Transcript
SPEAKER_02
0:03
This is The Strategists, episode 547. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Gents, how are you doing?
Corey
0:12
Yeah, I feel good. I feel good about almost everything in the world, except for you dropping that cup on the table making all that noise. Yeah,
Carter
0:19
Yeah, he does that, though. This
Corey
0:20
This is what he does. I don't drop it. I place it on the table very gently. The number of complaints we get about noise that Zain Velji makes. Zain
Carter
0:25
Zain Velji's tap, tap, tapping on
Corey
0:28
table, table, table. And listen, I work with Zane Velgey. I'll tell you, the noises that come from his gastrointestinal
Carter
0:33
Oh, it's nasty. We
SPEAKER_02
0:35
to go there right
SPEAKER_02
0:37
We wanted to go there and then tell people to come to our live show. Is that the transition we are planning to make? Come see this guy and his gastrointestinal noises and pay $20 to do it.
Carter
0:48
Hearing it live is the only way to hear it.
SPEAKER_02
0:52
Yeah, I put my lapel mic a little bit lower than everyone else's.
SPEAKER_02
0:56
We're off to a great
Corey
0:57
great start. okay well
SPEAKER_02
0:57
well i'm gonna leave the job of selling the show to you then yeah
Corey
1:01
ahead that the the live show next thursday tickets are 20 this is like one of those condo billboards that's up we are closing in on a sellout here you guys need to
Corey
1:11
you guys need to buy your tickets now we have a few available that we can make additionally available by opening the balcony and we're prepared to do that we're
Carter
1:18
we're prepared to do that for the masses but
Corey
1:20
but we are getting down to it so if you haven't bought out your ticket yet now's the time you get to watch the debate there's
Corey
1:27
there's a bar uh
Corey
1:29
you get to listen to us yeah i see it as kind of a win-win-win i
Carter
1:32
i am shattered that so many people want to watch a live debate and then listen to the to uh the strategists as we talk about it right immediately then i mean it's it's really quite staggering to me how do we want to do this
SPEAKER_02
1:43
this and i should mention for those who don't want to watch the debate you can come for the show right the debate starts at six o'clock we start at around 8 20 so there is some time after the debate is over if you want want to come in and in that period you're absolutely able to do so in case you want to watch the debate at home or not watch it
Corey
1:59
it at all and then
SPEAKER_02
1:59
then you're totally confused whatever your game plan is
Corey
2:01
is we'll call that the regular canadian pack yeah don't watch the debate inform your opinions entirely based on the on the opinions of others yeah yeah in
Carter
2:10
in fact isn't that what we're doing or no we are watching the debate well
Corey
2:13
well you might be yeah it's gonna be
Corey
2:14
i've heard there's a bar open we'll see where this goes the
Carter
2:17
the bar is the only draw okay
SPEAKER_02
2:19
so once again that's next Thursday. Ticket at live.thestrategist.ca. Okay, before we get into today's show, last episode was our liberal strategy special. You guys spent a lot of time, an hour and what? Our episode was like an hour and a half, so like a full Ridley Scott movie of talking about the liberal strategy. And I wanted to ask you, off the top, you know, we're about About a week out from where we initially recorded that, any regrets, any sort of second guesses on what you threw out there based on what we put on the podcast?
Corey
2:56
Well, just like a Ridley Scott movie, maybe the ending was confusing to me. Did
Corey
3:00
Did we leave ourselves open for a sequel? Probably. No, I have one regret. I have one regret, and it's not something that I disagree with, but I think I was maybe a little too emphatic. And
Corey
3:11
And thinking about the past elections, I'm now wondering if I shouldn't hedge a little more. And that was when we talked about Quebec, and
Corey
3:16
and I talked about the liberal ceiling at 30 points.
Corey
3:19
Still true. But I have to ask myself, what would the NDP's accessibility numbers have looked like 35 days out from last campaign? And when I think about that, and I think about how quickly Quebec has flipped in the past, I
Corey
3:30
I wish I'd left a little more wiggle room. I'm a little worried I've exposed myself to look really stupid. To
Carter
3:36
To the Carter factor. Yeah.
Carter
3:39
Yeah. Yeah, like how stupid I looked in the Foothills by-election. Yeah, what was the turnout
Corey
3:44
turnout going to be? Listen, we called
Carter
3:45
called it a victory for the strategists. My 9% plus your 30% equals 39% turnout. The strategists win.
Carter
3:53
My only regret is that it turns out you can get paid to rescue a campaign in the middle of the campaign.
Carter
4:00
And we should have just held out like the Linton Crosby strategy and maybe waited for the telephone to ring a couple more days. Well, I'm sure
Corey
4:07
sure it was going to be like the next day. Yeah,
Carter
4:09
know. And now we've given them the strategy. We get zero money.
SPEAKER_02
4:13
And we don't get and we
SPEAKER_02
4:14
we don't get imported into a campaign. That's unfortunate. Very unfortunate. So Carter's regret is that he didn't get paid for it.
Corey
4:22
he's going to be in for a very wrong way too many times to regret it.
SPEAKER_02
4:25
it. He's going to be in for a very sad awakening when he figures out that the royalties from the show are literally zero. There are royalties
Carter
4:33
royalties in the show?
Carter
4:35
So far this show has cost us money. Okay,
SPEAKER_02
4:37
Okay, I want to get right into it. Let's go. Let's get go into our first segment, our first segment for the show. The dingo ate my baby strategy. strategy.
SPEAKER_02
4:45
Linton Crosby, known as the wizard from or the wizard of Oz, I still don't know what his nickname correctly is, is a campaign strategist from Australia, well renowned in the conservative world, helped David Cameron elect his majority, helped the mayor of London win his election as well. He is now being transplanted into the conservative campaign. Off
SPEAKER_02
5:07
Off the top, initial
SPEAKER_02
5:09
initial What does this mean? And the fact that it's a public sentiment, that this is out in the news and people know about this and conservatives aren't rejecting them, they're welcoming this news. What does that
SPEAKER_02
5:18
mean? Two thoughts for
Corey
5:19
for you. The first thought is this is pretty clear that they know they need to change the channel. And so by making at least a somewhat public knowledge that this is happening, they are saying there is going to be a change. This is a chance for them to hit reset in a much more literal way. Maybe not literal, but a metaphor that is seen by more people than if they were just to quietly bring this guy in to consult on the side. Now, the
Corey
5:43
the second thought, though, is does anybody out there – like this guy's specialty is in wedges and finding issues and buying off voters. Does anybody out there think the conservatives, their deficiency is wedges and buying off voters? Not at all. Like they're not good enough at that?
Carter
5:58
Yeah. I mean that's Jenny Byrne's strength too. I mean you're bringing in a person to reinforce your strength already. And the problem is the wedges are down to virtually no more wedge opportunities. So
SPEAKER_02
6:09
So let's broaden it a little bit, because I don't want to limit his skill to simply that. I mean, being a renowned strategist doesn't mean you have simply one trick. You're not a one-trick pony. What does this mean in terms of the dynamics for the campaign? Stephen Harper, over 10 years, has amassed strategists and operatives, but now he brings someone from Australia to help him in his campaign?
Carter
6:31
Yeah, but we actually talked about this a few episodes ago. What would happen if? I mean, we were talking about in the liberal context when they were talking about bringing in David Hurley.
Carter
6:40
Instead, the Conservatives have gone out and brought in Linton Crosby. What a twist.
Carter
6:45
It's just it's but they now you see Corey Tanik out there today saying he
Carter
6:50
he was always with us. You
Carter
6:51
You know, this isn't any big deal. He's not even flying into Canada. He's just, you know, we call him once in a while in Australia. So there has been a little bit of pushback from the official campaign. Oh, yeah.
Corey
7:03
this to me is just... It's such non-pushback pushback.
Carter
7:06
pushback. It is. I mean, it's just something that happens in a campaign that's not doing 100%. You don't fire anybody.
Carter
7:13
There's a big deal made about moving Jenny off the plane. Jenny
Carter
7:16
Jenny Byrne should never have been on the plane. And she wouldn't have been, except the Duffy trial forces Ray Novak to go back to Ottawa. Jenny goes out to be on the plane. They're so short on bench strength.
Corey
7:30
Well, 100% agree. I agree. And I think your point about Jenny Byrne needing to get the perspective from being not on the plane is well taken. But that's also why you would hire an Australian and why maybe that 10 years of growth you've had in Canada is not enough. Look, we're all consultants, and there are two reasons people hire consultants.
Corey
7:46
Well, there's really three reasons, and the third is somebody to blame. But there's two real reasons to hire consultants, right? And one of them is a knowledge or expertise you do not have or
Corey
7:56
or a perspective you do not have. So being able to step back from it and say, you're
Corey
8:00
you're all nuts, you're all too deep into it, here's what you need to consider. And in that sense, having an Australian point of view is not detrimental, I don't think. And certainly he's well regarded in this, but I think he is a name. He's a brand more than he's something that the Conservatives needed, which is why I'm convinced. As much as they're like, oh yeah, he was always here and whatnot,
Corey
8:20
they're just skating. They're trying to make sure they have both messages out there for both eventualities. Should
SPEAKER_02
8:27
Should it not be of concern that his connection
SPEAKER_02
8:30
connection to the Canadian political context is limited? Corey, you talk about perspective. Is that of concern? Should it be of concern?
Corey
8:38
Well, look, you hire your phone company. It's not because they know your mother well. They connect you to your mother. And it's the same sense. This guy has a certain— You talk about
SPEAKER_02
8:46
about that as if it's a good thing.
Corey
8:49
You know what? It has a skill set, and that skill set can be applied in a number of contexts devoid of knowing those contexts fully. Yeah,
Carter
8:55
Yeah, I mean, every strategist across the country runs into this problem of, oh, sure, they did really well in Ontario, but they don't understand the Alberta
Carter
9:03
Alberta context or the British Columbia. British Columbia is such a different market than Quebec.
Corey
9:08
Yeah, what a delicate flower.
Carter
9:09
flower. Oh, yeah. Here's the thing, folks. How you develop a strategy is how you develop a strategy. It doesn't matter if you're from Australia, if you're from Great Britain, if you're from Alberta, or if you're from Ontario. Mario, a great strategist doesn't allow their own personal bias to get in the way. And that's probably one of Lyndon Crosby's great strengths. I
SPEAKER_02
9:29
I want to go back to the team that surrounds the conservatives right now. What does this mean in relationship to like the trust when you bring on someone new? Carter, you've been in this position, right, where there was allegedly or there was someone new thrown into the mix. What does that mean when that person – You were the
Corey
9:45
the someone new thrown into the mix before.
Carter
9:48
Well, I've seen both. You've been both sides, haven't you? So what does
SPEAKER_02
9:50
does that mean in regards of trust and dynamics that have already been built?
Carter
9:54
Well, first of all, I mean, oftentimes these things are blown out of proportion. In 2012, I was apparently fired from the campaign.
Corey
10:02
Sorry to hear about that. Yeah,
Carter
10:02
Yeah, it was awkward for all of us. You know, I was reading about it in the newspaper. My mom called me. Did you get fired? No, I didn't get fired.
Carter
10:10
And, you know, Randy Dawson didn't come in and save the day. So these are the, you know, that's reality. But it doesn't matter what reality is. What perception is, is all that matters. Perception is that the Tories needed a shake-up. They got their shake-up. So in many ways, even though it wasn't a positive channel change, is anybody talking about Duffy now?
Corey
10:28
That's a good point.
Carter
10:29
You know, it was the pee-in-the-cup incident that started this whole thing, and now no one is talking about Mike Duffy.
Corey
10:35
And amazingly, they've turned candidate peeing into a cup into a great pivot away from Syria, which is a much more damning issue for them long-term. And so now it's about peeing in a cup. Was this person properly vetted? Jenny Byrne back to Ottawa. Australian strategist in that
Corey
10:51
that doesn't sound great but it sounds a hell of a lot better than the Canadian government is heartless and has absolutely no plan how to deal with an international crisis
Carter
10:58
crisis well that's when people ask us is the refugee issue going to be an election day issue the reality is the election day issue isn't going to be defined until three days before the election because that's our attention span even
Carter
11:09
even the refugee crisis arguably one of the most important humanitarian issues isn't going to survive until election day I don't know I don't know about that. I don't know about that. You were saying that last week about this week. Our attention span doesn't work that way. Already in this week, we're not talking about it. Well,
Corey
11:23
Well, I'll tell you, the theme is going to carry through. I have much more confidence that the theme of a Stephen Carter who's indifferent to the— Stephen Carter? No, no, no. You can say it for both
SPEAKER_02
11:31
of them. You can say it for both of them. Go
Corey
11:33
Go ahead. Stephen Harper. I'm
Carter
11:33
I'm not indifferent to the refugee crisis, and I'm a little bit upset about it. Let me tell
Corey
11:37
tell you, Rob Brown, CBC, the panel we do, he's done the reverse, and now I've Cartered Harper and Harper has been Cartered before that sounds
Corey
11:49
way too sexual by
SPEAKER_02
11:50
by the way I need to let you know that that is an urban dictionary definition that if any of our listeners want to write up they are more than welcome to do
SPEAKER_02
12:01
so one last question on this because you're clearly not giving me any sort of I guess wedge on this is this this implant of a new strategist Just does that only retread the fact that the conservatives are in free fall? Is there any other way to spin this?
Carter
12:20
They're not in free fall.
SPEAKER_02
12:22
there was a poll
Carter
12:22
poll today. They're absolutely not in free fall. But isn't that the sentiment
SPEAKER_02
12:25
sentiment when you bring in someone new? Like,
SPEAKER_02
12:27
isn't that constantly the sentiment regardless of
Carter
12:29
what the poll? You can't
SPEAKER_02
12:30
on one hand say, we don't trust the polls. Who cares about the polls? And then bring on someone new and not acknowledge that something's going wrong.
Corey
12:37
On the other hand, Zane, because you say, oh, no, he's been helping us forever to anybody who thinks you're in free fall. and anybody who says you need a shake-up internally, you wink and you say, yeah, well, don't worry, Jenny Byrne now has assistance. The problem they have is not one that
Corey
12:52
that is like one-dimensional. They have two different problems and this very Janus-like approach they're taking to it is not bad strategy. I can't knock them for bringing in a strategist saying that this guy's been there all along. That's actually a pretty clever way to deal with the problem, in my opinion.
Corey
13:09
You know, they are in hurt And I think that there's a chance that if they drop a few more points in some of those nightly tracking polls, Nanos has been giving us lately, that
Corey
13:17
that they have a real risk that their vote starts to panic and saying, OK,
Corey
13:22
OK, I got to go liberal because I can't stand the New Democrats or vice versa.
Corey
13:25
But they're not there yet. I mean, they are far from there at this point.
SPEAKER_02
13:29
OK, so tell me about this a little bit more, because the role of a strategist we talked about many times in terms of what the strategist does. we even had our last episode placing together a strategy for the liberal party tell me how a strategist fits in with the rest of the campaign team can this guy actually effectively work across the pond and i want and there's a point to this because i want to understand what the the generic campaign infrastructure looks like core you say they're very different right across the board like a lot of different positions but there's some core ones that remain at the top
Corey
14:01
top i actually think this is going to be great because in the pc campaign in 2012 that steven ran he was the strategist and he had uh as somebody we all know well susan elliott was the campaign manager right right those two positions were separate and it's more common than not for those two positions to be separate now in my campaign across the way in 2012 i was working with raj sherman and the liberals i was very concerned about uh my ability to control that particular mix so i only agreed to be campaign manager if they also made me the senior strategist and the chair of the platform like i wanted all the controls yeah
Carter
14:35
yeah i mean so you had all those controls but more they
Carter
14:38
very separate and i had to wear
Corey
14:39
wear different hats at different times i
Carter
14:41
i mean even even within various campaigns one of the things that you see consistently across the campaign is a chair or two chairs that are essentially in charge of the campaign but what their job is is they're the enforcers they're the ones who come down and if someone's doing something incorrectly they're going to come in and crush them so not doing management but they're the the chair and they're ultimately the direction they're they're a very
Corey
15:04
very small board of directors yeah
Carter
15:06
yeah right very small like one or two people then you see a strategist like
Carter
15:11
like there's usually a primary strategist and then that primary strategist assembles a team of additional strategists that they're either assembling to keep them out of the media or
Carter
15:21
that they're assembling to actually use as strategists now i've actually done it both ways in campaigns i will actually assemble a team of strategists that i'd like to work with and i will ask them their opinions and i will listen to them and then i will assemble a team of what
Carter
15:35
what i call the amateurs
Carter
15:38
we put them on a committee and we meet with them and
Carter
15:41
and we thank them afterwards um
Carter
15:43
um but basically all we're doing is we're keeping them out of the media i was also on that randy dawson asked me to be on that team uh during itself that's fascinating
SPEAKER_02
15:51
fascinating to me i want to dig into that a little bit more what's you keep them out of the media i get it but make sure i want to make sure our listeners do so they're part of your team so that they don't go out just
Carter
16:01
just saying willy-nilly i've been asked to be on a news hit today okay and one of the questions that was asked by the news team is are you currently working for any campaign no i'm not right whereas if if i'd accepted that position with um the the liberal campaign as one of their strategists you know on this committee they usually come up with really good names like they got a really good red leaf
Corey
16:23
leaf committee oh that's good
Corey
16:26
good the red leaf so you
Carter
16:27
you get onto these committees that have these great names and it's code named right and you don't want anybody right don't tell anybody but you know we really need you so uh when you're working in those capacities you have to declare if the media come to you and say you
Carter
16:40
you know like some media outlets like power and politics want those guys right
Carter
16:44
to come in and wear that hat and represent that party and other tv outlets uh like like the CTV hit I'm going to do today,
Carter
16:51
they don't want you to be affiliated. They want you to be able to essentially throw grenades at all the parties. I
Carter
16:59
I like being in a role where I get to throw grenades. Okay,
SPEAKER_02
17:01
Okay, so that's fascinating. You've got your chairs. Corey, you talked about how one person can simultaneously wear a lot of hats in a campaign structure. Talk to me about some of the tactical positions. You've got your campaign manager, your deputy, your director of comms. Any other equivalent C-suite positions that
Corey
17:15
that exist? Yeah, tour, absolutely. Tour is massive, and policy, director of policy, or oppo, or whatever you want, but essentially the person who's going through and pouring through all of this stuff.
Carter
17:24
stuff. Yeah, I mean, and I would say that most campaigns are separating the war room. Right. The leader of the war room, or the war room chief, or whatever, is generally different than the strategist, generally different than the campaign manager. Very different set, right? And if you can keep your campaign strategist out of the war room, you're
Carter
17:46
you're probably going to do better because your war room is dealing with immediate, right? It's almost as bad as being on the plane. They are seeing the shit in the bowl as it goes down, whereas everybody else – That's
Corey
17:59
That's colorful. I'm glad this is a radio show and not like – Could
Carter
18:02
Could you imagine the video accompanying the description? The B-roll that we'd have to
Carter
18:05
shoot. But the strategist needs to be in a position where they're trying to figure out if that mattered or not. Okay.
SPEAKER_02
18:09
Okay. So the reason I've asked you all this is I want you to put
SPEAKER_02
18:13
put your thinking hat on and say if you are, let's say, the liberals, if
SPEAKER_02
18:18
if you are the liberal party right now, which one of these positions, if you could just hire one of these positions from anywhere, which one do you think they need right now? And this kind of ties back to what we played maybe like five episodes ago where I asked you which magic pill do they need, and you guys selected strategy and operations. And all of these roles have different functionality to them, right? Right. So if you're the liberals right now and without sort of taking a hit or taking any backlash, if you could take on one of these positions, carte blanche, who would you take? Corey, I would take leader from
Corey
18:47
from the Bank of England.
Carter
18:52
I'm going to not clarify that and let people go to the Google machine to figure out what that one meant. But I would I would bring in a strategist. You
SPEAKER_02
19:01
You think they also need a strategist just
Carter
19:04
My problem, I mean, Katie's a campaign manager, and I think she's operationally one of the strongest people. Right. But Jerry's the one who's doing strategy, and he's on the plane. And they're, you know, so they got campaign
Carter
19:17
campaign chairs, I believe. I can't even remember who they are off the top of my head. But to me, it's the closeness of Jerry to Trudeau that prohibits them from seeing a full strategy.
Corey
19:27
Yeah, I agree with that. And I'd also say he's doing two roles right now. He's the strategist, but he's also the choke chain.
Corey
19:33
So I've been that on, I'm that on, like, I'm not on the campaign, but I have a good friend who's running for office. And sometimes I'm
Corey
19:40
I'm the guy who's supposed to come in and be the real jerk and say, like, you can't do that. Yeah,
Carter
19:43
Yeah, if you do that, you're going to lose. Stop doing that, you stupid idiot. And you need someone that you've trusted for decades. And
Corey
19:50
And Jerry is perfectly positioned to
Carter
19:51
to do that. Perfect for that.
Corey
19:52
But unfortunately, that requires proximity. And that proximity is meddlesome for strategy. Okay.
Carter
19:58
Okay. Yeah, because when you're on the plane or you're that close to the leader, you're in the bubble. Okay. And let me just take a moment to explain in the bubble. I think that everybody understands the construct.
SPEAKER_02
20:08
I want you to do that. Go ahead. But the
Carter
20:09
the idea of being in the bubble is that you're only seeing certain inputs. So when you have a good – like yesterday they were in Vancouver the day before they were in Edmonton, the liberal tour. 1
Carter
20:23
1,200 people or 1,400 people in Edmonton, a huge crowd in Vancouver. Oh, everybody loves Justin. Everybody thinks he's the most
Corey
20:31
most authentic. Let me just say, Stéphane Dion also pulled crowds of 1,000
Carter
20:35
,000 plus in these areas.
Carter
20:36
This is my point, though, right? You will start to think that
Carter
20:39
that was the best thing ever and we are just hitting the ball out of the park.
Carter
20:44
You're not hitting the ball out of the park. Your faithful have come to a rally.
Carter
20:48
1,200 people don't win you nothing. This is in
Corey
20:52
in an area with almost 3 million people. Exactly.
Carter
20:54
Exactly. You have to keep your head in the game and get the real inputs. And when you're on the tour bus, it is impossible or on the plane to
Carter
21:04
to keep your head in the game. It's
Corey
21:05
It's like candidate disease times a million. It's like every door you went to was a home run, right? So candidate disease is this sense that when candidates go door knocking, they come back and they think they're going to win in a landslide, even if they've got like 5%. It
SPEAKER_02
21:17
It spars those tweets that say, great day at the doors, and they actually believe it.
Corey
21:21
it. They actually mean it. The thing is, that's because people are unfailingly polite. And at the doors, they'll be like, oh, yeah, no, I'll consider you. And
Corey
21:28
And you actually get some of the worst voter ID from candidates as a result. I
Carter
21:32
I heard from Foothills, the Alberta Party team, going around saying we were everybody's second choice.
Corey
21:40
our non-Alberta listeners, Foothills was a by-election we just had here, and the Alberta Party got about 5% of the vote.
Carter
21:46
4.9. There you go.
SPEAKER_02
21:48
Okay. So you have said the Liberals need a strategist. Think, again, for the NDP. All the positions available on the table. Campaign, deputy, DCOMs, policy, Corey Sator, strategists at the top. What do they need? Corey, you're putting your hand
Corey
22:02
One we didn't talk about. Oh, please. Yeah.
Corey
22:05
Fundraiser. The NDP need a killer fundraiser.
SPEAKER_02
22:08
fundraiser. Okay, so hold on. Hold on. Is your fundraiser as integrated with your C-suite of your campaign as all the other positions? Oh, my God. Yeah. They're the most
Corey
22:16
most important person. So that's
Corey
22:18
good to know. I
SPEAKER_02
22:18
I think many people think that position works in isolation on the ground making calls, but that position is well integrated.
Carter
22:26
yeah and so even in the canadian system where we're we're we're limited to a donation of what fourteen hundred dollars this year yeah
Corey
22:32
yeah but there's bundles so
Carter
22:33
so yeah but you you you still have whales right
Carter
22:37
right so there's a person in calgary right
Carter
22:40
right i'm just making this a hypothetical person up who
Carter
22:43
who can deliver 28
Carter
22:44
28 donations of fourteen hundred dollars right that whale is
Carter
22:48
is known to your fundraiser and that fundraiser is making the call and saying it's time now for you to put the four you know all those donors on the table i need you to do that um
Carter
22:59
even the digital fundraiser so those two the whale the whale fundraising the like the major gift in kind of finance and fundraising term the major gift fundraiser and the digital fundraiser so the small thing you know online
SPEAKER_02
23:12
online lay a five
SPEAKER_02
23:12
five dollar ten dollar hits yet all
Carter
23:14
all of that is integrated because at some point you wreck everything comes together and that is do we have the money to pay for it and
Corey
23:20
and some of your messages have to be targeted towards the base so they have to be integrated with comms so you've talked about digital and major gift i i look at it this
Corey
23:28
this is a classic we do the same thing but we we do it in different ways cause and influence so you have people who just believe in you and they'll give you those micro donations of twenty dollars fifty dollars uh getting a little higher they're no longer micro donations but they're within the the means of a regular canadian uh whereas the influence donors are those people who have 20 friends who can without breaking a sweat write a 1400 check and what they want is to be close to the powers that be yeah
Carter
23:55
yeah i mean if you and in each individual campaign so
Carter
23:58
so and then that breaks down right so one of the things we haven't done is we haven't broken down the
Carter
24:03
the national campaign to the provincial chairs to the provincial campaign to the individual campaigns in each oh sure
SPEAKER_02
24:08
sure yeah and all
Carter
24:09
all that breaks down at each at each step the the campaign manager and the the fundraiser are often more important than the strategist because the strategy at a at a you know at a constituency level is go knock more doors right or go sell yeah right or
Corey
24:26
or you know there some in some
Carter
24:27
some places it's distance yourself from the leader a little bit right or take a position that's a little bit different some places have to to play that game yeah
Carter
24:36
but reality is i mean what do they say five percent of the votes are going to be influenced by a local campaign i think it's higher than that yeah
Corey
24:42
on the star power of the candidate but generally Generally speaking, it's about the leader, it's
Corey
24:45
it's about the party. Right,
Carter
24:46
Right, so those local campaigns, you're basically running an operational campaign.
Corey
24:52
Yeah, let's get as many people as possible to run through as fast as possible. Zane, one of the things we haven't mentioned yet, but I think needs to be mentioned, and it's very similar to Carter's comment about you bring people in the tent and then they're essentially excluded from media, is depending
Corey
25:04
depending on the party you're in, every one of these positions we've talked about, there's almost always two versions of it. Like two understudies. yeah yeah like an understudy there's the person who's supposed to just give us your thoughts on this or or open your rolodex to us and then there's the person who actually does the work and and often there's like a third the
Corey
25:22
the person who thinks they deserve the job can't do the job has a title that suggests they have the job and
SPEAKER_02
25:27
and those people are in place just to be totally clear generally for what reason uh
SPEAKER_02
25:31
uh to keep the peace to keep the peace okay uh
Corey
25:33
uh you need you need party cohesion during an election right now we're seeing from the conservatives leaks that are clearly coming from their national council we should talk more about that maybe at a later date but
Corey
25:45
that's the kind of thing you that is just lethal during a campaign and you avoid that by bringing them in it's the classic open the door they don't go through and
Carter
25:52
and this is one of the weaknesses of the conservatives one of the weaknesses of the conservatives is they don't you know they become such an insular small group that
Carter
26:00
that they don't touch enough bodies and you have you know the leader the
Carter
26:03
the campaign manager the camp you know and even deputy campaign managers you could have a deputy deputy campaign manager whose only job is
Carter
26:10
is to call each one of the campaign managers.
SPEAKER_02
26:12
Yeah, you can have
SPEAKER_02
26:13
like 10 deputies if you wanted to.
Carter
26:14
to. But all they have to do, all their job is, is to make sure that everybody is being touched and everybody feels like they're a part of the campaign because it's the guy who doesn't that leaks.
SPEAKER_02
26:23
Okay, so I want to get back to my question. The NDP, what do they need? Am I hearing you? Fundraiser. Okay, that's what you are saying, right? Correct?
SPEAKER_02
26:30
You're agreeing with that, Carter? No,
Carter
26:31
No, I mean, I think that their strategy is really good. I think their tour has been solid. And I think that, yeah, their execution is good. But, I
Corey
26:36
I mean, just look at the pictures of the three planes and you can see the difference between the three parties, right? You have the Conservatives with their giant wrap plane. You have the Liberals with their giant wrap plane. And you have Tom Mulcair's very
Corey
26:47
very sad-looking Air Canada plane with the Air Canada marking still on it. And just Tom Mulcair almost,
Corey
26:52
almost, like, stenciled on the side of it. I
Carter
26:55
I wanted to say hand-drawn. At
SPEAKER_02
26:56
At some point, the both of you have said that the NDP and the Liberals will do whatever it takes to get to that fundraising threshold. But despite that, you still think the fundraiser
Corey
27:05
fundraiser – I don't want to push
Corey
27:07
too heavy. No, I'm becoming less certain they're going to get there just based on some of the actions they've taken. And I'll also say this. It's one thing to borrow yourself into massive debt at the end of this campaign, and that may be within the means of the parties. But if we're in a minority situation and you have an election coming right after, you have really narrowed your options significantly. significantly if you go out of that election with 30 million dollars of debt this
Carter
27:29
this is something we tried to avoid in the last episode which is uh doing the strategy you know if i was doing the strategy right now i'd be doing a two election strategy uh the strategy that gets me through october the 19th and then the strategy that gets me through the next six months and and to get there i need a fundraiser that's going to be able to deliver me you know 40 million dollars in the next yeah
Corey
27:49
yeah big money has to be able to put together a plan that takes in cause influence does it all Okay,
SPEAKER_02
27:54
Okay, I want to move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, reverse and reboot and reverse. I want to talk about first Stephen Harper. He's retreading on his commitments on Syria. He's bringing in a new campaign strategist. Guys, is this a 37, 38 day mark reboot for Stephen Harper and the conservative campaign? Or am I reading too much into that? No,
Corey
28:15
No, I think it is. I think that anybody who says a reboot means you're in trouble, they're going to, like I said, point to things that say, no, no, no, not a reboot. But for all of the people who are starting to get antsy within the party, they're
Corey
28:27
they're going to say, guys, we understand. We are changing some things. We're going to make things happen. I'm going to take 30 seconds for an aside on Syria. I think they're in a lot of trouble with Syria still. I don't think this issue has gone away. I think one of the simple truths of Syria is that the Canadian identity is pretty locked up in this idea that we are a generous, compassionate international figure. And I'll tell you, on
Corey
28:51
on just a policy front, there has never been a wave of immigrants or refugees that Canada has accepted that we've regretted later. we have regretted a lot the times we have closed our doors or been miserly or or otherwise not lived up to that reputation we have for yeah and in
SPEAKER_02
29:07
in ukraine i should mention you and i were driving yesterday and we were having this conversation why germany was accepting so many half a million and and we were both came to the conclusion that this is not dumb policy this is compassion but with an absolute end goal that the people who come into this country are going to be contributing members to our culture our society and and frankly if you want to talk about our economy this is not not dumb policy massive
Carter
29:30
massive economic upside and it's realized very very quickly yeah but uh steven harper's in a trap here because he he he gets so ideologically you
Carter
29:41
know trapped into these small minded small c conservative positions and he doesn't want to lose his base his base you know i mean i think he got a there's a there's a school of thought that says that But Stephen Harper actually got a polling bump on Syria because there was a small C conservative group that said, yeah, keep them out. And the only party they can identify with right now is the conservative party. It
Corey
30:07
It lowers his ceiling. It
Corey
30:09
It lowers his ceiling. That lowers his ceiling. I'm going to point you guys to 2008, the early days of that campaign. 2008 was the last minority government we had, right? It was a Stephen Harper minority. But it looked like going into it, it was against Dion. that they might be able to pull off a majority. Their polling was very solid through the summer. And one of the very first things Stephen Harper did was this move on culture in Quebec, cutting just a very small amount of money effectively, but it inflamed people because it just said like, oh,
Corey
30:39
That's who Stephen Harper actually is. And it lowered his ceiling to a point where he wasn't able to get a majority that election. I think that is one of those big moments that in hindsight, we kind of forget about.
Corey
30:50
I think this might be that moment for him again. Okay,
SPEAKER_02
30:51
Okay, so thanks for that aside on Siri. I think it was important. Both of you, Corey, I heard you say it was a reboot. Carter, are you agreeing as well that it is as such?
Carter
31:02
Yeah, I mean, I'm not so sure that it's a reboot. I mean, I would just simply call it changing the channel. I think that they needed to change the channel. And sometimes, you know, if you think of how they put in an oil well fire, right? Of course. Oil well catches on fire. As we all know. You know, like most of
Corey
31:21
our listeners don't listen or
Carter
31:22
or don't live in Alberta. I'm explaining it. You go in and the well is blown out and you go in and you actually explode some explosives that sucks the oxygen out of the fire. And then it stops burning, theoretically. This is what he's done. This is what he's done. He's a little bit of an explosion. He knows it's going to last three to five days and then everything gets back on track. I want to challenge you
SPEAKER_02
31:45
you on that a little bit. it does him retreading on syria actually change the channel does him talking about this topic that has gotten him in this his back into this corner and and changing his position on it actually change the channel i don't know if that's true i think he had to i'm
Carter
31:59
i'm not accepting that he that he went back that well
Corey
32:01
look here's the problem that the government had let's just look at this from a crassly strategic standpoint uh
Corey
32:08
where the government set a number of 10 000 right and then
Carter
32:11
then And then let in 1,100.
Corey
32:13
Well, let's even forget the 1,100 for a second. And then the next two parties were able to come in and up the ante. The government being government was always the people who had to give the first number. And that number was always going to look unsatisfactory compared to the next couple of numbers that came out. So government had to do something to change the conversation so it's not about that number or something. He had to do this. I'm not convinced that that
Corey
32:38
that means it's a total retread or collapse. This is just the nature of – it's like a poker game. Just because I put in my bet doesn't mean I'm never going to raise my bet or change the stakes. Okay. I like that.
Carter
32:49
Or even fold. Yeah.
Carter
32:50
Right? I mean you – Yeah, that's right. Poker knowledge is pretty good. I like that.
SPEAKER_02
32:55
So guys, I think our liberal strategy episode was probably a good omen for the liberals because there are polls out right now that have them in second place and first place. Regardless of where they are, what should Justin Trudeau be doing of these polls and what should we be making of them? Stephen, I'll go with you first.
Carter
33:11
He should be lining the bottom of his birdcage with them. I mean, polls are not predictive other than to say we have a competitive
Carter
33:21
election. He should know that it's a competitive election. There was also a poll today that had him in last place. So I
Carter
33:27
I don't want to get all excited by the polls and say, oh, look, he's rising. He's going to be at 120 seats now. Other than to say it is a competitive race. anybody who's campaigning by polls is campaigning by error so we shouldn't be doing it that way well
Corey
33:41
well and now we're into the era of daily tracking polls with nanos going to daily and I got to tell you you
Corey
33:47
can get pretty easily distracted by the waves right it doesn't mean that the water level is rising it just means that there's movement it really cannot be stressed enough that do
Corey
33:58
do not overreact to movements three four five points out let's put it another way I'm not a big fan of margin of error i think it's a totally abused term people imply that means that it is correct and in fact it's margin of error of people that's assuming a representative sample which nobody gets anymore but even if you just start with a margin of error thing they say 19 times out of 20 we're
Corey
34:18
we're gonna have two of those one out of 20 days in all likelihood before the end of this campaign
Corey
34:23
don't follow the polls daily yeah
SPEAKER_02
34:26
so he shouldn't be should he be he should address them not address them i know last time we talked about it on our on our special you said that this is the the time where he should as the guy in second place or first place just denounce their credibility completely is that still the plan just
Carter
34:37
just do what did we just do we denounce the polls completely and and if that's what he should do absolutely he's got to run his own campaign and say that the polls don't matter and you know what i i suspect the election results on the 19th won't necessarily reflect the polls well
Corey
34:52
well and we are getting to a point where i think there's a little more literacy on these issues with the public as a whole but a top line lead does not mean you're are going to get the most seats. By no means does it mean that. And I think that the liberals have to keep that in mind. Let's
SPEAKER_02
35:05
Let's move it on to the liberals and their announcement of social infrastructure. They had this broad based announcement of that infrastructure plan, which made headlines for a couple of days, and frankly, which we covered for a good 20 or 30 minutes in a previous episode. Now they're mentioning and introducing this notion of social infrastructure, affordable housing units, you know, seniors, housing units, recreational places. What do you guys make of this policy announcement? I know it probably gives them the same type of leverage to go into multiple cities and make that announcement. But any broad thoughts on that? Because I found that quite interesting to envelope that with infrastructure.
Corey
35:38
Yeah, I mean, I guess we're seeing a pretty broad theme, putting the pieces in place. I don't mind it from a traditional liberal standpoint. I've always thought being a liberal means creating
Corey
35:46
creating the conditions for success and getting out of the way. And infrastructure speaks to that to a certain extent. But I
Corey
35:52
I also think you could view it as a bit of a pivot away from the notion of infrastructure uh to more of a social lens and and and if we're now talking about infrastructure in the context of what it means for people and how it helps them all the better for the liberals i think yeah
Carter
36:08
i i'm really quite impressed by the announcements that the liberals have been making of late i mean as much as in the strategy episode i said that they need to pivot to something that's got a little bit more of a uh kind of a warm feel to it i think this this this this social infrastructure piece is that to uh to a modest degree okay
SPEAKER_02
36:26
okay so if if i am tom all care right now the the party on conventionally the party on the leftist end of this spectrum should i be concerned that the liberals have come out with infrastructure on the right doubling down on stephen harper and now have turned to the other side on social infrastructure and affordable housing a tenant many people would think would be more popular with the NDP and he's out. Justin is out ahead of me if I'm the NDP. Should I be concerned if I'm inside the NDP war room right now or the campaign team?
Carter
36:54
Well, I think that the NDP team should be concerned for sure. I mean, Justin
Carter
36:59
Justin Trudeau has moved left of the NDP. That is a challenge. He gets forgiven as being in the center regardless, just because of tradition and history, Whereas the NDP has always been seen as a far left party or, you know, from from the viewpoint anyways of the of the Calgary point of view.
Carter
37:25
Yeah, Trudeau is not going to have that. He gets to move himself into a much better position. And this is, again, something that's really it pulls well, for lack of a better term. People are going to be attracted to it. I think that Mulcair should be nervous, especially being seen as just another angry Stephen Harper. Well,
Corey
37:45
Well, I think that it should be something that they're watching very closely and they should be reactive.
Corey
37:51
There are benefits to not being the most left-wing party, too.
Corey
37:55
I'd also point out that the New Democrats are the only ones who haven't done a major advertising push yet, and they're still in the lead. I mean, most of the polls, the consensus of the polls is still the New Democrats in the lead. So
Corey
38:05
So I would also say, don't
Corey
38:07
don't overreact. Simply because the liberals have made a few interesting moves and the conservatives have dropped does not mean Tom Mulcair is in free fall. In fact, he hasn't fallen at all.
Carter
38:18
No one's in free fall. No one's not, you know, no one's not, you know, out of contention. This is a time when the election is playing. Let's just see how the election plays out.
SPEAKER_02
38:28
OK, let's move it on to our last segment, our last segment, the over under the lightning round. Guys, are you ready? I always ask you if you're ready. It doesn't
SPEAKER_02
38:37
You're just going to drive
Corey
38:38
drive through. I was going to say, if we said no, would it stop? I
SPEAKER_02
38:42
I would have probably recited a poem
Corey
38:44
something. I don't know. We would have figured
SPEAKER_02
38:45
figured it out. Train professionals. OK, first question. You know, the conservatives, we talked about it on this episode, have hired that strategist from Australia. if you are the liberals right now you have control of of the liberal party you're one of the chairs if you could choose anyone in the world to be a strategist for the liberals right now who would you choose and
SPEAKER_02
39:05
expand the globe think us think abroad people that you may know that you uh that you were impressed with in their work and their outcomes who would it be for you for the liberals i'm
Corey
39:14
i'm sure there's a genius strategist in china that i just have no knowledge of but i'm gonna have to stick closer to home simply because i don't know these people and i think you'd have have to look at uh some of obama's stable and i think uh you've
Corey
39:26
you've got to be looking at uh i
Corey
39:29
don't know ploof would be kind of good because they need some of that tactical assistance
Corey
39:32
as well as strategic mind i
Carter
39:34
i was thinking uh going back going back and pulling the raging cajun uh
Carter
39:39
uh james carville out of retirement or punditry
Carter
39:42
punditry or wherever he is because i think that that injection of uh simplicity you know carville is one of my one of my favorites because he he always brings things things to a very simple point of view, three to six word kind
Carter
39:56
of understandings of what your campaign is all about.
Carter
39:59
And I love his passion. I mean, he's just got and Jerry and Katie, I mean, the whole Trudeau thing.
Carter
40:06
Give me something from the heart, brother. And I think that the Carville would would beat the crap out of him until such time as he actually was human.
Corey
40:14
I'll tell you, the Carville answer is a great answer, because Carville certainly understands simplicity publicity um better than almost anybody in the business yeah
SPEAKER_02
40:22
yeah and in a total side note on james carville if you are interested in his work and just in strategy in general a show on hbo that aired called k street like eight episode show find it online it's about james carville and his wife who start a strategy firm and do work outside of politics if you like the stuff that we're talking about that's a show you need to watch and many people probably
SPEAKER_02
40:40
even have heard of it one
Carter
40:41
one of their best one of the best books in politics is all's fair by mary madeline and james carville right It talks about the 1992 campaign. Mary was on the plane with Bush, and Carville was in the war room with Clinton. It is a fucking fantastic book.
SPEAKER_02
40:57
Over Under on six. Over Under on six. How good was the move to bring the wizard from of Oz to the conservative campaign? Carter, I'll go with you first.
Carter
41:07
Under, I mean, no one saves a campaign with 35 days to go.
Corey
41:10
Yeah, I'd say under because it's not something they need. This is the skill set that he's best known for is not something the conservatives were deficient in.
SPEAKER_02
41:19
In one word, what should Tom Mulcair's response to these polls be, seeing Justin Trudeau in first and second place? In one word, what should it be?
Corey
41:29
Yeah, sure. It can be. Let's say it's one word.
Corey
41:32
Whatever. I mean, I think he should do the exact same thing Trudeau should do and ignore the polls. Over,
SPEAKER_02
41:38
Over, under, on five, Harper's retread on Syria, on his policy position. Over, under. Under.
Carter
41:43
I'm not seeing as a real retread. I think he's just restating.
Corey
41:47
Yeah, I'm going to give it an under because he may not have gone far enough, and if he has to re-retread, he's going to be in a lot more trouble. If he was doing this and he was opening himself up to this kind of exposure, he definitely should have gone more of a mea culpa, more whole hog on the backtrack. On
SPEAKER_02
42:02
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 to 10, Justin Trudeau's social infrastructure announcement, the implications, everything tied in together, 1 to 10. What do you think? Corey, I'll go with you first.
Corey
42:11
first. I'm going to give
SPEAKER_02
42:12
give it an 8.
Corey
42:12
I thought it was a really good strategy. And he's now created this position where he can talk about as much spending as he wants and how you're going to pay for it becomes deficit.
Corey
42:23
It's a pretty good position for him to be in and it's a great wedge with the other parties. Announcing
SPEAKER_02
42:26
Announcing deficits are easy. Carter, what do you go with?
Carter
42:29
I give him maybe a six. Despite you
SPEAKER_02
42:31
you saying you're being impressed with the policy announcements that
Carter
42:34
have come out? I don't think that it's a hundred percent. I'm more impressed than I was. That's not necessarily a good starting point. go back to some of the earlier podcasts in this election, you're going to hear me be pretty critical. So six is pretty good. I still don't think that he's reached that place where he can reach out and touch that swing voter that he needs to.
SPEAKER_02
42:53
Final question. Will the NDP or the liberals bring on any outside help? What do you think? Yes or no? Final question. Carter, I'll go with you first. Absolutely
Carter
43:00
Absolutely not. They are entrenched with their thinking that they're geniuses. No,
Corey
43:04
No, absolutely they will. Here's the thing about them. They already have the new Democrats and the the liberals are both relying on different factions of the democrats and the states to support their digital efforts and to support their fundraising efforts and that will continue
Carter
43:17
that's hired guns doing hired gun work well how's that any different than the strategy i
SPEAKER_02
43:25
strategist is not the
SPEAKER_02
43:26
i'm with cory on this one i think it's it's it's all ties and yeah okay does that does that matter to you that's a wrap for episode 547 of the strategist my name is zane velgey with me as always stephen carter cory hogan and a reminder our show on Thursday, September 17th here in Calgary, 6 p.m. for the debate, 8.20 for the live show. Tickets at live.thestrategist.ca. And we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_02
44:10
and at Zane Velji.