Transcript
SPEAKER_01
0:03
This is the strategist episode 545. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, the irreplaceable Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? That
Carter
0:11
makes me nervous. It makes it sound like I'm going to get replaced at any moment. Yeah, that's the
Corey
0:15
the kind of thing you say right before you turn
Corey
0:17
to someone like, they have my full confidence.
SPEAKER_01
0:22
listen, we've all gotten replaced at some point. Chester used to be in the seat. Chester. I love
SPEAKER_01
0:27
Chester. Yeah, Chester used to be in my chair for a very long time. The best 200 episodes.
SPEAKER_01
0:30
Yeah, until he had an affair with one of the other strategists. Won't tell you which one.
SPEAKER_01
0:35
This is awkward for both of you.
SPEAKER_01
0:37
What do we want to talk about? Oh, yes, our live show. We have more details about our live show. So if you are in Calgary, September 17th at the Engineered Air Theater. That's
Corey
0:47
That's right. Yeah. And if you go to live.thestrategist.ca, you can purchase your tickets. Tickets are $20 a pop. We are giving away four free tickets this episode to the person who retweets the most of the things that we say. Oh,
SPEAKER_01
1:02
We say a lot of ridiculous and homophobic
Carter
1:05
Yeah, only those things should be retweeted. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01
1:07
Yeah, absolutely. And when I say we, I mean Carter. We also have a contest. If you're one of the first 50 people to buy tickets, you can avoid having lunch with Stephen Carter. So that is also
Carter
1:19
contest that we have. I'm taking the other 48 out for lunch.
Corey
1:22
Yeah, I'm warning you right now. That's a contest you want to win.
SPEAKER_01
1:28
But once again, live.thestrategist.ca. The last show was sold out. So if you want to attend, we have a – how long is the debate, guys? Two hours? Two-hour debate. Okay, two-hour
Carter
1:38
Yeah, we're taking a 20-minute Zane has to write the show intermission. And then we're coming right back at it.
SPEAKER_01
1:44
it. Should be a good time. And Carter, you're going to be in the room for that debate, correct?
Carter
1:47
I am an invited guest for the Global Mail's economic debate. as befits
Carter
1:51
befits my status as an economic expert.
Carter
1:59
That's really the last word. We've
SPEAKER_01
2:01
We've got a lot to talk about in this episode, a lot of different topics, and I want to go right into that with our first theme and
SPEAKER_01
2:06
and our first segment, what is left is to the right and what is on the right could be wrong.
SPEAKER_01
2:12
I want to talk about first and foremost the conversations around the deficit and hone in a little bit on Thomas Mulcair. Mulcair has come in, and this almost seems to be a pattern now of issues that he's taken a stance on where he has shown some fiscal conservative bona fides. Does Tom Mulcair need to go to the right, Corey?
Corey
2:32
don't know how much he's trying to show fiscal conservative bona fides. I think he essentially took these positions early, and he's being forced
Corey
2:41
forced to the right almost. most but by not moving he looks more right wing simply because justin trudeau now is saying things like i will run a deficit i will spend a lot of money uh and so on and so forth i
Corey
2:53
i don't think this one this one confuses me it puts me in a bit of knots i'm not sure if it's good strategy or bad strategy for the liberals on one hand it is a good wedge between them and the new democrats so we are now talking about the differences between the liberals and new democrats substantive differences which i think can help justin trudeau on the other hand i remain convinced that that it's a very risky strategy to to paint mulcair as more moderate than you i'm not really sure if that's going to be in the liberals best interest i come
Carter
3:23
come back to something i said last week which is it's it you know thomas mulcair uh
Carter
3:27
uh who is this guy he comes across to me as duplicitous i don't understand who he is and and to be honest the
Carter
3:34
the voters are going to look at this sometimes just need a very simple caricature of who the leader is and that caricature can lead them to making certain thing you know impressions steven harper good on budget not personable blah blah blah i want to vote for him or i don't want to vote for him yeah justin trudeau pretty
Carter
3:51
pretty boy with the hair who's going to spend a lot of money i'm
Carter
3:54
i'm okay with that i think that that's a pretty good positioning for the liberals to go into and yes there are voters who are that shallow
Carter
4:00
shallow none of our faithful but nonetheless
Carter
4:03
nonetheless what can you do so
SPEAKER_01
4:04
so hold on am i hearing both of you say that that he's being forced to the right and this may not be a deliberate strategy because there are others out there who may feel that tom will care trying to go to the right will take out justin trudeau from the equation in a lot of ridings where he wants to make it an orange blue swing do you do not believe that this could be strategic or is this simply accidental and he's now embracing it well should Should he be
Corey
4:26
be embracing it? Look, I would say left and right have been redefined, not Tom Mulcair. What we've done is we've managed to change where the conversation is in this election. And that is a conscious strategy of the liberals. Tease that out for me a little bit more, because I think that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01
4:41
interesting. Tell me what you mean by it being redefined.
Corey
4:42
Well, at one point, everybody was sitting there saying no deficits, or at least the assumption was nobody would run a deficit. And that was the political middle. And everybody was there. Tom Mulcair didn't move yesterday. Justin Trudeau moved yesterday. But because Justin Trudeau is now redefining the leftward flank on the economic argument, on the fiscal hawk argument, I guess, the budget
Corey
5:02
All of a sudden, it looks like Tom Mulcair has taken a step to the right. He didn't. Justin Trudeau took a step to the left. It's a bold move. Carter,
Carter
5:11
Carter, do you agree with that
Carter
5:12
assessment? Yeah, but it's not that much of a bold move when you're just copying the prime minister. The prime minister went and handed out all kinds of goodies just before this
Carter
5:18
this election call. You know, he had.
SPEAKER_01
5:22
Wait, who are we talking about copying the prime minister? Tom Mulcair repeating the deficit?
Carter
5:25
Justin Trudeau handing stuff
Carter
5:27
Well, that's an astute point, Zane. Unexpected. I make a few of them. Yeah, yeah. What you see
SPEAKER_01
5:31
see there is that— That's what happens when I pay attention during the show. Exactly.
Carter
5:36
Exactly. It was so much better than usual. No, but this is the crux of it is that Trudeau has looked at this and said, I can get some votes here if we start talking about going community to community and what we can give to you, what you need and what I can give to you as the next prime minister. Whereas Mulcair has said, I'm going to take that fiscal conservatism because I'm reading the population is wanting some sort of fiscal conservatism. And this isn't new just of last week. Mulcair was being pegged as a fiscal conservative all the way back in June and July. Prior to this, there are columns written in various newspapers about Mulcair's
Carter
6:13
Mulcair's fiscal conservatism. I'll tell you something.
Carter
6:16
I'll tell you, I think that Trudeau is going to pick up more votes from his, I'm going to help you build something in the midst of this recession.
Carter
6:23
he's going to pick up more votes than Mulcair is going to get from people
Carter
6:26
people saying, you know what, I do like balancing the budget. Those people are all voting for Stephen
SPEAKER_01
6:32
Stephen Harper. That's interesting. I didn't get a particular answer to my last question. Should he be embracing this? Should Tom Mulcair be embracing this right-wing tinge that could be attributed to him? Yeah,
Corey
6:40
Yeah, again, I'm going to take issue to right-wing, but I think this is— Sure,
SPEAKER_01
6:43
the redefinition of right-wing or fiscal conservative.
Corey
6:46
conservative. He should absolutely be embracing the moderate label because the moderates rule. They rule the roost right now. And I would point out, as much as we're talking about Justin Trudeau moving the party to the left today, that argument was made about Stéphane Dion and the Green Shift. That argument was made about Michael Ignatieff and his buyout of families. I can't even remember the specific policies there. Arguably, the Liberals and the New Democrats, who have had very little daylight between them in the past 15 years or so, if there is daylight, you could argue that the Liberals have run on the more left-wing platform for three elections in a row now.
SPEAKER_01
7:21
That's interesting. One more question about Tom Mulcair.
SPEAKER_01
7:24
Carter, you call him duplicitous and say that people, when they're observing Tom Mulcair, may see that this is a guy that likes to play every side. Is it fair to say, Corey, is it fair to say that he hasn't completely been defined yet and for him to take stances like this that may be a little bit more complex isn't necessarily a bad thing?
Corey
7:44
I don't think it's a complex stance, but I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's actually a pretty good thing for him. And that's why I think it's a risky move by the liberals. It is a wedge. It is creating a definition of liberal that is separate from New Democrat. Are you taking
Carter
7:57
your talking points from the Sun media chain who basically say it's game over now? That Justin Trudeau has ended his political chances? I don't think you've heard me say anything close to that. The small minds of the Sun media chain being wrong on a political analysis, that just makes me happy.
SPEAKER_01
8:15
What entices me is Carter's defending Justin Trudeau on this question. But, Corey, you're fundamentally of the belief that Mulcair hasn't shifted. It's Trudeau that's the one that shifted on this
SPEAKER_01
8:26
Yeah, it's Trudeau who has shifted, and it could work. I agree
Carter
8:27
agree with that. Trudeau has shifted. This is a significant move by Trudeau. And let's get into
SPEAKER_01
8:33
that. Let me give people a little bit of context. This is an infrastructure spend where the conservatives have touted $60 billion, billion and Justin Trudeau has said another $65 billion would be added to that over the course of 10 years, making this the largest infrastructure spend in Canadian history. Corey, I'll start with you. Is this a, obviously it's a move to the left of Tom Mulcair. We've discussed that in the previous question. Is this a solid move for Justin Trudeau? Because the question here becomes, is he defining himself on Stephen Harper's terms around the economy? Well,
Corey
9:05
listen, you're defining him on Stephen Harper's terms. This conversation that this is like the biggest infrastructure spend is nonsense. It's $6 billion a year additional. Yeah.
Corey
9:14
That's not even like one train line. National,
Carter
9:16
National, that's very tricky to get across. I mean, it's actually very easy to spend that money. There was analysis of where will you spend it? I mean, gosh, we can spend $6 billion in infrastructure just here in Calgary. There's always places to spend money. Yes.
SPEAKER_01
9:30
Yes. Okay. Okay, so you want to take issue with the question maybe, but do you feel like him going after this issue, which could potentially define his entire candidacy and campaign, is a smart strategic move? Well,
Corey
9:41
Well, I think it's a pretty good one because this is the kind of thing you can announce over and over and over again in different ways. Every city he's in for the next two months, he can say, hey, Calgary, you want your green line? This is an LRT line here in Calgary for our non-Calgary listeners. Or, hey, Toronto, you're talking about a relief line on the subway. All of a sudden, everybody's wish list gets fulfilled. It's got many parts.
SPEAKER_01
10:06
it's a grape, it's not an
Corey
10:07
an apple. And frankly, he can announce more than $60 billion of spending using that. Carter,
Carter
10:11
Carter, what do you think? I really like it. I mean, first of all, it does leverage up. So it'll be one-third of the cost of any infrastructure project. That means he's going to be in a position where he gets to walk across the country and talk about $180 billion worth of infrastructure spending in over 10 years. That is spectacular. spectacular uh local politics and all politics is local who likes this who likes this idea john tory mayor of toronto likes this yeah sure every mayor across the country is going to like this idea gregor robinson's trying to figure out how he's going to fund all that transit on the out in the lower mainland now that they've lost the uh the
Carter
10:49
the referendum here you here comes justin trudeau with the dingle dangle of all the coins in the pocket baby and that's going to matter in in the lower mainland of British Columbia. It's going to
SPEAKER_01
10:59
to matter, but it comes with a cost. It comes with Justin Trudeau being the first of the candidates to publicly say he's going to run a deficit for
Carter
11:06
for the next three years. And he gets to point to Stephen Harper's own words when we entered a recession in 2008, and it was time to go and start to spend some money because we had to stay out of the recession and we had to minimize the recession. Stephen Harper went into deficit then, and let's not believe these little fiscal projections that they have coming out right now. Stephen Harper is still in deficit today. He hasn't changed that. Matt, deficit
Carter
11:26
deficit after deficit after deficit brought to you by Stephen Harper. Corey? Yeah,
Corey
11:30
Yeah, the other thing is we've really, you know, Stephen Harper was running $50, $60 billion deficits. Justin Trudeau has given himself a cap of $10 billion, and people are talking about that being a big deficit. That's like a 3.5% deficit on a federal budget that's approaching $300 billion, right? Yeah.
Corey
11:48
This is nothing compared to deficits we've had in the past. So
SPEAKER_01
11:51
So your policy team on the liberal side, you guys are strategists for the liberals in this question, your policy team comes in with this extra spend. How exactly do you roll it out? I know you guys were talking about it leveraging up, but give me some tangibles. Explain to people how parties gain the most amount of leverage from something that they announce once but can trail off through the course of a campaign. Carter, you've got tons of experience doing this. Tell me how you've
SPEAKER_01
12:15
it in the past. You've announced
Corey
12:16
announced the same thing many times.
Carter
12:17
Tons of experience announcing. When I was with the Progressive Conservatives, we announced the same thing 300 to 400 different times. Explain that to me. Well, so first of all, you make the announcement. So now they've made the big and broad national announcement. That big, broad national announcement generates a few days of media coverage, and then they move on to the next thing. First of all, he announced it at a time that it's going to carry him over this weekend. So people are going to be talking about this over the weekend, at least the hyper-engaged are. And then he gets to go into every community.
Carter
12:44
And every community. Now, the local the local reporters,
Carter
12:47
reporters, the local media are going to ask him, what would this mean for Calgary? What would this mean for Trois-Rivières? What would this mean for Hamilton? Right.
Carter
12:57
Right. And every community that he goes into, he gets to explain with because he and his advisers didn't
Carter
13:02
didn't spill the beans. They didn't say, here's the list of 72 projects that we care about that we're going to do. Instead, he gets to go into Hamilton and get another three days coverage in Hamilton with all the local candidates around him and all the local candidates brochures now get updated to say the Liberal Party is the only party that will bring you this.
SPEAKER_01
13:22
this. So so the criticism that that's come out with with the lack of details is not a liability. It's an asset. Do you agree, Corey? Yeah, it's a feature. We're not even at
Corey
13:31
at Labor Day yet. I don't think it would be in his interest to do his biggest. I have to assume this is going to be the biggest expenditure the liberals are talking about. And he's going to announce it at the end of August and all the details. Why would he possibly do that? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, if you've got to
Carter
13:45
to run that sucker out for weeks. Yeah,
Corey
13:47
Yeah, absolutely. We'll be talking about this if Justin Trudeau is successful into October. OK,
SPEAKER_01
13:52
OK, so I'm hearing both of you say it's a good question. One more question for you about this. Is it the best question that he should start setting the ballot box? If Justin
SPEAKER_01
14:00
Trudeau is starting to set the ballot box question, and I should clarify for people who are not familiar with that. Corey,
SPEAKER_01
14:05
Corey, maybe fill people in as to what a ballot box question is, because we had a few people on Twitter ask us last time when we threw around the term, and we should maybe explain that. And then give me your answer if you think this is the best ballot box question for Justin Trudeau.
Corey
14:18
Yeah, well, a ballot box question is effectively what you want the voter thinking about when they go into the ballot. And the question is not, are you going to vote liberal or conservative? It's, is
Corey
14:28
is Canada safe, or are we spending enough on infrastructure, or some variation of that. And there's been a lot of examples of ballot box questions. And even after the fact, even when the strategists explain what they were aiming for on a ballot box question, rarely is there consensus as to what the ballot box question was. There's a few rare examples. The NAFTA election in the 80s, we all knew the ballot box question was, should we, or it wasn't even NAFTA at that point. It was just free trade with the Americans. And
SPEAKER_01
14:56
And each party tries to strong arm the electorate to frame it on their terms. Is that fair to say? Yeah, very much so. And
Carter
15:02
And so this would be a decent ballot box question because what you actually get to do is you get to frame, do you want a deficit that's being created to put Canadians to work or do you want those crappy deficits that Stephen Harper gave us? So you actually get to remind people of the negative. A deficit that yields
SPEAKER_01
15:19
yields nothing or a deficit that
Carter
15:21
So I'm the only one talking about making sure Canadians are going back to work. And Thomas Mulcair doesn't want to do this. And Stephen Harper, you
Carter
15:30
you know, he's run deficits that haven't made a difference. And so it actually reinforces a negative about the Conservatives, reinforces a negative about the NDP, and it reinforces a positive for the Liberals. So
SPEAKER_01
15:41
So answer my question. This is a good one? Is this the best one? I don't think this is the best one. Explain to me why you
SPEAKER_01
15:47
think this is the best one for Justin Trudeau. The
Carter
15:49
The give-a-fuck factor, right?
Carter
15:50
right? At the end of the day, do I give a fuck about whether or not there's going to be a new train built in Calgary? Well, the last 10 minutes,
SPEAKER_01
15:56
minutes, we clearly gave a lot of fucks. No,
Carter
15:58
No, I think I can get a lot of media on that. I'm still not sure that this is going to be the one. You
Carter
16:03
people enough? I want one three weeks out. I want to announce a new policy. And where you're taking me, Mr. Velji, is you're taking me into a place where we're going to have to do a special episode. You're
Carter
16:14
You're taking me to a place where we're going to have to do a special episode where we articulate the liberal strategy to Election Day, where we can actually define a ballot box question for them because the ballot box question that I want would be one that appeals more to women than this.
Carter
16:28
this. Now we're going to get Twitter hate because women are going to say, we like this spending too. But I think that there are bigger women's issues out there that Trudeau can really wedge on Mulcair. There's
SPEAKER_01
16:38
There's a ton to talk about and Carter is right. We will do a special episode on that. Our next episode is going to be a special on the liberal strategy, but more of that near the end. Corey, best one?
Corey
16:48
no but a pretty good one it divides the ndp one of the things you hear trudeau using and the people around trudeau using is the word austerity a lot yeah that's not a mistake and that's that's chosen very deliberately because uh when you start looking at some of the the economic situations that have really gone off the rails i'm thinking europe in particular here spain italy greece really greece we're talking about austerity is is something that uh is very very unpopular. People have seen the effects of it. And let's be clear, we're talking about quibbling over whether they spend $10 billion or not in a $2 trillion economy. The notion that this is austerity or not
Corey
17:29
But it starts to make the NDP look miserly. It starts to make all of the parties except for the liberals look like they are risking the
Corey
17:39
the overall social health of their country just to meet the demands of bankers. That's what the word austerity means to people. Okay,
SPEAKER_01
17:46
Okay, I want to move it on to Stephen Harper and the conservatives. You know, when Stephen Harper started this election, his
SPEAKER_01
17:52
his whole premise or the ballot box question he'd want to set was around the economy and how he was a competent and sound financial and economic manager. The facts seem to be changing as we are entering into another recession on his watch.
SPEAKER_01
18:08
Is it possible, or maybe before that, should Stephen Harper make any consideration
SPEAKER_01
18:13
consideration or move right now to try to change the ballot box question about what his candidacy stands for? Stephen, I'll start with you.
Carter
18:19
I mean, to summarize his ballot box question a little differently, I would say that it's risky choice versus safe choice. Right. Those other two are risky choices. I'm the safe choice. The safe choice that
SPEAKER_01
18:29
that now is going to be potentially governing over his second recession.
Carter
18:33
Well, and here's the problem. The safe choice narrative doesn't fit anymore. more. The safe choice narrative is completely gone. See, that's surprising coming
SPEAKER_01
18:39
coming from you. We've had weeks and weeks and weeks of you saying that the conservatives don't need to change their strategy. Am I hearing an inkling of you saying that they... I think
Carter
18:45
think they need to change the ballot box question. Does
SPEAKER_01
18:47
mean changing their strategy?
Carter
18:49
No, I don't think so. I think you need to say... I think the ballot box question should shape something along the lines of, who got you through the last recession? Who do you trust to get us through this? And unfortunately it requires an acknowledgement that we're in the recession. And he's getting... he's inching closer to it. But it's hard to tell, though, what the Conservatives are actually inching towards, given that they still are in the throes of the Duffy trial.
Carter
19:12
And it's been very challenging for them to get anything out over the last two weeks. Corey,
SPEAKER_01
19:17
Corey, is an admission in play for Stephen Harper to change the channel on the ballot box question, or does he not need to do that?
Corey
19:23
Well, I said weeks ago, they're going to be in a recession. We're going to have the economic data that says we're in a recession. He doesn't need to admit it. It's going to be admitted by the Bank of Canada.
Corey
19:32
the narrative. um but the
Corey
19:34
the ballot box question is is not just about the economy it's uh it is about i mean their ads tell you everything you need to know about how they think about
Corey
19:42
about the ballot box right they see this as somebody who's got experience in a job and two options uh that don't and frankly the ballot box question for the conservatives could almost be summed up as better the devil you know because yeah uh well they're well aware that people have concerns with the conservative government they've they've internalized those concerns they've worked through them they're not that whole do you remember when paul martin was talking about guns in our streets and yeah and ads like that talking about the big conservatives yeah
Corey
20:11
that didn't happen right we we might not love harper but we accept harper at this point and what they're doing is they're throwing up some confusion and concern about the other two options so i don't think they need to change their ballot box question i think they just need to uh they need to be emphasizing different parts of their ballot box question see
SPEAKER_01
20:29
see that's interesting to me I was expecting both of you to voice a little bit more concern as to the position where Stephen Harper is in right now. Is that falsely attributed in my mind? Does Stephen Harper need to do more than change the ballot box question? I'll expand that scope a little bit. Stephen?
Carter
20:43
I still maintain that Stephen Harper is not trying to win the majority of the votes in this election. Stephen Harper's election strategy is going to be highly regional. And he's going to be looking at trying to pull out seats
Carter
20:56
seats that are, you know, he's happy with winning by 20 votes in certain seats, ground game, those types of things.
Carter
21:06
That's where his campaign has been focused. The only problem with it is if this drop, this perceived drop of the polls is legitimate, then he gets into trouble. Troubled. And that's where I think that we saw the progressive conservatives go in the May election here in Alberta.
Corey
21:23
Yeah, that's right. We talked for a long time, and I still believe this to be the case, that this election is between the liberals and New Democrats in a funny way, because if they're tied, the conservatives win. If the conservatives are in third, that no longer holds true. No
Corey
21:36
longer holds true. They don't have a huge margin of error here. They have to hold their base, and it looks like their base is starting to slip because of the Duffy affair. Now, that
Corey
21:45
that could change in a hurry. I think that polls tend to be more reactive than the electorate actually acts at the ballot box. And we'll see in a couple of weeks if the Conservatives have rebounded or not. One
SPEAKER_01
21:55
One more question on this segment. Carter, you talked about the regionalization and that sort of nature of the campaign for the Conservatives. Talk to me about the story in the Toronto Star that talks about how the candidates for the Conservatives across the country have been encouraged to not attend debates or speak publicly, etc. And this is not new for them. This is
SPEAKER_01
22:20
how does it play when you're no longer a surefire first place leading the pack?
Carter
22:26
It plays if you can do more voter identification and count your voters to come out more than the other guy's voters. And that's where the New Democratic surge has been interesting. We've been seeing numbers that show that the New Democrats are getting their voter base from across the board almost equally. This is a significant change for a quote-unquote progressive party, where you would have seen an emphasis on younger voters, which is still Justin Trudeau's problem and the liberal problem.
Carter
22:54
So if we can start to see the New Democrats count on voters that used to be the
Carter
23:03
realm of the conservatives, then we start to see a real problem developing for
Carter
23:08
for the conservatives. Those voters that do vote can
Carter
23:12
can now be equally likely to vote orange as it would be to vote blue. And
Carter
23:16
And that's a significant problem.
Carter
23:19
if they can get back in and
Carter
23:21
and get those older voters back, that's
Carter
23:23
that's what I'm looking to see in the next week is some policies that win back some older voters. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01
23:28
Interesting. Corey Carter pins this down to older voters, voter mobilization, and identification of the vote. What's your take on this conservative strategy? strategy well
Corey
23:38
it's uh it's just uh it's conservatives gotta do them right this is this is this kind of the standard but
SPEAKER_01
23:45
but they gotta do them and and that was fine and we talked about this before and i don't mean to interrupt you there but they gotta do them when when them was working is them working now is it possible to still do the same thing like this yeah
Corey
23:57
yeah of course it is i don't understand why that would change simply because they've dropped three points in the polls let's be realistic again three
SPEAKER_01
24:04
three points the polls and you acknowledge acknowledging that their base is also slipping yeah
Corey
24:08
yeah three points i don't think it's not
Carter
24:10
the end of the world today okay yeah i mean and keep coming back to i've said this on this podcast so many times the conservative strategy is consistency and they know it they know it well i just think that when the bottom falls out for them yeah
Carter
24:24
it falls out uh
Carter
24:25
uh i don't think that the bottom has fallen out by any stretch of the imagination let
Corey
24:29
let me throw it back another way you think about it in this context do you think that they would gain a single vote for their openness and transparency if they started showing up for debates this is costed in this is the conservative mentality right they have nothing but upside at this point because there is no upside for reversing course okay
Carter
24:44
interesting i've been doing it for so long i mean we haven't seen a conservative candidate at a debate forever just forever i
SPEAKER_01
24:52
i want to move it on to our next segment our next segment securing the troops now as campaign strategists you guys know that you know when information comes in you need to prioritize that information um and and in this case if you have polling data that's accessible to you prioritize your strategy based on that especially with your internal polls that we've we've alluded to and talked about so
SPEAKER_01
25:11
so tell me you know with with everything that we that's been out publicly available right now and obviously you guys don't have access to the internal stuff but with stuff that's been publicly available if you were sitting right now in each of the three war rooms in
SPEAKER_01
25:24
in who do you go after to to secure are you trying to secure your base right now if you're one of these parties are you trying to get the soft support of other parties to come over to you so i'll start with the conservatives if you are the conservative party right now you are helping jenny burn and you and you're putting together a strategy for the next little bit are you securing your base or are you trying to go after the soft support of another party and if so which party cory i'll start with you yeah
Corey
25:47
yeah for the for the tours it's all about the base they need to make sure all
Corey
25:52
all about the base it's really good yeah um
Corey
25:53
um they've just got to get those people who were there two three weeks ago they need to get them back into the the stable and And and then for them, it's not about getting votes to come to them. It's about moving votes from the liberals to new Democrats or vice versa as needed. Yeah.
Carter
26:09
Yeah. And keep in mind, I mean, the conservatives game plan has always been don't worry about being three, four points behind. We get we're going to get our voters out. Our voters are going to vote at a higher rate than anybody else's. So
SPEAKER_01
26:22
So is it fair to say that, you know, when you make that comment of trying to pin one against the other with the with the other two parties, How exactly do they do that? How do they meddle in the operations of the other parties? Well,
Corey
26:35
Well, they've got two really easy throttles, right? One throttle says liberal ad spend. The other throttle says New Democrat ad spend. And what they need to do is they need to make sure that neither party runs away from the other. Right now, I would argue, they haven't put enough money into the New Democrat ad spend. Yeah,
Carter
26:51
I mean, these aren't guys that need to put out a whole bunch of ads telling us who Stephen Harper is. Stephen Harper is well-known, and we're not going to attract voters to that. Do you still feel Stephen Harper
SPEAKER_01
27:00
Harper is well-defined on his own terms? Absolutely he's
Carter
27:03
he's well-defined on his own terms.
Carter
27:04
the Mike Duffy trial plays right into it. He's in control. He knows exactly what he's doing. So all they need to do is keep doing what they're doing.
Carter
27:15
And bring down, right now, I'd be bringing down the New Democrats. But I'd also be worried, the
Carter
27:22
the New Democrats, I'm not sure that they can go much higher.
Carter
27:25
But I do think that the liberals can actually go much higher. So
SPEAKER_01
27:28
So we were talking about this. And Corey, I think you're the first to make this point on this podcast, that this is going to be a battle between the liberals and the Indies. You've just said this recently. And if they balance themselves out and Harper can take it, right? How does he play the Justin Trudeau angle right now? Because if he knows that Justin Trudeau is a little bit more depressed in the polls, and let's be very clear. These are small, small margins in the polls that we're seeing, right? These are small margins. There's three-way ties. There's maybe a max of a five- or six-point lead for the NDs in certain polls. Small margins. How does he play with Justin Trudeau right now? If he's throttling on the NDP, does he let Trudeau rise so that there's some sense of equilibrium with the two progressive parties?
Corey
28:06
Yeah, I think absolutely you do. You pick your moments, and you pick what you want to get snitty about that day. Hey, you know, we saw Stephen Harper this week talking about the little deficit in the hands. I thought he lost his mind at that point because I don't think, first
Corey
28:21
of all, it just looked terrible. But also, it was off-brand
Corey
28:27
-brand and it hurt Trudeau, or at least it was aimed at Trudeau. It wasn't aimed at Mulcair. I
Corey
28:34
think I would have just shut up about it in that same throttling context I was just talking about there. One of the things I'll say about the conservative strategy, because I don't want to sit here talking about, Stephen and I are both saying like, yeah, stay the course. That
Corey
28:46
That is probably the best available strategy to them. But sometimes you lose with the best available strategy. Yeah.
Corey
28:52
There are ingredients that go into this beyond strategy. And yeah, the conservatives don't have the greatest cake mix right now. Right. But
Carter
28:59
But the conservatives do have regional opportunities, right? Right. They know right now that in order
Carter
29:06
order to stop an NDP government, the lower mainland of British Columbia needs to be stopped. They know right now that, you know, that the NDP
Carter
29:16
NDP are making a breakthrough in Quebec. They can run those ads in those regions, too, without
Carter
29:20
without having to necessarily run a full national ad campaign that's going to have a full national impact.
SPEAKER_01
29:26
I want to move it on to the liberals. You're in the war room of Jerry Butts and Katie Telford. You are advising the liberals. Now, this most recent strategy we've talked about, this most recent play for the $65 billion in addition on the infrastructure plays to the left.
SPEAKER_01
29:40
What are you doing right now? Are you going after your base or are you trying to go after soft support of one of the other two parties? Corey? You're
Corey
29:45
You're going after soft support of the New Democrats. This move was a move of the left. We talked about that.
SPEAKER_01
29:50
it's the right move, you think?
Corey
29:51
Well, jury's out, right? Right. I think that the risk is that he just he can't peel off those left voters because the left voters. And when you think about the New Democrat voters, you've got to keep in mind they have a supreme amount of cynicism about liberal campaign promises. Right.
Corey
30:08
The old adage in the New Democrats is the liberals campaign from the left and govern from the right. So I'm
Corey
30:15
I'm worried that he's not going to pick them up, but he's also going to make Tom Mulcair look more moderate to people who are more moderately minded. right
Corey
30:22
think that the new democrats are your target if if you're in jerry butts and katie telford's campaign that's an interesting point carter what do you think i
Carter
30:29
i think that they right now if either the liberals with the liberals or the new democrats are going back to their base they're going back to lose so both of them have to go out and reach for new voters yeah and that's what they're they're doing uh that's why one of the reasons i really liked uh the announcement to the yesterday uh or the other day depending on when you're listening to the podcast um but But here's their reality. They can't necessarily think of this as a single front war. If they go too far off their base, they could risk to lose some people because the other guy's coming after them. So you've got to make sure that you're protecting your flank all the way through. And that's going to be interesting to watch as they kind of move out, talking
Carter
31:11
talking to these new voters, trying to bring in new voters, trying to bring in what amounts to a really big undecided right now, which
Carter
31:18
which is something that people aren't talking about.
Carter
31:20
But there's a lot of voters available, and they will not break equally.
SPEAKER_01
31:24
Carter makes an interesting point. Corey, I want to ask you this. How do you access new voters on one or either side of the spectrum but still protect your own flank?
SPEAKER_01
31:32
You just, well, it's easier
Corey
31:35
if you've only got one flank, right, which is why the conservatives can go more moderate if they need to because there's no party on the right that's going to take them out. Correct, yes.
Corey
31:43
The liberals and the New Democrats are just so mired in the same policies at this point. Who's left? Who's right? We just spent five minutes arguing about this at the top.
Corey
31:54
You have to play for things that are not going to turn your base off, is the simple answer. You've got to look at things that aren't zero-sum for you. Things that all of a sudden the conservatives in your coalition blanch at, which is why I think infrastructure was a sound choice. You can make
Corey
32:12
conservative argument about investment with infrastructure.
SPEAKER_01
32:16
I want to move it on to the NDP. You're in their strategy war room. room you're you're making a play right now carter you're saying that base is totally out of the question who's where are you going right now i mean we've seen them trying to make the orange blue thing work do you think they need to go after the red support where does the ndp need to go right now well
Carter
32:31
well i'm thinking the ndp just is far more regional to be honest i mean i don't necessarily i'm not even necessarily thinking explain
SPEAKER_01
32:37
to our listeners who may not understand that what do you mean they're more regional well
Carter
32:41
well i think that they have regional plays instead of just Just traditional orange. So one of my theories on left-right spectrum is there is no such thing as the left-right spectrum anymore. Okay.
Carter
32:51
So voters don't identify themselves in the left-right spectrum, nor are they voting based on old party allegiances. Yeah. They're voting hyper-locally. They're voting based on people who, you know, where their region is going. There's so much kind of this cheap kind of mentality with voters. Boy, that's going to get me into nothing but trouble. where
Carter
33:14
they start to move en masse.
Carter
33:16
So are you talking about
SPEAKER_01
33:16
about just candidates locally? What else is
Carter
33:18
is part of that mix? It can be the residents of a particular policy in a specific area. So you will start to see a specific region shift. So in Alberta, we talk about Calgary, Edmonton, and rural. But it's actually rural divides into at least two subsets. But you can start to see that in the lower mainland of British Columbia. You can see the NDP are going to develop a new heartland in the lower mainland of British Columbia where they were competitive before, and I think they won, I'm going to say, four seats in the last election. Sure.
Carter
33:49
But I think they're going to be looking to pick up to 14. Edmonton, now they're going to be trying to go five to seven. So for me, I'm not necessarily going,
Carter
33:56
going, okay, I need to get my base. I'm going to say, listen,
Carter
33:59
listen, I think I can get a breakthrough beyond my base in Edmonton. I can get a breakthrough.
Carter
34:05
So I'm going to bat above my average, if you will. Punch above your
Carter
34:08
Yeah. Yeah, if I go to a lot of sporting metaphors for a political podcast. Yeah,
Carter
34:13
But I'm going to punch above my weight, bat above my average in these Pacific regions. And if I do that, then I really screw over these other guys. Corey,
SPEAKER_01
34:21
Corey, you're Rick Carlisle writing up the playbook for the NDP sports reference. There you go. NBA reference. There you go. What are you doing right now? I like Carter's regional answer. Didn't necessarily answer my question, but
SPEAKER_01
34:31
but that's fine because I accept it as good entertainment.
Corey
34:33
Where do you go?
Corey
34:36
Well, I think there is a left and a right. And I think if I'm the New Democrats, I'm not worried about the left. For 50 years, people have been calling me a left-wing party, so now my play is for the center. I'm looking for those moderate liberals who originally thought the New Democrats were too left-wing. I think that's who's open for them. I think that's why they're suddenly showing some strength in Edmonton. I think that's why they've been so domineering in parts of Ontario, southern Ontario in particular.
Corey
35:01
They are adding to their traditional labor base an awful lot of moderate voters. and good for them. That's what I'd be going after. And that's why I think Trudeau's move
Corey
35:11
move is a bit risky.
SPEAKER_01
35:13
Ah, that's interesting. Okay, I wanted to move it on to our last segment. Our last segment, the lightning round. Guys, are you ready for this? I
Carter
35:20
I always am. Born ready.
Carter
35:22
We keep the lightning round really tight. We
SPEAKER_01
35:24
We do. We do. This could easily go 40 minutes. This could be 40 minutes right here. Yeah, grab popcorn, put some tea in the microwave. Do people put tea in the microwave? I feel like that's like a brown person thing. My wife does. Yeah, okay. And your wife. so racist
SPEAKER_01
35:38
anyways let's get to this yes or no is it a mistake for Tom Mulcair to want to look fiscally conservative or to embrace the fiscal conservative or moderate Corey label Carter I'll go with you first mistake
Carter
35:50
mistake yes it's a total mistake it is uh it's out of character no one's gonna buy it Corey
Corey
35:54
Corey you say that I am I mean I would just take that line I would say like you call me a fiscal conservative sure you call me left sure who I am is Tom Mulcair yeah
SPEAKER_01
36:06
That sounds like a really cheesy poem. As it stands in isolation, from a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank Justin Trudeau's infrastructure plan? Corey?
SPEAKER_01
36:14
As it stands, as an announcement. On strict political terms.
SPEAKER_01
36:18
It's an 8. Yeah, it's
Carter
36:19
it's an 8 for sure. I mean, it has the ability to grow into a 9 or a 10 if they play it out right.
SPEAKER_01
36:25
We talked a lot about polls last time. I want to ask your guys' opinion just on aggregate about all the polls coming out. How much faith, on a scale of 1 to 10, do you guys have on the methodology of polls that you're seeing right now? Carter? Minus
SPEAKER_01
36:38
Okay, minus 2. Corey, are you a
Corey
36:39
a little bit more optimistic? Well, you're just throwing them all in together. I have very little faith in the forums of the world. I have a great deal of faith in Angus Reid's 6,000-person online weighted sample. You also know
Carter
36:50
know how they're attracting that particular panel.
Corey
36:56
anybody else in this country. But
Corey
36:58
I will tell you— How
Carter
36:59
How do you feel about Stephen Harper? You know, like, do you think Stephen Harper's an asshole is like the question that draws you into that poll. Thumb
SPEAKER_01
37:07
Thumb on the scale. So, Corey, do you want to give me a numeric answer or do you want to just pass on this?
SPEAKER_01
37:11
You can't pass. Give me a numeric answer. Give me a numeric answer.
Corey
37:14
I'm going to say nine for Angus and one for Forbes. Nine for Angus?
Carter
37:19
you just do that
Corey
37:19
that to Angus. You
SPEAKER_01
37:20
You just do that
Carter
37:20
that to upset me.
SPEAKER_01
37:21
me. I've never seen such
Corey
37:22
such a good poll. Our
SPEAKER_01
37:23
Our listeners who haven't been around for long, I will give Corey a hat tip. He was the one to read the tea leaves and the polls and be right about our Alberta election. Yeah. The broken clock is
Carter
37:32
right twice a day.
SPEAKER_01
37:35
think I said that. I know, but
Carter
37:37
but I got it in this time, so I feel good about myself.
SPEAKER_01
37:39
myself. He says it twice a day, actually. That was pretty meta. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_01
37:45
Let's – okay, so when it comes to Justin Trudeau, will
SPEAKER_01
37:48
will he regret trying to phrase the ballot box question with this potential infrastructure spend on the economy? Will he regret that? Carter, I'll go with you first.
Carter
37:58
it's not strong enough to take him through to october the 19th he needs to come up with another we're making
SPEAKER_01
38:04
making the assumption that this is the announcement but it can't be it's too it's too early it's too long to
Carter
38:09
to sustain uh cory
Corey
38:11
yeah i i'd reject the premise i'd go all harper on you i don't think he thinks it's the ballot box question rejecting
Carter
38:17
rejecting the premise like harper that's what i'm doing i
Carter
38:20
don't know what to do with you rejecting premises
SPEAKER_01
38:22
reject the premise of my next three questions you are you know endorsements have have started to bubble up for the parties you are running uh a campaign for the liberals who is your dream endorsement right now oh
Carter
38:34
oh my my my dream endorsement right now for the liberals yeah anyone political non-political really happy i mean i actually quite like paul martin you
SPEAKER_01
38:41
you like paul martin i
Carter
38:42
i did cory i think maybe kretchen maybe next yeah
Corey
38:46
yeah out of office
Corey
38:47
anyone so i'm a liberal my dream endorsement is probably not not paul martin it's it's
Corey
38:52
it's probably justin bieber justin
Corey
38:56
don't know does anybody care about political endorsements you
Carter
38:58
you tell me i like martin i like martin on the stump carter does anyone care
SPEAKER_01
39:01
care about political endorsements of course this is my show that's this is it's
Carter
39:05
is he doing what's
Carter
39:05
doing asking questions does
Carter
39:07
does anybody i i don't i i don't think they have that big of an impact but i do think that uh there was it was nice to see some gray hair up with justin the only
Corey
39:16
only time political endorsements matter is when they are so against type You
Carter
39:20
You know what I've decided?
Carter
39:24
decided? I've decided the liberal war room was, in fact, listening to this podcast a few weeks ago. When I said we needed to see more team around Justin Trudeau, they
Carter
39:33
they brought us Paul. Well,
SPEAKER_01
39:34
Well, yeah, the current team, I haven't seen any one of them. They
Carter
39:36
They did throw in a whole bunch of people in Toronto around the economics. You're
SPEAKER_01
39:39
You're the NDP. Who
Corey
39:40
Who is your dream endorsement right now? Corey? My dream endorsement is, I'm
Corey
39:47
I'm trying to think of the most senior liberal premier who's not win. I don't know. I guess it would probably, and Christy Clark doesn't count because she's not a liberal in any way, shape, or form. A senior liberal.
Corey
39:59
a ton. You know who I would pick? I would pick the premier of Nova Scotia.
Corey
40:06
That's interesting. It would just shake up the Maritimes.
Carter
40:09
Here's what I'm going to say. Fidel Castro. Okay.
SPEAKER_01
40:12
Okay. Okay, great, fantastic. See what I did? Bieber, Castro, and then some real answers in between. Finally, you were the Conservatives' dream endorsement. Is there one for you?
Carter
40:22
I mean, Stephen Harper does not want to look like he needs anybody to hold his hand when he's crossing this particular bridge of this recession. So, no, I don't think he needs anybody.
Corey
40:32
You know what would have been a good one was Paul Martin.
Carter
40:34
Too late for that
SPEAKER_01
40:35
That's interesting. Good answer, Corey. Okay, last question, and we'll wrap it up here. here. Guys, what do you think when voters go in on October 19th to vote will be the ballot box question? Corey?
Corey
40:46
think it's going to be too
Corey
40:48
too soon to say. I really can't tell.
Carter
40:51
I think that they should tune in for the next episode of The Strategist where I outline it fully and
Carter
40:56
and explain what the liberals need to do in order to win on October 19th. That's
SPEAKER_01
40:59
That's a wrap. Episode 545 of The Strategist. Just a reminder once again, our live show in Calgary, September 17th. Tickets at live.thestrategist.ca We hope to see you there. Last show was sold out, so get your tickets early. And yes, Carter is right. We have a special episode next week, so tune in for that. Once again, my name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_01
41:27
Listeners of the Strategist podcast, remember,
SPEAKER_01
41:29
remember, we are on iTunes and Stitcher, so make sure you subscribe to our podcast on there. Also, we're on Twitter at StrategistPod and individually at Corey Hogan, at Carter underscore AB, and
SPEAKER_01
41:43
and at Zane Velji.