Episode 540: A million dollars on strategy

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 540. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? Good.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I feel like we have the same responses every time. I think I'm going to cut that whole thing. No, I've...

Carter 0:14

You like to tell people you're outstanding? I... It covers up the pain, Zain. It covers up the pain.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

We need an entire section.

Corey 0:21

540 episodes, you decide it's

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Well, he wasn't here for the first couple hundred, let's be clear. here yeah um

SPEAKER_00 0:28

okay let's let's get into it guys we thought we were going to have a very very slow summer but things have been picking up in

SPEAKER_00 0:34

in federal politics like like no one's business so let's get into our first segment who

SPEAKER_00 0:39

who would you rather be this week that's the title of our first segment i am going to give you three

SPEAKER_00 0:43

three distinct comparisons of situations that have happened this week and i want you to choose who would you rather be in each of these situations will it work i don't know but it's a way for us to discuss some of these topics i'm letting people in into the process so the the first one, I'm going to throw this out there.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Justin Trudeau struggling to defend his judgment on Eve Adams. Would you rather be Justin Trudeau or

SPEAKER_00 1:03

or would you rather be Tom Mulcair fending off this new conservative attack ad asking him and the NDP to pay back the money they have

SPEAKER_00 1:10

allegedly used from the public coffers for partisan purposes? So those are the two situations. Who would you rather be? Corey, I'll throw it to you first. And tell me why, of course. Well,

Corey 1:19

Well, I think I'd rather be Tom Mulcair because I'm still not at all convinced that that this attack is going to register with Canadians. The problem, and I don't think the New Democrats should have done what they did, but the problem that the New Democrats have, or sorry, the Conservatives have, is that the number is so big. It's like $26 million. It is so big that people have a hard time swallowing it. They look at it and they go, really? They violated the law to the point where they spent $26 million, and I'm just hearing about it for the first time. There's probably another side to this story. It's

SPEAKER_00 1:53

And as a shitty moderator, I should let people know that they can see this website at payitbackndp.ca. But, Carter, you were saying it's only $2.7 million.

Carter 2:00

Yeah, and I think that the amazing thing that they've done, what they should have done, is never totaled it up. They should have gone, and they've got this scrolling bars underneath their website, the CPC, the conservatives, where they actually show who owes how much. In terms

SPEAKER_00 2:15

MPs have kind of... If

Carter 2:16

If it were me, I would have just focused on that because it is the glass of orange juice that kills you. right the 18 dollar glass of orange juice kills you 2.7 million or 26 million to you know the idea to corey's point the idea is that when the numbers get bigger it loses its meaning

SPEAKER_00 2:34

that's not even possible for you to attain in corey's case 27 million and others 2.7 you just lose sight of it but

Carter 2:42

but the the but to go back to your question who would you rather be of course thomas mulcair what is this saying this is saying thomas mulcair is in a position where he needs to be attacked justin trudeau has just caused another unforced error another unforced error now eve adams for some reason draws an inordinate amount of media attention i don't get it um i think she's just another backbencher but she crossed the floor uh trudeau was all excited and did a press conference with her that's going to cost them and uh that's why i wouldn't want to be justin trudeau in that situation this week so

SPEAKER_00 3:15

so you both believe it furthers the narrative on his His judgment, or his lack of judgment when it comes to his political stripes, but also his candidacy. No, I'm

Carter 3:24

I'm not going to go that far. I'm not going to say it's clouded his judgment, or it's proven that his judgment's faulty. I'm going to say that he's had a week where he's off-message. The only message that's being heard is

Carter 3:35

is Eve. You think that's the only

SPEAKER_00 3:35

only damage that Eve

Carter 3:37

-message? Do I care? I mean, what's my gaffe? No, I think the

Corey 3:42

the problem is you're seeing out there people saying things like, Like, oh, the same people who tried to get Eve Adams the nomination are running Trudeau's campaign. Good luck. And

Corey 3:51

And it is recalling the fact that Eve Adams was a conservative who was pretty aggressive against the liberals right before she flipped and was embraced

Corey 4:02

So it does bring back that whole story of how did we get here in the first place. As people start to look at it and they say, like, wait a minute, why did we have a nomination for the liberals between Eve Adams and another candidate? date and that's that's a problem for trudeau because that was that was a pretty head

Corey 4:18

head-scratching activity to begin with and and now to be reminded of it is not helpful so close to an election it's

Carter 4:24

it's just a bad it's just a bad week instead of what a good week and and frankly i think that trudeau is nearing the place where he has to have uh the opportunity to string together some good weeks that's you know mulcair this

Carter 4:37

this isn't a bad thing the the attack from the conservatives this This particular attack has been levied before. It didn't get much media attention for whatever reason. I think it's a big deal. I'm actually on the conservative side on this one. They should be paying this money back. This is a lot of money. It was used for partisan purposes. That's not allowed. They should be paying the money back. And that's the ruling that they have to follow.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Before moving on to our next comparison, I don't want to brush past this point where last week we were sitting here talking about how the conservative party was not attacking. hacking TomoCare.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

And this week we see a very

SPEAKER_00 5:14

very glossy website, a very glossy video, longer than two minutes in length, almost putting a treatise out as to what the NDP have done wrong. What do you make of that on a strategic level based on where we're at and where we were last week?

Carter 5:26

Oh, this is only about fundraising though. I mean, this video is not targeted towards liberal voters. This video is not targeted towards NDP voters. This video and this website are targeted towards conservative voters, and with the data collection structure that they've included, they are assembling their own fundraising list out of this. Do

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Do you agree with that, Corey? Do you think this is directed strictly to the conservative base and their fundraising support?

Corey 5:51

support? Well, I hope so, because at two and a half minutes to make the case, it's not something that's going to resonate with the public. I go back to people

Corey 6:00

people are going to say there's probably another side to this story. There's probably some gray here. And certainly, it's

Corey 6:07

it's not exactly the kind of thing that's going to keep Mulcair in knots through the rest of the campaign. No,

Carter 6:13

No, but if you even look at the words that are used, I mean, scheme, right? Like, these

Carter 6:16

these are words that are used to appeal to a specific demographic.

Corey 6:18

demographic. Yeah, and look, there's no way the Conservatives are going to start playing the game of who wasted public money worse. That's not a game they're going to win, right? No,

Carter 6:26

No, but with their base, it will get them names on a list, and they will be able to fundraise off that list. All

SPEAKER_00 6:31

All right. So on the first situation, we will chalk one up to being Tom Mulcair versus Justin Trudeau this week.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

All right. Next issue.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Stephen Harper deflecting criticism for his half measure on the Senate when a lot more was expected. Would you rather be him or would you rather be Justin Trudeau, who's now struggling with rumors that his senior strategist and campaign manager may be on leave? Corey, you're raising your hand. I don't know why you need to do that. There's only three of us here. But yes, I choose you, Corey. Oh, two hands. You

Corey 6:59

know what, I'm beginning to see a theme, and it's that it's a bad week to be Justin Trudeau, because the fact that he came out with a half-measure, or the Prime Minister came out with a half-measure on the Senate reform isn't bad.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

The questions that are coming up is that it's now the same stance as Tom Mulcair, and that's always... No, it's a worse

Carter 7:17

worse stance than Tom Mulcair. Okay,

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Okay, and it's along

SPEAKER_00 7:19

the same lines of unconstitutionality. Thomas

Carter 7:21

Thomas Mulcair is saying he will abolish the Senate. Stephen Harper is saying I will let the Senate wither without

SPEAKER_00 7:27

without going through any

Carter 7:28

any process to actually take it out. It is a horrible policy, and yet I am finding myself with Corey saying, yeah, I'm totally cool with being Stephen Harper in that situation instead of being Justin Trudeau. We cut Corey off. He's putting

SPEAKER_00 7:41

putting his hand up again. Corey. He's angry. So much anger. Okay. Tell us what you were going to tell us. Enlighten us with it. Well,

Corey 7:47

Well, I just don't know that it's a bad thing to isolate Justin Trudeau on the issue of the Senate. I also think that just like the last attack, it's only going to resonate with a certain group. His Senate policy is constitutionally troublesome. That's not something that's going to get Canadians into the streets with pitchforks, right? But on the other hand, the narrative about Justin Trudeau continues to be one of, well,

Corey 8:13

well, look what the Conservatives say, just not ready, right? right? He's having problems with his staff. He made poor decisions. This is all playing into that conservative narrative. And it's starting to feel like it's stuck. Not that it's sticking, that it's already stuck. And that Canadians have decided that maybe this guy is a little over his head.

Corey 8:32

You know, and you can knock the conservatives for being such douches about it. But frankly, this is the third liberal leader in a row they have totally defined. Oh,

Carter 8:42

Oh, they have. And it wasn't that long ago we were talking about how Justin Trudeau had defied being defined by the conservatives. And now he is 100 percent defined. He to the point where the liberals themselves are buying the narrative. They are now wondering whether or not the advisers around Trudeau have created this this, you know, this this negative perception. i

Carter 9:06

i personally think that you

Carter 9:08

you know the the campaign uh wasn't isn't going well right i mean it's very clear that it's not going well it's not nearly as bad as some people think it is right it's not over well

Corey 9:20

well a couple of points back this could turn around overnight well

Carter 9:23

well of course it could but what i what we need what we're not privy to what i'd like to be privy to is i'd like to be able to sit in the room and say okay walk me through your nine your nine week game plan Tell

Carter 9:34

Tell me exactly how this is going to unfold and how we're especially in the six weeks that are going to be September long weekend to October the 19th. Carter,

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Carter, you get on the plan and I want to hit on a question in a second here. But let's talk a little bit more about what it looks like when a campaign has a shakeup at the top.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Right. So, you know, there's rumors out there saying that this may happen.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Corey, you know, you and I were chatting offline yesterday. How actually does this happen when it happens in campaigns? Because a lot of times, you never really know. It's very ambiguous. It's very vague as to what exactly goes on. Nobody

Corey 10:09

Nobody fires their campaign manager right before a rit drop or before a campaign starts. What happens is another person suddenly shows up in meetings at the top of org charts, those dotted lines, and the other people just enjoy their limited responsibilities. I can think of a few times I've seen recently where you're like, that's funny. I thought they had a campaign manager. Why do they all of a sudden need X or Y?

Carter 10:33

Y? Yeah, now they've got an additional campaign person. I mean, that happened to Susan Elliott and I in

Carter 10:41

I don't know if you remember, but we were losing really badly. And, you know, of course, the exact same thing that's happening to Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, it was happening to Susan and I. We were rumored to be on our way out. Now, this is much later in the campaign. This is probably during the

Carter 10:58

It's during the writ. We have maybe two, three weeks to go, and everybody's saying that Dawson's now in charge, Randy Dawson.

Carter 11:07

Well, I mean, I think it's fairly evident that Randy wasn't in charge because we won, and

Carter 11:11

and the campaign that Randy ran, well, they lost. Anyways,

Carter 11:16

those kind of swirls, they absolutely undermine you. I mean, you start to see people, money people, especially people who have access. And let's be clear, money

Carter 11:24

money does buy access. I mean, I don't think I'm letting anybody in on any particular secret, but the money people will start saying, well, I'd like to talk to Dawson about this.

Carter 11:33

I'd like to I'd like to talk to, you know, who

Carter 11:35

who Hurley, you know, whoever the new person is that's coming in is going to be the person that that everybody wants to talk to. In our particular case, it wasn't true.

Carter 11:45

And it may not have been true only because there was no one to replace us with. I mean, Dawson literally wasn't in the province. He was in Toronto, so it was going to be impossible to replace us. Now, maybe that was the only reason. Maybe there was other reasons. I obviously wasn't in the room when the decisions were being made.

Carter 12:05

But when I look at Trudeau right now, if

Carter 12:08

if he was to bring the extra person into the room and put in, I don't know, an adult, whatever, however they would define it. Sure. Someone with more experience. Yeah. It's now.

Carter 12:18

This is the time. And I think

Carter 12:20

think that it's happening. I think that there is going to be another adult in the room.

Carter 12:25

That does not necessarily mean that

Carter 12:27

that Katie or Jerry are out. Corey, do you

SPEAKER_00 12:31

you agree with that? Do you think that if it has to happen, now is the time for it to happen? Well, if it had to happen,

Corey 12:35

happen, it probably should have happened even sooner. But here we are. And every day that goes by makes the decision a little more awkward.

Corey 12:42

I just have no way of knowing. And I don't think any of us will. Because the other thing that happens pretty naturally at this point in the campaign cycle is you do bring new people in. You flesh

Corey 12:51

flesh out your ranks, and it was never going to be just Katie and Jerry at the top. So the

Corey 12:58

question becomes, can we realistically look at this situation and say, clear evidence that those guys are on their way out? They're

Carter 13:06

They're not on their way out.

Carter 13:08

Absolutely not on their way out. I mean, first of all, I think Katie is actually, as

Carter 13:12

as a campaign manager, a very, very talented campaign manager. I

Carter 13:16

think that the problem has been policy and strategy, not management. So it'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds. All

SPEAKER_00 13:24

All right, I want to move on to our third of three situations here.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Who would you rather be this week? Once again, Tom Mulcair, while announcing or helping to announce the candidacy of Olivia Chow,

SPEAKER_00 13:36

made statements that, and we can talk about Olivia Chow in a second, made statements that Toronto is the most important Canadian city. Would you rather be Tom Mulcair, which is now defending those statements, or

SPEAKER_00 13:45

you rather be Stephen Harper who is now trying to deflect attacks from expats including Donald Sutherland who's written an op-ed in the Globe and Mail saying expats should be able to vote who would you rather be this week is it Tom Mulcair or Stephen Harper and I should mention these orange blue swings this situation in particular seems to be happening I mean Tom Mulcair was in Ontario and out east this week boots on the ground attacking these ridings that were orange blue swings so between the orange and blue this week Stephen I'll start with you

Carter 14:13

Well, can I answer Justin Trudeau? I mean, both of those were unforced errors. I mean, Thomas Mulcair, I mean, nobody wants to open up and say the best city that they're in or the city that they're in is the best city in Canada. And

SPEAKER_00 14:25

think, to be fair, I think he said the most important. And I think he meant on economic terms. Regardless, it's not what you say. You can say most important and then you

Carter 14:32

you land in Calgary or Edmonton and say, hello, Calgary. And we're all like, why are you here? Why aren't you in the most important city in Canada? it's just an unforced error it's like a rock and roll band getting the name of the city wrong hello

Carter 14:46

hello cleveland right and it's you're not in cleveland we're

SPEAKER_00 14:49

we're thinking the concerts in the morning cory well

SPEAKER_00 14:52

that was obscure come

Corey 14:55

on it's final tap reference no the uh i don't know

Corey 14:59

listen are we really in denial that toronto is the most important canadian city it's the biggest city it's the largest economy don't

SPEAKER_00 15:06

don't say it listen

SPEAKER_00 15:07

listen to be to be a whole lot is

Carter 15:10

is the ndp apologist going to be apologizing for uh thomas mulcair's obvious slip i'm

Corey 15:17

i'm i'm curious what city cares about these kind of things is are people in montreal like hey

Corey 15:22

hey dick what about us like is that actually happening right now i think it's actually

SPEAKER_00 15:27

actually happening right now i mean there is there is is the logical economic you know toronto it accounts for x amount of our gdp and if it were a country it'd be this i mean there's all that stuff versus

SPEAKER_00 15:38

versus the politics of it right so let's talk on the politics well let's let's let's give some context here this

Corey 15:43

this week in the united states joe biden announced that la guardia was getting a new airport he described new york as the most important city in the united states at that conference and

Carter 15:52

and joe biden's running for what right now well

Corey 15:56

president but he's not though well we'll see but the point is that But mature countries and

Corey 16:02

mature citizens don't get hung up on these things because some of them are so obvious. New York is the most important city in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

States. But we remember this sort of outrage when Harper stood here in Calgary, I think it was less than two years ago,

SPEAKER_00 16:15

saying that Calgary was the greatest city in the country or the greatest city in the world. And

Corey 16:20

were up in arms. And

SPEAKER_00 16:21

And I thought that was stupid outrage

SPEAKER_00 16:23

outrage too. I don't bring this up as a trivial matter because I think it does have practical political implications. And

Corey 16:28

And that's when Stephen Harper went to zero in the polls, is it? Like, did it have any lasting effect?

Corey 16:35

what do we, come on.

Carter 16:37

regional politics does backfire. So don't pretend that it doesn't. I can recall Preston Manning running a couple campaigns saying the West wants in and being completely annihilated in Ontario.

Carter 16:50

Yeah, he also became a

Carter 16:51

a official opposition. It was the first Tom Flanagan failure of the last ten days. When they went back to Alberta and did the bus tour between Calgary and Edmonton.

Corey 17:02

Edmonton. If you're going to call failure becoming the official opposition from nowhere, then sure, I guess what a failure that guy was. But look.

Carter 17:09

Now he's defending Manning?

Carter 17:12

I don't even remember the second. Who's the second guy?

Corey 17:14

guy? Well, that's the other thing. The Harper thing is so non-essential. It's so trivial. Having Donald Sutherland attack you, I think, probably gets you votes in half this country. I don't

Carter 17:24

don't know. No, I mean it is making inroads on Facebook. So when I go to my social media monitoring structure, there's two – so let me back up and kind of give my context of what I think of social media. On

Carter 17:37

On Twitter, if it's on Twitter, it's just – it's hacks like us talking about it,

Carter 17:41

right? It's people who are hyper-engaged in politics and those types of things just pop up. And then you get to something that actually arrives on Facebook. And if it arrives on Facebook, it is real outrage.

Carter 17:56

Carlos, which is the lion that was just killed by the... Cecil. Cecil the lion is all over my Facebook page, but interspersed in that is Donald Sutherland's quotes. Listen,

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Listen, does President Snow not matter? Is that what I'm hearing you say?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Well, that's... Rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Okay.

Corey 18:18

the CGI they've done. It's

Carter 18:19

It's amazing, yeah. Okay, so

SPEAKER_00 18:20

so now overall, am I hearing you guys say out of those three situations that Tom Mulcair had the best week and Justin Trudeau had the shittiest week? Or is it Stephen Harper? Or am I just hearing that I don't care, it was just Justin Trudeau's shit week?

Corey 18:34

Well, I'm not sure that any of these reach the level of we're going to remember them in four weeks, to be honest. It's a lot of noise, but it's not a lot of music right now. Nobody's

Corey 18:44

around to that. See,

SPEAKER_00 18:44

See, I would have a different assessment. Do you think it's just a lot of noise, Carter? I think some of these things are pretty, I'm

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I'm not saying important, but they could be defining characteristics of how this campaign goes forward. I

Carter 18:55

I really hate agreeing with Corey, especially on something like this. But I think that these

Carter 18:59

these are mundane mistakes that a campaign makes. And if it was later in the game, these would have lasting impact. It is early in the game. It is the last week of July. And people, frankly, are going to the lake. Great.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Great. So way to minimize my first entire segment. well i'm joking no here's

Corey 19:19

here's the thing these these are the kind of things that get reported on in the dog days of summer yeah

Corey 19:23

and uh we're in a funny dog days and that everybody knows an election's coming so there's a lot of import there but i don't think any of these have steered the ship right i think every single one of these things that we've talked about uh harper being tone deaf to expats and changing election laws um mall care uh reaching out uh to try to get a base in in toronto because he's on the move in the 905 trudeau looking

Corey 19:47

looking like maybe he doesn't have the wisdom that that people think that the prime minister needs i'm not saying that's the case but sure all of these things are responses and kind of manifestations of things everybody already believed about these people they're not changing the game at all there's one

Carter 20:02

one thing that i'd like people to care about when we move forward but i'm quite convinced that they will not care about it is the withering of the senate if

Carter 20:11

if you want to kill the senate there's a constitutional means available to you it's been outlined by the supreme court get all 10 provinces to agree to eliminate the senate no problem except it's a massive problem so stephen harper's solution stephen harper who's who's appointed most of the senators there i believe something in the neighborhood of i can't remember the exact number so

Carter 20:29

so i'm not going to say the number but it's it's the majority yeah

Carter 20:32

of the senators in the senate have been appointed by stephen harper uh

Carter 20:35

uh including luminaries like pamela wallen and senator and senator mike duffy uh patrick brazo uh see these These are all him. The mistakes, the people that we're angry with are all Stephen Harper. And now he's basically saying, I will not appoint any more senators. Now, the question is, he didn't clarify whether he'd be appointing an Alberta senator who

Carter 20:56

has been elected. Right.

Carter 20:57

Right. Because we still have one more, don't we,

SPEAKER_00 20:59

we, Mike Sheehy? I think Mike left, yeah, as part of that contingency.

Carter 21:02

Yeah. So we have an elected senator standing in the wings here in Alberta. Is that going to happen? I don't know. Because this moratorium

Corey 21:11

should apply. The constitutionality of that, like if we're only going to appoint Alberta senators. But this

Carter 21:16

this isn't constitutional. It

Carter 21:17

It is very clear he shall appoint senators, not may.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

All right, so that's Carter trying to get us to care about the Senate. Someone care about

Carter 21:28

about it, please. Someone.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

listening to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I want to move it on to our next segment, Drop

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Drop It When It's Hot.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

You like that? I don't know where you come up with this. You see, because you drop the writ when it's hot and it's summer. We are hearing that the writ could drop as early as next week, guys. August 2nd or 3rd is now the rumored date.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

There was a Reuters publication Jen Gerson posted this morning as well that

SPEAKER_00 21:55

that there are Tory officials saying that they are gearing up for an extended writ period this summer. I

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I want to get your guys' top line sentiments as to what that would mean, a

SPEAKER_00 22:03

a writ that begins in August. So, Corey, I'll go with you. What do you think an early

SPEAKER_00 22:08

early August writ period could mean? and then we'll filter through all the implications of that as well. Well,

Corey 22:14

Well, it's something, isn't it? Stephen Harper is going to be able to do this, and he's going to say all the other parties are already campaigning, and we're going to be off to the races before

Corey 22:23

before Heritage Day, potentially, which

Corey 22:26

which is the holiday here in Alberta next Monday. The reality

Corey 22:31

reality is, though, you can call a writ, but it's a rose by any other name. It's still summer. Nobody's going to be that tuned into the election.

Corey 22:40

you're going to see lawn signs, but we've got at this point, we've got two and a half months until election day. Yeah.

Carter 22:46

Yeah. And to be honest, I mean, the

Carter 22:48

the campaign's on whether

Carter 22:50

whether he drops the actual writ or not. The only thing that's going to change and the thing that Canadians should be moderately outraged about is

Carter 22:59

as soon as the writ drops, the spending is number one capped. Yeah.

Carter 23:04

Right. But it's going to be capped at a level that

Carter 23:06

that increases because of the length of the time. That is

SPEAKER_00 23:09

the time period, yeah. And

Carter 23:10

And we are going to subsidize politicians for spending that much more money. This is going to be a far more expensive election than we saw in the past because Stephen Harper has more money than anybody else and knows he's going to get most of it back.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

So, Carter, I'm hearing you say the only implications are financial. Corey, I'm hearing you say, agree

SPEAKER_00 23:29

agree with that, I'm assuming, but saying it's largely summer. Is that what I'm

Corey 23:33

I'm hearing you say? I mean, the other parties have been campaigning for a while. They'll campaign regardless of a writ drop. The public has not been paying attention. They won't pay attention regardless of a rip drop. I don't know that this changes the situation beyond the financial. I agree with Stephen on that. What I do wonder, though, is if this doesn't ultimately cause

Corey 23:53

cause pressures that the Conservatives hadn't fully intended. I think about the staff mostly, all of these government people taking two

Corey 24:01

two-month leaves of absence. I also wonder what it looks like when the senior political leadership of an entire country takes almost three months off. What's going to happen if we do run into any kind of, you

Corey 24:14

you know, rocky waves for the ship of state in the next couple of months? If something bad happens and if somebody's not around to deal with it because everybody's off on the conservative campaign that is incredibly long because the conservatives sought to their political advantage, there could be – I guess what I'm saying is there could be problems down the road.

Carter 24:31

road. Yeah, I mean, but in any writ period, there are unknowns. And traditionally, writ

Carter 24:37

writ period problems, you know, so things that are unforeseen, that develop, tend

Carter 24:42

tend to hurt the governing party, right?

Carter 24:44

right? So we're not going to see Justin Trudeau have to dance around a major international

Carter 24:49

or a major economic problem or, you know, other things. We're going to see Stephen Harper have to deal with things. Now, the thing with Stephen Harper and Jenny Byrne, I've said this before and time and time again, they're actually the best at it.

Carter 25:04

when these things happen, they have a tendency to be able to minimize them and move on better than anybody else. So

SPEAKER_00 25:09

So hold on. I want to get to something here. Is this a strong strategic play for the conservatives if they do it?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Allegedly, they have the most full coffers of any other party. Is this a strong play on their part if they do it?

Carter 25:23

Does money matter in politics is the question you just asked me.

Carter 25:26

I'm rephrasing it. Does money matter in

SPEAKER_00 25:28

in politics? No, no, no. That's a little trite. I mean, the question is effectively the cost benefit of them going early and having that advantage versus a potential blowback. What are we talking

Carter 25:37

talking about here? We're talking about $54 million if they drop on Monday that they can spend twice as much almost or over twice as much as they could in the last election. So we are talking about, first

Carter 25:51

first of all, you don't have to spend it week over week. right

SPEAKER_00 25:55

you don't have to save it you're not spending any

Carter 25:57

any money in august oh absolutely

Carter 25:58

and so we are looking at the the conservatives blowing the shit out of the airwaves they're going to own everything near

SPEAKER_00 26:06

near the end or

Carter 26:07

or buy a pvr kids you're not going to want to watch any ads in september yeah

Corey 26:12

yeah yeah i mean that's that's probably the smart move i do think that once you've set that cap though you've also set a pretty uh a pretty good target for your opposition i think think the new democrats will hit the cap if they don't hit the cap they'll come so close as it'll be meaningless i also think that the as i've said before the the value of your 50

Corey 26:32

50 millionth dollar is significantly less than the value of your 20 millionth dollar and so the conservatives might be overstating to themselves the importance of all this extra money i think about the winnipeg floods though you remember when uh christian called an election oh

Corey 26:45

oh yeah right right after to the floods and how mad everybody in winnipeg was i

Corey 26:50

i think about if a situation like that happened in august or even early september and and everyone's like well why are we in a campaign right now and really drew into focus the reasons i think that could be a problem toronto

Carter 27:00

toronto had a heat wave advisory today uh

Carter 27:03

uh alberta has been faced alberta manitoba have been facing tornadoes uh you know these things are real and something could happen maybe out of yeah

Carter 27:12

right but at the the end of the day i'll take the extra money and certainty how

SPEAKER_00 27:16

how do you if you are the ndp or the liberals how do you counteract an early writ strategically

SPEAKER_00 27:20

strategically how do you counteract it make

SPEAKER_00 27:22

make it an advantage is there any way to do so or do you just play along and

SPEAKER_00 27:25

and try to get the fundraising cap like they're

Carter 27:27

they're gonna hit they're gonna hit on the money yeah

Carter 27:29

yeah they're gonna hit on how much this is costing taxpayers they're not going to promise to return their portion um

Carter 27:34

um so it's it's kind of a meaningless uh hit um but more important i mean they're just going to continue to campaign because Because, as I stated at the beginning of this conversation, the

Carter 27:44

the election's already started.

Carter 27:46

This is nothing new. The strategies, it doesn't matter if Stephen Harper drops it on the 2nd, the 9th, the

Carter 27:54

Whenever it drops, everybody's

Carter 27:56

everybody's still running full out. Do

SPEAKER_00 27:57

think there's any way that public outrage gets to a level where they regret this decision?

Corey 28:01

No. I mean, as far as the actual dropping of the writ, absolutely not. If they didn't care about the total violation of the fixed election date a few years back, They're not going to care about calling a writ a little early when everybody's already campaigning.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Does this hurt third parties at all? Do you feel like there's third parties out there right now? You know, there's the pro-progressive PAC, for lack of a better term. Well, they're still going to get

Corey 28:21

get to spend a ton of money. Their limits go up with a longer campaign, too.

Corey 28:25

I don't know if this was going to be the election where the third parties had such a big difference in the lead-up to the campaign. I don't see a lot of evidence of that.

Carter 28:33

Yeah, I mean, you see some ads. yeah um but i think that you'll see a few ads going into the into the into the campaign i mean there's there's some crazy elections canada rules around third-party advertising um i don't think you know people will register but

Carter 28:48

but i'm not sure that we're going to see this massive influx of advertising that will even look that

Carter 28:54

will even compare to what the parties themselves are able to do all

SPEAKER_00 28:58

all righty let's move it on to our last segment guys this is the over under the lightning round a few

SPEAKER_00 29:03

few questions as always to test your mathematical abilities oh very easy to do very easy to do and

SPEAKER_00 29:09

and i'm not going to test your math okay

SPEAKER_00 29:10

okay are we going to have an early rip from a scale of one to ten one being probably not ten to being absolutely yes cory are we going to have it's not i'm

Carter 29:18

i'm on 12 i mean it is absolutely happening the question i listed three dates It's 2

SPEAKER_00 29:26

-16. 2-9-16. That leads into my next question.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

You have a million dollars to bet. How much of it do you put down if

SPEAKER_00 29:33

if you were to bet that it's going to happen August 2nd or 3rd? You have a million bucks. How much do you put down that it's August 2nd or 3rd? Corey? Zero.

Corey 29:38

Zero. I don't think it's going to

SPEAKER_00 29:40

to be August 2nd or 3rd.

Carter 29:41

Not in the middle of a long weekend. It's going to be the 9th, I think. The 9th. If I was a betting man, I would put, if I had that million dollars and I had to bet it. How much would you put on the 9th? I would put $6.50 on the 9th, and I'd put $2.50 on the 16th,

Carter 29:55

16th, and I'd put the balance on the 2nd just because there'd be long odds and I could get a big payoff. You

Corey 30:00

You go big or you go home. I throw it all on, I don't know. I don't have the calendar. I don't think actually I would say it was the 9th. I would probably say the 10th. Is that a Monday? No,

Corey 30:09

No, I think it's the 9th. Whatever the Monday around there is.

Carter 30:13

refer to the trusty Carter McRae House Gold calendar. The Monday is the 10th.

Corey 30:18

There you go. Oh, the 10th. That's what I think it'll

Carter 30:20

it'll be called. You don't think it'll be a Sunday walk? Nah.

Carter 30:22

It's always a Sunday walk.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Thank you for that math and that calendar activity. I

Carter 30:27

I got the calendar if we need to... Reference other

Carter 30:30

dates? Dog's going to doggy daycare here. I just

Carter 30:33

just learned that. That's good to know.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Over, under, 5 out of 10 with 1 being horrible, 10 being meh. Actually, no. 10 being meh, 1 being horrible. You

SPEAKER_00 30:44

You know what? I don't really know. You tell me.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

How bad... bad i'm just gonna just tell me how bad this was how bad was the eve adams situation for justin trudeau somewhere

Corey 30:54

somewhere between man horrible yeah no it's

Carter 30:59

it's mostly man it was you think so hey i

Carter 31:02

i you think anybody's gonna be talking about eve adams in two weeks no

SPEAKER_00 31:04

no i think it's gonna be an extension of his judgment it may calcify as as as another moment sure but

Carter 31:08

but it's not like it was a moment a unique moment that we could just point to and say ccc that's the problem now

Corey 31:14

now the liberals have We have strategist Dimitris Soudis free to work on the national campaign. Oh, isn't that a gift?

SPEAKER_00 31:19

gift? That is an absolute gift. Okay,

SPEAKER_00 31:20

our last questioner. Last week, in one of our segments, I talked to you guys about which pill you would choose for each party based on where they were.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

So I'm going to give you a chance to change that if you want today. So on the NDP, Corey,

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Corey, you said that if they could take one magic pill to change their current circumstance, it would be their team. Would

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Would you want to change that or stick with it? I'd stick with that. Carter, you said the timing. You said that they want to have this election as soon as possible. Do you want to change that or do you want to stick with it?

Carter 31:45

Well, I didn't understand that apparently people can be bought with their own money with the universal child care credit. And the conservatives jumped, I think, six points. Oh, in

Corey 31:53

in one poll. I like that poll today. Has

Corey 31:57

it all back to normal?

Carter 31:57

normal? Has it all back

Corey 31:58

back to normal. Anyways,

Carter 31:59

Anyways, the bottom line, I think that timing is still their problem. I don't know that they can sustain for 10 more weeks. On

SPEAKER_00 32:06

On the liberal side, both of you said that the issue was execution. Now, Corey, you had brushed at saying it could be strategy, it could be leader. leader but you said execution do you want to double down and and stick with that it could

Corey 32:18

could be timing too there are

Corey 32:19

a number of weeks that look if you could have run the campaign last year we'd be talking about prime minister trudeau but uh

Corey 32:25

uh timing feels like a bit of a cheat to go that far back i still think it's execution you still think it's execution carter you want to stick with that well

Carter 32:31

well i think execution is is their primary problem they had i think there was some really good policy that they lumped into their i

Carter 32:37

i don't know was it late june announcements now i I mean, it's difficult to remember. I think, yeah, the late June announcements, I personally wouldn't have dumped them all like that. I mean, I follow closely. I'd be very hard-pressed to come up with the individual planks that I like. I think that they could have made more hay. And so I think unless

Carter 32:56

unless something changes, it's going to be execution.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Finally, the conservatives. Carter, you said their issue was the team.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Do you still agree with that today?

Carter 33:05

Oh, 100 percent. Who is the team? Who are the people who are going to be the all-star cabinet ministers behind Stephen Harper after

Carter 33:14

after this election? Should he win? And I still maintain that the odds-on favorite to win this election remains the Conservatives because of Jenny

Carter 33:25

Jenny and Stephen. They're

Carter 33:27

They're the best campaigners. They

SPEAKER_00 33:29

They will likely win. Corey, don't put your hand up so quickly. You said strategy last time. You said that was their biggest deficit. to sit. Do you want to stick with that after seeing this week? Or do you have a little bit more insight into your opinion? I said strategy

Corey 33:45

strategy led the team. I think they've got other strategic problems. I put my million fake dollars on strategy.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

That is the title of our episode. A million fake dollars on strategy.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

That's a wrap. Episode 540 of The Strategist will be back soon. Once again, my name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript