up here.
Carter
36:59
going. It's foundationally different than just getting your ass handed to you. you remember the abc election in vancouver as
Zain
37:05
as long as you want to bring that up yeah
Carter
37:09
got my ass handed to me yeah
Carter
37:11
there was no wave to catch there was no wave that we could manufacture there was no wave that we could get and i think there's been a couple of times i've said jenny sims in in surrey i've said there has there was just not an opportunity for
Carter
37:24
for us to win we
Carter
37:26
we didn't have the opportunity the wave there
Carter
37:28
there was no wave there was no construction of a wave there There was no premise of a wave. But I'm telling you, with the Calgary party, with the opportunity that we had, there was a wave that was there that could have been taken advantage of that we didn't get. Why did
Annalise
37:42
did you not get it? We
Carter
37:44
We didn't go fast enough on Danielle. We weren't seen as viable when the question came around.
Zain
37:49
As much as I make fun of you, it's out of love because, I will say this,
Zain
37:57
there was a moment for me, And I'm curious if there was a moment for the rest of you here, and probably some in the room, knowing
Zain
38:03
knowing Carter, there was a, Carter's got to move.
Zain
38:07
Carter's like, you know, three weeks, because adding your name to something, you know, despite everything you are, in some cases because of who you are, adds a
Zain
38:18
a credibility marker, but also adds a skill factor where we were like, there's got to be a Carter move here. Four weeks. There's got to be a
Corey
38:25
a Carter move here. Three weeks. I talk to reporters, I talk to columnists, I talk to opinion leaders, not just here in Calgary, but across Canada. And they'd be like, yeah, but Carter's got
Zain
38:35
got something, right? Carter's going to do a thing,
Zain
38:38
You were calling me asking. Did you make a play and we didn't notice?
Corey
38:49
know what? I'm going to make that my ringtone.
Zain
38:54
Carter, did you have no moves?
Carter
38:57
describing my high school love life?
Zain
39:01
No, I mean... I'm curious. You add a massive credibility factor. Like, you're very good at what you do, which is why I think expectations were high when you were like, we're going to win 10 seats. I'm like, fucking Carter's going to win 10 seats. No,
Carter
39:12
No, here's the way it was supposed to work.
Carter
39:15
The way it was supposed to work was that the ground game that we were doing through April,
Carter
39:18
April, May, June, July, that
Carter
39:20
that ground game was going to be a basis
Carter
39:22
basis of support. and
Carter
39:24
that basis of support and viability was then going to be elevated
Carter
39:28
elevated by the air war that came with the with the mayor's race and I just don't think that air war came with the mayor's race I mean the evidence shows that we didn't capture that wave that usually comes along I
Carter
39:43
I would argue with all due respect to the mayor it
Carter
39:46
it didn't come for anybody really someone
Carter
39:49
someone and I'm not agreeing
Zain
39:50
agreeing with you you, just so you know.
Carter
39:52
Someone, and I'm not pointing any figures, lost like 21,000 votes from his last time.
Carter
39:57
This was not an election that anybody was winning so much as everybody else was losing. And we just happened to be the biggest loser.
Corey
40:09
Yeah, I want to hear about Edmonton now. We're not
Zain
40:15
I know you're turning to me. Although,
Carter
40:17
Although, I will say, I would like to welcome Reid Clark, one of my former candidates.
Carter
40:22
Reid Clark, thank you very much. Councillor. Successful candidate. I would like to. Yeah, successful councillor in Edmonton who has subsequently left the party.
Carter
40:37
Thanks, Reid. Good to see you. I
Shannon
40:38
I would like to welcome a candidate who won, Erin Paquette, councillor for Wardini.
Carter
40:49
Not a Carter candidate. Anyone you'd like to welcome?
Corey
40:54
I introduced myself pretty nicely, I thought.
Shannon
40:57
Another candidate who won.
Zain
41:03
by the way, for you guys, I was pretty casual with this. What we're going to do is, at some point, we'll break this part of the conversation, and then we'll have a part B. We'll do a quick 10-minute intermission. We'll come back. There'll be a Q&A, a special guest. we'll chat some more shit we'll get you guys involved uh so we'll put carter out of his misery at some point uh however to this point not this
Zain
41:23
not this not right now i i want to understand from like you've got five
Zain
41:28
five political practitioners on the stage here many more interested in politics people elected to office people who are political practitioners themselves let's talk about the state of play in a broader sense and get into the what the hell did you learn so if this was less accountability more forward-looking what the hell did you learn this time my man I learned that so social
Carter
41:51
need social networks to activate case
Carter
41:54
case in point Corey Hogan Corey Hogan had the social networks activate the the number of people that came from our discord that
Carter
42:02
that the number of people who came from the subscribers from the people who were here how many people actually worked on the cory hogan campaign where
Carter
42:10
where the were you
Corey
42:11
you for your service where
Carter
42:13
where were how many of that same group of people worked on jeremy's campaign
Carter
42:22
that's not what i heard they're all
Corey
42:23
all in the balcony the
Carter
42:25
the discord was all over jeremy bear me you know like the
Carter
42:30
the the truth is that the social networks are the only way to activate a vote right now and those social networks are super
Carter
42:38
super hard to reach. They're easier to reach at a federal politic level. They're easier to reach at a provincial politic level. They were impossible to reach municipally. We still saw the same spike 24 hours before the election of the number of people who went and searched Jeremy Farkas' name or searched the Calgary Party or any of these other things. Would
Zain
43:01
Would you, can I ask you this? I'll ask you this one, I'll let Corey get in. would you today take 500 super fans of your next political project or half a million dollars in the bank 500
Carter
43:11
500 super fans no kidding yeah anytime
Zain
43:12
anytime you would too get it with your comment
Corey
43:14
comment as well yeah look first of all the world can be changed by 50 super fans right like it's just it's so important the people who show up make decisions and they can change everything and they can bring five non-super fans with them and they can bring five different new super fans the week after that but
Corey
43:32
but I as you talk Steven I realized what the original sin of your campaign was and it
Corey
43:39
it was that you ran it like it was a provincial election or a federal election you created a political party that was designed to appeal to a lot of people instead of a narrow interest that's required to win municipally you treated it as though the candidates were candidates for MLA within a bigger party frame and that's just simply not how it works the candidates who won for
Corey
44:01
for you well I think about DJ specifically he almost won the time before right and there was this Shawn Chu thing and it was going back and forth on and it
Corey
44:09
it was never gonna be a provincial election ever
Corey
44:12
ever there was never gonna be a situation where the policy would speak to everybody I'm not even saying parties can't work municipally I'm saying it's
Corey
44:21
it's gonna look different municipally and you tried to make it look like it would look provincially but
Shannon
44:26
but Corey if that's the the case then why did the right-wing uh people win but
Corey
44:32
but but they really didn't like when you look at like the community's first you
Corey
44:36
you know slate they
Corey
44:38
they a few won but they
Corey
44:40
they were incumbents you know it was a situation where if anything i started to think well because i was looking at them you can look it up yourself but one of the community's first people their vote dropped a lot and i thought because oh they just put the label on themselves that they are now a member of this right-wing group and I just don't see any evidence that political parties municipally are going to perform at least in the short term like
Corey
45:03
like they do provincially
Zain
45:07
scattered applause it's my favorite what
Zain
45:10
do you think of that thesis I'm asking you for what you learned but I'm curious Corey's thrown something on the table I'm curious to get your reaction to it that you tried to model this after something you'd already seen in different orders as a government or different political avenues
Carter
45:25
thesis behind the party is is different i think than people want it to be the thesis behind the party is that people make such shallow choices when they're making their vote you know um the the sticker the sticker from the firefighters on a sign we
Carter
45:42
we wanted to give them a political shorthand they knew that they were choosing the right candidate without
Carter
45:47
having to do the work of
Carter
45:49
of choosing the right candidate.
Carter
45:52
I still think that's right.
Carter
45:53
I still think that people
Carter
45:55
make... Fuck off! You called it the Calgary Party. I'm telling you right now. The Liberal
Carter
46:00
Liberal Party was going to be that much easier? I couldn't even name it after the Liberal Party. Someone already had
Corey
46:07
had that. You know what? People think their whole life about whether they're a Liberal or a New Democrat or a Conservative. The Calgary Party, it's too much mental work you know and this was true actually I believe of communities first too it doesn't mean a ton and in fact if you picked up some of Sonia's earliest literature you could think she was the far-left candidate you know it was just very generic and it was bad wayfinding and it was only when she started providing good wayfinding that she started to rise in the polls
Zain
46:40
else did you learn huh
Zain
46:43
huh what else did you learn
Carter
46:48
this whole fucking show been
Zain
46:49
been about what i learned
Zain
46:50
learned well here's the thing you you learned that you would triple down on social networks more so than anything else advert was advertised did you learn something i think we learned i think we learned anything about leadership did you learn anything about um structure like these are the things that i want to kind of go through in terms
Zain
47:05
terms of what you feel like were lessons learned that you will pour to the next project that you take on?
Carter
47:12
Social networks are the only thing that matter, and I wouldn't spend nearly as much money on digital.
Carter
47:17
We'd pull back way back on digital. Canada Post going on strike in the middle of a campaign is never good,
Carter
47:24
especially when you lose about 100,000 brochures and you have to send
Carter
47:30
send a truck to go get the other 400. hundred like you can't deliver 500,000 brochures without Canada Post so losing Canada Post well that was a huge chunk of our communication strategy that just went away when when we lost that we tried to replace it but man
Carter
47:48
man those brochures never got delivered so when
Carter
47:51
when you lose a half million brochures when you you know I would I would I still think that going direct home is the best way to to communicate through the mail you know we're through the mail or door knocking I still don't think that texting is working as well as we think it is and I don't think they call the calling is working at all so
Carter
48:13
you know if we're going back the first calling
Carter
48:15
wasn't working at all oh
Zain
48:16
oh no talk to me about calling let's take a deep dive for a second on calling we we've heard in recent sort of political science and practitioner evidence that like chatty phone calls or what's the hottest thing again. Tell me why calling wasn't working. And was it the type of calling you were doing? Zane, you haven't answered your phone in six years.
Zain
48:36
Yeah. I'm pretty confident in where I stand on most things. Including not picking up a call from my MP.
Zain
48:44
Until he's a minister.
Zain
48:49
Two out of five. Which, by the way, you could just get behind there and you'll be a type of
Corey
48:53
minister. Lots of ministers, right?
Carter
48:55
But keep going. Two out of five, one out of three doors will open when you knock on them. Yes.
Carter
49:00
You're going to get a conversion rate that's going to be one out of every four doors, one out of every six doors, something along those lines, where you're converting a voter over to your numbers. On telephone calls, you can literally have the auto dialer and just turn it on, and the odds of getting someone who's actually a voter are unbelievably slim. limb and what you are getting you're getting a group of voters for they're either angry and they want to talk about it or
Carter
49:27
or they're lonely and they'd like to talk about it right
Carter
49:31
right or they're stupid and you don't want to talk about it right
Carter
49:35
right but don't not your voters your voters were very respecting
Zain
49:38
the voter was not a lesson that stephen carter learned but
Carter
49:43
but there's the truth of the matter is Because you're not reaching a voter that is available to you on the telephones. And the texting is interesting because I know that in
Carter
49:53
in Edmonton we bought a lot of texting and texting we're getting a lot of really positive feedback. I'm not sure that feedback's real.
Carter
50:01
I think that it's kind of like digital. You put digital up, you get a lot of digital numbers, but the digital numbers aren't necessarily real. What are we measuring? right
Carter
50:10
right like we're putting real
Carter
50:12
real bodies into a theater or a church that's
Carter
50:17
don't know that at any point during the campaign we could have put you
Carter
50:20
you know we put 400 people in a couple of times did you do
Carter
50:24
we tried to do events not rallies okay rallies are super hard events
Carter
50:29
events we could do because we could like offer people something you
Carter
50:33
you know you give them like a crustless
Carter
50:36
pickles that was really good people
Corey
50:39
people who paid too much money got that joke for sure
Zain
50:43
yeah yeah the rich bourgeois just laughing it up with their same belgium for leader lonside but
Corey
50:48
but you know it's an interesting point because i certainly even in my own campaign started thinking part way through that the real benefit of
Corey
50:54
of some of these mass communications channels that are easily tuned out and we're just drowned in them is you're telling your own supporters what what the message is right like you are phone blasting it out to take it out yeah it's less to actually persuade the people directly and it's more to persuade the people indirectly it's to tell the people who are actually willing to pick up the phone when they see the caller id say cory hogan campaign okay
Corey
51:17
okay this is the message we're using now when we're talking about jeremy nixon or when we're talking about pierre poliev and
Corey
51:24
and that's a shift right that's very different from how we used to treat these we used to treat them as direct channels and maybe now they're in direct channels in some ways yeah
Shannon
51:34
thing you said that i agree
Carter
51:35
agree with tonight i
Shannon
51:36
i think it only works when you have it on top of like in your case in my case on top of a page that is going through uh you know and you're buying every inch of eyeball that you can uh with youtube with you know podcast ads with every available square inch yeah it works then uh otherwise it's too diffused because it's just
Corey
51:54
just oh i i totally agree like i don't know if
Shannon
51:57
if it would would work municipally is what i'm saying well
Corey
51:59
well that's a great point because i think you need to have that message given by land sea and air many many times before people get that that's the message here's
Zain
52:07
here's here's an interesting sort of meta question as we sit in a room of people who are showing up to our podcast right which is that we have you know through our efforts but also a reciprocal effort of people in this room created some form of small c community but you couldn't create that for your campaign so like i'm almost kind of trying to ask like what is a hack that modern media or culture or community building gives you that you want to pour into politics including this show like this is why i think it's an interesting meta question where it's like you're like i couldn't find fans yet you have 350 plus people here listening to your podcast about your party like there's an irony there's like an interesting fucked up irony this is by far the That's the most anyone has ever
Corey
52:51
ever talked about the Calgary party in front of people. Yeah.
Zain
52:58
talk to me about that, and then I'll get, like... And
Annalise
53:00
And not only do you have a church full of people, you have people that paid $75, who don't pay $6 a month, but they paid $75. I love you
Zain
53:12
What have you learned about building community? Back to your first point about networks that only matter. And I won't let anyone get on this, But what have you learned about community building if those other ways are becoming indirect or less effective?
Carter
53:26
I think we tried to choose
Carter
53:28
choose our friends a little bit too much.
Carter
53:30
And we would have been way better off if we'd started with a smaller group of people that was
Carter
53:37
was a little bit more evangelical about it. Rather than saying, let's go find some evangelists and get them to join our campaign. That was our big mistake early on. we shouldn't have been quite so eager to find big names. The big name could have been, should have been Brian Thiessen, and that would have been just fine. But
Carter
54:02
But we went and tried to find a lot of people who would help us project our message out, and then they wound up going other places, and they projected messages against us that were incredibly damning. And frankly, they were very interested in winning a few seats, instead of winning the majority of seats. And now we've only got a few seats.
Zain
54:25
I'm going to move it to our over, under, and our lightning round. Oh, here we go. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let everyone except myself kind of get in a question. So, Shannon, any questions lingering on your mind for Stephen to ask him? At least the same. And then, Corey, I'll end with you to
Zain
54:40
to ask Stephen in terms of what he's learned, in terms of the accountability, in terms of the go forward as a practitioner.
Annalise
54:50
Were you spread too thin?
Carter
54:52
I was running Edmonton, Calgary, had some stuff in Medicine Hat.
Carter
54:56
It was a little touch and go. So,
Zain
54:58
So, yes. But to that point, though, can I ask a follow-up to your question, Annalise? Yes. Why did you always tell us you were running 28 campaigns and not two?
Zain
55:07
Like, even the way you thought about the campaign... It's Stephen Carter. It's Stephen Carter, sure. But, like, I want to understand if there was a strategic reason why you were like, Like, nope, nope, there's 28 campaigns. Brandy, right? Not two political parties. Because
Carter
55:20
Because I think that each one of those candidates deserved my full attention.
Carter
55:28
saying two, I gave as much attention to every single candidate as humanly possible. And I believe that
Carter
55:38
continue to believe I believe and I continue to believe that that was the methodology by which we could have caught the wave. is by actually building a good, solid base foundation. So,
Corey
55:49
So, Stephen, your actions and your words live on separate continents, though. Like, you
Corey
55:54
you can't have 28 campaigns and say you're giving them all your full attention.
Corey
56:00
that's just math, my dude.
Carter
56:04
to his right, he said they deserve his full attention. We could have done this when he was in Ottawa.
Carter
56:08
You know, I told you we could have done it when he was in Ottawa. No,
Carter
56:11
No, you have to do it when he's on a break week. he
Zain
56:14
gets a lot of break time is what I've learned
Zain
56:17
does he do all day let's turn it to Corey back
Zain
56:20
to that budget okay so but Annalise's question were you spread too thin it's
Annalise
56:26
it's a yes or no question it's
Carter
56:27
a yes or no question yes
Shannon
56:32
in the fuck could
Shannon
56:34
could you run a
Shannon
56:35
a right wing campaign in Edmonton and a left wing campaign in Calgary
Zain
56:42
know you know what i'll make the audible to add 10 minutes to the clock let's do it
Carter
56:51
of all i just i i reject the notion that either one was particularly
Carter
56:56
left or right where have
Shannon
56:58
you meet tim cartmel did you talk to him ever i
Carter
57:01
i did i spent a lot of time with tim and i think that tim cartmel's biggest failing if i may just foreshadowing for the Edmonton show was
Carter
57:10
was that he had many different disagreements with the premier that he wouldn't voice then
Carter
57:16
then he's a right winger
Carter
57:18
he's centre right or a coward
Carter
57:21
is a different show
Shannon
57:28
do you balance that is my question because they are fundamentally different approaches different electorates and and a different way of running a campaign. They have to be.
Carter
57:40
I'd say I'm really good, but we lost both.
Zain
57:46
Was it the same strategy in Edmonton, Carter? Like, would you be doing a copy and paste of sorts? Not really.
Carter
57:54
We had a much bigger name in Tim.
Carter
57:57
So Tim was always, we always led, it was almost the inverse of the race in Calgary. We led with Tim much more than we led with the candidates. And I think that that created some friction with the candidates, but it was also a much more powerful vehicle. We didn't have the ground game in Edmonton that we had in Calgary. We had a much stronger air war, but we weren't saying the right things.
Annalise
58:24
But you had a lot more money in Edmonton. Over
Carter
58:27
Over twice as much.
Zain
58:30
Hogan, you get the final question, and then Christy, right after this, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap WRAP
Corey
58:37
WRAP yeah I get the audience thanks you for that clarification what
Corey
58:43
what a sincere question what
Corey
58:46
rest weren't no the rest were just making you feel bad that's what I did that's what friends do
Corey
58:52
did you learn about yourself in this campaign like your limits your heart limits as a campaign strategist your blind spots your weaknesses or your strengths frankly that came out of it all like what are you gonna do to
Corey
59:07
to guard against you or promote the best you going forward I
Carter
59:12
I think that the biggest lesson was you can't make your own weather but
Carter
59:19
you can make your
Carter
59:20
no but that's why we didn't get the waves right like
Carter
59:31
I couldn't make my own weather, I couldn't make my own waves, and I couldn't solve, you know, everybody was saying, where's the Carter trick? Where's the Carter thing? There was no Carter trick. There was no Carter thing. The creation of the weather just
Carter
59:49
just didn't happen in this campaign, and we, in the same way that it happened with
Carter
59:54
with Nenshi or Gondek or with Redford. So
Carter
59:57
So there's – it
Carter
59:59
it was a good reminder
Carter
1:00:00
reminder that the weather happens to us, not necessarily because of us.
Corey
1:00:07
I make an observation?
Corey
1:00:12
look, when you talk about Nenshi or Redford or Gondek, what they have in common is they are individuals, not 28 campaigns, right? Right? Like, do you think maybe, like, your ambition might sometimes be a bit of a challenge? Like, if you had bitten off less, you might have gotten to eat more?
Zain
1:00:37
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1893 of The Strategist. Christy, this is where you can play the extra music.
Zain
1:00:44
There we go. We're going to edit.
Zain
1:00:47
The Strategist's extra, the same as the intro.
Zain
1:00:52
the theme yeah there we
Zain
1:00:53
we go we're gonna we're gonna trust me you guys are gonna cheer so loudly it's gonna be amazing that's
Zain
1:00:59
that's a wrap on episode 1893 of the strategist my name is Zane Belchie with me as always Shannon Phillips, Annalise Klingbeil, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan