Episode 549: Livin' on the wedge

SPEAKER_01 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 549. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you?

Carter 0:10

I'm really nervous about the ice cubes in my drink. Corey's so fanatical about the sound quality. Which you

SPEAKER_00 0:15

you would not know based on the sound quality of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Well, listen, we've got coasters that are probably,

SPEAKER_01 0:23

probably, how big are these? Like

Carter 0:26

Well, I'm going to use male measurements and say it's about 10 inches.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

You know, it's this... Wait,

Carter 0:31

Wait, male M-A-L-E? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

riveting details that keep our viewership so enraptured. Well,

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Well, that was watching us, Corey. It's listenership, is what you mean. But that's fine. Corey thought there was a camera on the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

news to me. That's

SPEAKER_01 0:46

That's why he always dresses up for these episodes. Guys, we are off the heels of our live show in a packed auditorium at the Engineered Air Theater here in Calgary. How do you feel? Any thoughts after our live show? well

SPEAKER_00 0:59

it sold out and uh there was good energy good crowd you know there was some beard hate from carter so we're still getting death threats about that yeah

Carter 1:08

yeah i i was really

Carter 1:11

pleased to see so many people here so thank

Carter 1:13

thank you to the audience who came uh yes do

Carter 1:16

suckers to the ones who didn't come yeah

SPEAKER_01 1:18

yeah suckers who paid nothing and listened to it for free afterwards on their own time you idiots no that

SPEAKER_01 1:26

that was much fun you missed all the texture they did they did miss all the texture absolutely okay let's get into our first segment there's a lot to talk about our first segment today the signal and the noise and the bell i want to go over what what was considered to be and we talked about this on stage in our in our last episode the live show uh the debate but i think there's more commentary that's come out there's more analysis that's come Corey, you at one point, I don't know if it's on this podcast or otherwise, said that this debate's going to really be about the analysis of the analysis. So I want to go dig into that a little bit more. So give me your take. We're a few days removed from the debate. What do you think right now? What are you feeling right now about this debate and the analysis that's come from it? Corey?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Corey? Well, before we even get there, top line, in 2011, the English language debate had 11 million viewers, okay? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

And this time around, depending on whose statistics you want to use, it had somewhere between 60,000 and 300,000 viewers. But there's just as many words being written about it. There's just as many pundits sounding off about it. Exhibit A right here, us talking about it. so amazingly this more than any debate that's come since including the mclean's debate which had higher viewership it was on television at least that's

SPEAKER_01 2:40

that's correct yeah uh

SPEAKER_00 2:41

people aren't watching the debate they're watching the analysis of the debate so i guess when i think about the debate and the analysis of the analysis and whatnot when i was watching it i anybody who listened last episode knows i thought while trudeau was good on substance i really thought thought he was shaky on pretty much any other metric you could come across but when you're just getting it through what the globe and mail thinks and they thought he won and the national post and they thought mulcair won it starts to look like a split ticket and on top of that uh the sound bites the quotes that came out of it trudeau probably did the best on rerun right like those 30 second quotes that came after he had the motorcade line he had that just killer line about you run deficits in good times you run deficits in bad times the only years you don't run deficits are election years right yeah

SPEAKER_00 3:30

i i don't think he won the debate i want to be clear i still don't think he won the debate but i do think the liberals have won the post of it carter

SPEAKER_01 3:37

carter who's won the post debate you were very high on justin trudeau on our live show during the debate what

SPEAKER_01 3:42

do you say right now well

Carter 3:43

well what cory is trying desperately to avoid is that i was right and he was wrong No, no,

Carter 3:48

no, no, no. He chose the wrong leader who won the debate. I chose the right leader who won the debate. And he's trying to look the globe in the National Post, chose the wrong leader. No, they chose the right leader who won the debate because they chose the one-eyed. Most people said

SPEAKER_00 4:02

said Tom Mulcair won that debate. No, they didn't. Most people did. So

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So is that one in the same today, guys? I mean, in this day and age where Corey makes a very good point. No, he didn't. Well, let me get to the point. Well, Corey makes a good point saying that there's as many words written about this debate as there were previous debates. Does it make a difference if you win the debate or win the post-debate? Are they one and the same today or are they as split

SPEAKER_00 4:26

split as they were? Well, the post-debate is way more important because you don't have your own opinion about it. You've taken other people's opinions and you've decided if they're valid or not. And in many ways, that's backed up by the biases you bring into it. So are parties

SPEAKER_01 4:36

parties or strategists or people in the back room trying to position their leaders and their candidates to win the post-debate even before the debate starts? I don't want to get too

Carter 4:47

too mad into this, but

Carter 4:47

I think it's a valid

Carter 4:48

valid point. The United States is probably the best example of this. I mean they have dedicated spin rooms. The spinners are out. The

Carter 4:55

surrogates are on everything. During the debate, they're spinning. They're spinning immediately after. Surrogates across the country, remotes, everybody's already spinning for their who won the debate moment.

Carter 5:06

Um, oftentimes the media and the general population will have very different ideas of who won the debate if people are actually watching. Right.

Carter 5:15

the, the global mail debate, nobody watched, so it didn't matter. Yeah.

Carter 5:18

But, and that might be why we're not seeing any particularly big bounces. I mean, we

Carter 5:22

can talk about polls in a minute, but I'm not seeing big bounces out of that debate because no one developed their own opinion. They only saw the media opinion. But even in 2012, Alison Redford resoundingly lost the 2012 leaders' debate. Correct. Except the general population didn't believe it.

Carter 5:40

And the general population gave her a small bump after that leaders' debate. Was

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Was that because of your sell job on the post-debate? No, I think it was because people actually watched it and didn't think

Carter 5:49

think she did as bad

SPEAKER_00 5:49

bad as what the pundits were saying. We measure on a totally different scale. Yeah,

Carter 5:53

that began us actually making a comeback and

Carter 5:58

and being able to win the election later. So how it is seen by

Carter 6:03

by the general population can

Carter 6:05

can differ from the analysis, but in something like this, when all people are seeing is analysis, analysis carries the day, and that's why I was right with Justin Trudeau.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Well, I don't want to detour on 2012, but one of the things in 2012 was Don Braid, of all people, said that Raj Sherman won the debate. Right. And I think that he did exceptional relative to all of our expectations. Yes, but it is. And I think that's the scorecard on which Braid was. Well, that's how Braid was measuring him, right? And when you're a pundit, especially in a province like Alberta, when we all know all of the personalities involved, it's very easy to measure them relative to a baseline. That's not necessarily their public persona. So that's why I think a lot of the pundits said that Redford lost.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

People knew Redford was the sharpest one of those knives in the drawers, right? Right. But I'll tell you, to the public as a whole, she still looked like she was standing above them. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

OK, so I want to ask something of that that's now become even more mainstay about this debate than this, than the post analysis, which is that the debate itself was a total debacle. That seems to almost become a universal right now. And you guys both know how important it is to have sound and competent moderation. consideration. But I think the interesting thing here is that for years, all the public, the media all asked for a freeform debate. Let the candidates go after each other. Let them ask each other questions. Why don't we have that open format? And you get it, maybe inadvertently in this debate,

SPEAKER_00 7:37

yet everyone hates it. Yeah, it turns out that sucks. Why?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Why? Why does it suck? What elements of it didn't live up to the expectations of

SPEAKER_00 7:45

of what a freeform should be? There was an hour and a half of debate and there was three hours of dialogue they kept talking over each other it was it was like the world's worst robert altman film it was terrible to watch but um aren't

Carter 7:56

aren't they all really bad though i mean robert altman films just

Carter 8:00

just by two minutes well

SPEAKER_00 8:03

i i think that thank you for joining us steven i think

SPEAKER_00 8:06

think that one of the reasons why trudeau on and bringing in his content looks better you know in the light of day is the same reason why it's just annoying at the end of the day people like you and me might say we want to see them mix it up more but i think a lot of canadians just want to hear what these guys are about what their policies are what their opinions is that

SPEAKER_01 8:26

that the thing carter yeah these debates

Carter 8:27

debates are really the the only opportunity that

SPEAKER_01 8:30

that we get to see them outside of scripted moments or

Carter 8:32

or you know or outside of controlled things now they're They're controlled. Debates are controlled, to be sure. Sure. But they actually can get you off your script when they're asking good questions, when they're being facilitated, when they're being managed properly. You mean by

SPEAKER_01 8:47

by the moderator? Yeah.

Carter 8:50

Right? I mean, and all the respect, maybe

Carter 8:54

maybe the world's best political editor. I don't know. What do I know? Or editor. But so my question is. This is not the world's best moderator. You

SPEAKER_01 9:01

You had Mulcair go out against Trudeau. You had these quips that emerged because of a lack of moderation. How was that a bad thing? Did that not show who actually had the ability to be charming or witty or was able to think on their feet or who was able to retort quickly? I mean, did that not show certain elements of what

SPEAKER_00 9:19

expect in a debate? Zane, I think Lord of the Flies showed us a lot about human nature, but we're not saying that's a better society. I think that we want a little more structure.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I mean, this is a debate. I mean, we've seen so many structured debates, and I'm not defending the moderator by any stretch here, but I'm almost trying to defend the format of a freeform here. Yeah, both of you, you

Carter 9:38

know. No, no, no, no, no, no. So let me ask you this question. Is this podcast freeform?

Carter 9:43

Yes and no. It is controlled chaos, right? And the most important part

Carter 9:48

about it is that it's controlled, right?

Carter 9:50

right? Despite our best efforts, you keep coming up in the comments, right?

Carter 9:54

We don't understand it. People keep saying, oh, Zane's a really good moderator. He keeps guys on track.

Carter 10:00

Those are the stupid people who are listening to the podcast. The really regular people are listening to me and Corey. But the reason that that works is because you actually enable us. First of all, I can get my whole thought out before Corey jumps in, which

Carter 10:12

which is a massive difference than the role we play on television. So we do this podcast on TV, on CBC and Calgary. And

Carter 10:19

And all three of us are pundits at that moment. We have Bob Brown from CBC hosted. it

Carter 10:25

fundamentally changes the the math because

Carter 10:28

because rob's hosting it we have eight minutes to get it done right if we're lucky we all have to get our our bits in as quickly as we can yeah and we don't have the patience and the time to wait for the other guy to finish his thought that

Carter 10:40

that fundamentally changes things if we had a debate like the structure that we have with this podcast where

Carter 10:46

we have a moderator who is controlling us giving us questions taking us in the direction that you You want us to go?

Carter 10:53

And we have the unlimited answer that we have in this podcast. We have a totally different structure of debate. Instead, what we got was poorly

Carter 11:01

poorly structured questions, worse

Carter 11:03

worse answers, and everybody talking over each other because they had to get their own bid in because

Carter 11:08

they weren't going to be guaranteed their own answer time.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

You know, I and I myself was probably guilty of this, but I think in the past it was pretty easy to look at some of those debates being run by the consortium and saying they could do things different. They should try X. They should try Y. well

SPEAKER_00 11:20

well they've been doing this for a long time and they understand why they're constructing things the way they're structuring them and i think there were a lot of upstart organizations there was mclean's there's the globe and mail we'll see how the mug debates does yeah

SPEAKER_00 11:34

this this is right now what i'm really seeing i'm i'm full of a lot of regret that we're not going to get a real debate because i think it would be great to have a televised debate with these three guys that everybody in the country was watching and

SPEAKER_00 11:46

i think you'd have higher viewership than the 11 million we had in 2011 unfortunately that's just not going to happen this time at this point but we are seeing the limits of that expertise of that free form that's been happening just

Carter 11:57

jump in on 11 million viewers it's

Carter 12:00

it's like 11 million people who turned it on looked at it for a second and went holy shit this isn't what i expected and changed channels to the other way so

SPEAKER_00 12:06

so even well that's every rating ever though yeah

Carter 12:08

yeah but even the 11 million people that are watching um

Carter 12:11

um let's just be clear they're They're watching pieces of it. Most of us still get the real, like a lot of our analysis through the punditry, through the opinion process

Carter 12:20

afterwards. I just wanted to get that in there.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

there. No, that's good. Okay, so you're not completely deriding the free flow format here on in, but I'm hearing this, that there needs to be some moderation and that history and that experience that the consortium had was really beneficial. You

SPEAKER_00 12:35

You know what? For me, it was also a question of moderation being applied equally across the board. As soon as it was clear that you could talk over the bell, the bell didn't matter at all. As soon as it was clear you couldn't answer a question, the questions didn't matter at all. For like 30 seconds at the start, he pushed back on questions. For the first ring of the bell, people stopped at the bell. But when they started testing those limits and realized, oh, these are fake. As candidates

SPEAKER_00 13:03

in debates, yeah. Like these are arbitrary. These are not real. Then the debate fell apart. That's a fair point. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

question here. You know, it's interesting because it seems like whenever we do immediate analysis, we always miss that big line or that big moment. Oh, come on. Bringing

Carter 13:18

Bringing up our failings? No, no, no,

SPEAKER_01 13:20

no, no. I bring up my failing as well because we did this right after the provincial debate here in Alberta. We didn't forget. We just kind of glossed over very quickly the math is difficult line. And I think we may have done it again with old stock Canadians. Now, I say that as a new stock Canadian myself. But what damage will this— or are you existing i'm new stock listen i i think that just sounds much better than existing stock i feel like new stock is like the brand new car smell to it well

SPEAKER_00 13:46

well okay so this was the big moment where old stock canadians was harper was talking about a policy that would be acceptable to new canadians existing canadians and old stock canadians and and we're all really fixated on old stock canadians correct fixated on what the hell did he mean by an existing canadian because he defined later new Canadian as first generation and defined old stock as people who were not first generation. So what is an existing Canadian?

Carter 14:17

got to be First

Carter 14:20

don't know. I'm making that up. I'm glib.

Carter 14:21

I mean, it was one of those things where sometimes you get into, you're saying something and you're looking for the third thing. Oh,

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're

Carter 14:30

you're going. The power

SPEAKER_00 14:30

power of three. That's why we have Zane Velgey on the show.

Carter 14:33

Exactly. I mean, we needed to have a third person. Post Chester.

Carter 14:38

So, you know, but along, you

Carter 14:40

you get to that place and I think that Old Stock Canadians comes out. And so my question is, and I'm going to take on the moderator role and ask you to, did

Carter 14:47

did he mean it in kind of that? No, I don't

SPEAKER_01 14:49

don't think so. Like,

Carter 14:50

Like, where does he get the racist? There's the whole racist, this is language that's used by racists. How

Carter 14:55

does he even get exposed to that? This is not language I'm familiar with putting together

SPEAKER_01 14:59

together and putting in front of Canadians. See, that's what's interesting. I think that term, if I'm not mistaken, has been used by people like Justin Trudeau, NDP MPs in the past. It's not a term that's used strictly in isolation in this moment in time that we saw. It has been used in the past.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

But what bothers me is that, you know, regardless of what it actually was supposed to mean, does the perception of that word further entrench Harper as to his sentiments around? Does it extend the whole refugee issue? Does it extend the whole niqab issue? like is is it of concern

SPEAKER_00 15:32

concern so we did talk about that it was all part of the refugee thing and i just thought that whole section was a miss for him and maybe being charitable to myself that's why i didn't really latch on to the old stock stuff because i thought the whole thing was such a train wreck i missed old

Carter 15:47

uh lock stock and barrel well

SPEAKER_00 15:49

well and you're right you guys are both right about this old stock language i severely doubt you go to a neo-nazi rally or or a Klan rally, and they're talking old stock Americans, right? That's just, that language is a little too soft. It was a poor phrasing. He should never have used that phrasing, because we're all talking about it. So, I mean, it's almost...

Carter 16:09

almost... I think most of us now use the terminology first generation, second generation, third generation, because there's different ways

SPEAKER_01 16:16

ways that each generation

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And once you've hit third, you're effectively, you act like every other Canadian. then you

Carter 16:23

you are just essentially canadian

Carter 16:25

canadian and it doesn't matter i mean there was a time when my parents were young parents i mean they kind of what we would call now white population oh

SPEAKER_00 16:36

very different it's like your own version of old stock here no

Carter 16:39

saying like you you know you there was the polish population was different than the ukrainian population which was different than the british population which was different than the irish You know, where they were emigrating from in that moment, that

Carter 16:52

that was very different. Now we're third, fourth generation, and

Carter 16:55

and that is all messed up. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Okay, so I want to get back to my main question around this. You know, Harper had to explain this not once but twice. And the common sentiment is that when you're explaining, you're losing. Is Harper losing on this notion?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

I think this was a tempest on a Twitter. I don't think that this is going to be something that follows him for very long. Carter, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I think it's done.

Carter 17:21

I mean, we're three days later

SPEAKER_01 17:22

over. So the moment it's over, does it add to an existing narrative? Yes or no? I mean, I'm not trying to push you to an answer. I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

curious. It'll be one of those 10 BuzzFeed article things that comes later. Yeah, well,

Carter 17:33

well, after the election, if he loses, people will point to this. Yeah, this is why he's going to win.

Carter 17:39

He's going to lose because after that debate, no one was talking about his economic record.

Carter 17:45

So what's more important? that he said old stock canadians right or that he wasn't able to talk about his economic record after what we talked about his economic debate correct

SPEAKER_01 17:56

correct the one that he was owning yeah so

Carter 17:57

so he needed to win and he didn't because of old stock canadians okay i want to move it

SPEAKER_01 18:02

it on to our next segment our next segment wedge you got there so we've been talking about this notion yeah i know it's a great title see cory's like half of him is like disappointed that it's so bad The other half is kind of pleased that, like, oh, yeah, that's a wedge pun. And that term actually wedged both of you on one side. Look, all fathers

SPEAKER_01 18:25

huge part of you. Corey's all the dad humor. Okay. We've been talking about this term, you know, wedge issues and wedge politics. And we've almost been throwing it out in a pedestrian pace. I want to spend a little bit of time on this segment talking about what wedge issues really are, how you find them. And then we'll discuss a few that are currently in the zeitgeist and maybe ask you guys for your opinions on if you were in the shoes of strategists on the side, whether you'd use them. So before we kind of get into it, into those specifics, Carter, how about you give us like a 101 on what wedge issues are, how they kind of emerge, and when do you use them? I want to have like a general sort of discourse on this because I don't think we've necessarily talked about their applicability in a political campaign.

Carter 19:09

Okay, so I'll start off with a really simple definition. wedge politics is the politics of of taking a single idea that has got kind of black white characterization so you are either for it or you're against it so

Carter 19:22

so if you're for it you're you know i want you to vote with me or you're against it so i want you to vote you know with me but whatever it is we're going to wedge one set of issues against another and push the other people away and carper's kind of an expert at this because it turns out it doesn't take 50 plus one one to win it

Carter 19:40

takes about 36 38 to win so all you need to do is find an issue where 36 of the population agrees with you and you can wedge it against the the balance of the population right even if they all don't agree in

SPEAKER_00 19:51

in our system where we've got a couple of other parties splitting the vote right and in the canadian context so in the american context these issues tend to be thought of more as like so this separates me to this side and you to that side right and there's there's advantages and there's ways you can pull that in the canadian context we think about it more and like that separates me to this side and everybody else to that side yeah right right and and we think about wedges as what differentiates you from the herd right

SPEAKER_00 20:18

right the rest of the gang is doing and in here one of the classic wedges we have of this election is this issue of a deficit so and harper have both said they would not run a deficit trudeau has said i'm going to run a deficit and to carter's point the majority of the canadian population probably doesn't want a deficit but a strong minority probably does correct

Carter 20:40

correct yeah characterize that let me jump in on that and call that a weak wedge okay

SPEAKER_01 20:46

talk about strengths of wedgers and then i want to talk about applicability

Carter 20:48

applicability absolutely right that is a wedge he's on one side everybody else is on the other side um but it doesn't have the gaffe they give a fuck factor right

SPEAKER_01 20:56

so there's the intensity how much people care about that to mobilize so let

Carter 21:00

let me use one that's a little bit more of a wedge issue that i'm seeing played and that's the refugee issue i mean

Carter 21:05

mean we we were were chatting today with friends of ours who are on the conservative side, and they were pointing out that there are populations and places where the conservatives are doing much better after the refugee crisis. Correct. Yes. And that doesn't fit with

Carter 21:19

with my paradigm of the refugee crisis. In my head, that's worse for all over. Right.

Carter 21:26

Harper and his team used it as a positive, as a wedge for for their voters and found more voters in specific geographic regions. They've used what I would call a harder wedge because it's kind of a more heartfelt ideological opposition. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Right. This is where

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, I know. I'm entirely on board. I think most Canadians would see Canada as a whole being really opposed to how the government has handled this refugee issue. And you'd probably be right. It would probably be 70-30. But there's still 30 that are supporting the government on this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. I want to get into the specifics. And both of those items that you guys mentioned are what I want to discuss. Corey, how about you help me answer, what does the applicability of a wedge look like? How do you know it's time to use it? Do you use it early and often? Is it something that we do in the tail end? The reason I'm bringing this topic up is because we're going to see the term a lot more over the next 25, 26 days that we have left. We're hearing about it a lot more, and the wedge politics issues are going to become a lot more apparent. But when do you use it, and how do you use it? Well,

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Well, a wedge is not a bullet. It's a building block. So you've got to construct things early on and kind of find ways that down the road you'll have those cleaves. I know that when we were constructing the platform provincially for the liberals in 2012, 12 it was a lot of polling because we've talked about wedges as though there was only one issue in an election and of course we've talked at other times about ballot box questions and you're trying to get it down to one issue for correct correct the fact of the matter is you're stacking wedge upon wedge upon wedge and you need to make sure that your wedges aren't splitting half of your people one way and the other way at any right so that you're

SPEAKER_01 23:04

you're losing more than you're getting

SPEAKER_00 23:05

getting so say you get 30 if you're stephen harper with this refugee wedge your next wedge can't be going after a different 30 percent you've got to layer these things on top so you

SPEAKER_01 23:14

you can double down and you got

SPEAKER_00 23:15

got to double down and get the marginal gains and sort of compound so uh the one thing i think that i don't want to say that a mistake amateurs make a lot but i i believe it's the cases they just say like yeah this is a popular issue yeah this is a popular issue yeah this is a popular issue and they're not thinking about you're describing the

Carter 23:33

the first six months of the liberal camp right so hold is choosing kind of wedges that contradicted each other. So

SPEAKER_01 23:41

So popular issues and then taking a side on it. Is that what I'm hearing you say, Corey? Saying this is something that's currently in the population. Or in the zeitgeist, I should take a side on this. People

SPEAKER_00 23:51

make that mistake a lot.

Carter 23:52

lot. I believe the whole reason that the liberals supported C-51 is it polled huge at the beginning. And they didn't want to be on the small end of the wedge. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, they thought we can share this with the conservatives. It's 90%. let the new democrats get the 10 are vehemently opposed yeah

SPEAKER_00 24:07

problem is the math changed for them pretty remarkably over time and sometimes you do make the you know so as much as we were saying zane this is me i'm on this side and you guys are all on the other side sometimes you make the calculated decision when constructing your wedges to be on the same side as somebody else it's a big enough thing that you want to share it with another party and

SPEAKER_01 24:26

and so a wedge can emerge in in in a few ways right you can you can create yourself take a strong position on it or in terms of the syrian refugee crisis being an example it's thrown at you and you have to sit somewhere on the spectrum is that correct to to categorize it that way well

Carter 24:42

well i mean thrown at you would be a bit of a challenge i mean okay if that hits you as a big surprise you you're probably in trouble okay i don't think the biggest wedges hit you as a surprise well

SPEAKER_00 24:51

well and the reason zane that i say it's about building yeah uh is that those

SPEAKER_00 24:56

those those things came from a place of philosophy of the parties if the parties had taken wildly different positions than the one they did like for example imagine if the liberals and new democrats said well yeah we want to shut the borders to refugees still that would be so off of their dna it's not a bullet right you can't just pull this gun out and fire it it's got to be something that you've laid the foundation okay that helps me so

Carter 25:18

so let's Let's talk about a wedge, though, that we were both involved in. Oh,

Carter 25:21

Oh, boy. And that's kind of the Wild Roser bigots wedge because Corey put up a website in 2012 that was brilliant. And it was Tory or Wild Rose. I'm getting that right. You

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You got it right. Tory

Carter 25:34

Tory or Wild Rose. And the premise of it was that you put quotes up on the screen and you could choose, was this a Wild Roser who said it or was it a Tory cabinet minister?

Carter 25:43

And it was 50-50, I believe. It

SPEAKER_00 25:46

It was 50-50. 50-50. So

Carter 25:47

So your odds of getting it right. And basically what he did was take all the stupid things Ted Morton said and put

Carter 25:52

put them up on a website opposite all the stupid things that the Wild Rose said. That

SPEAKER_00 25:56

That could have been called Ted Morton or Wild Rose. Like we threw in a bunch of other people, but our list of Ted Morton quotes was crazy.

Carter 26:03

So we have this website that Corey's created that started this whole right wing piece and it goes viral, right? Like only stuff that Corey does goes this viral. I don't know how many shares or anything it had, but it took off. yeah

SPEAKER_00 26:17

yeah i have a mini knack for these things there's a few of them i've done in the past few years but this one it was one of those ideas sitting there in the 8 a.m meeting idea came up knew it was going to be a good one shoot it out there and now the reason i did this was not just because i thought it was really funny and i think this is the point it's that i was trying to say these guys are all the same right the pcs and the wild pcs who carter was all the same you can't even tell the difference between them i've just given you 20 quotes you can't tell me which one's a pc and And which one's Wild Rose? And all of these quotes are insane. There was one from Ted Morton that's like, since when is gay rights a right? Is it in the Bill of Rights? You know, I mean, it was just amazing. It was

SPEAKER_01 26:55

was terrible. Did it hurt you, Carter? Like when you saw that, what was your initial reaction? I'm just kind of curious on the inside rather than talking about the white stuff for a second.

Carter 27:04

second. I mean, my initial reaction was fuck, right? And then right after that, I mean, there's a degree of just kind of appreciation that we got done. and then uh after

Carter 27:17

was pretty happy he did it because we we've been putting out wild rose quotes like every day we were trying to get people to pick up on all the crazy things that the wild rosers had said and no one was picking it up right

SPEAKER_00 27:28

right before he puts out his piece and suddenly people are talking about them and for me this is good for like a day but unfortunately what happens is the wild rose uh runs into the whole lake of fire comments so for our non-alberta listeners there was a candidate that essentially said homosexuals would burn in a lake of fire this was right on the heels of another candidate saying he was going to be more successful because he was white you

SPEAKER_00 27:52

know the brown candidates run into trouble yeah

Carter 27:54

yeah and so what happens is of course now the wildrose has proven beyond a doubt actively that they were racists and bigots we pale

Carter 28:02

pale the comparison as the PCs and Corey's

Carter 28:05

Corey's liberals the ones who probably started the whole thing

Carter 28:10

left in the dust right completely forgotten he creates the wedge and we ride the wedge all the way to success well fascinating shifted

SPEAKER_00 28:18

part way through right but what was interesting very frustrating by the way and so i was the the campaign chair for that campaign and every morning there'd be an 8 a.m call and i was talking to all the candidates and i would have candidates on the call being like oh we gotta stop the wild rose i've been telling people how horrible the wild rose is and i'm like you and i would every day i would say this is not like this was news to him on this call i'm like Like, no, there is no difference between the PCs and the Wild Rose. Repeat it until you're sick of it. But they couldn't do it. All of a sudden, what we'd kind of put out there and what had grown on its own and mutated into the Wild Rose's madness, just all of a sudden the vote, I mean, we could see the vote. We knew what was going on. This didn't happen at that moment. It was happening all the campaign. But Stephen's entire campaign was one of, you know, on the left, give us your vote, stop the Wild Rose. stop the

Carter 29:10

the crazy wild rose cory's wet you know so we both of us were taking the same issue and trying to wedge it i was trying to be on the same side as cory cory wanted me on the other side i

SPEAKER_00 29:19

i needed the wild rose to be a little less crazy or you to be a little more crazy and

Carter 29:24

and we weren't so so

SPEAKER_01 29:25

so it worked out for me great story guys okay i want to put you guys in the shoes of the strategists today who are making the decisions in the back room let's take a look at some of the issues that are They're creating wedge-like instances in the electorate right now. First, let's talk about deficits. Corey, if you are the liberals right now, do you welcome the position that you're in? Are you happy if you're overseeing this campaign that you've chosen this as a wedge issue? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah, I'm not dissatisfied. I think it's interesting how many people have said, let's see your costing. And it almost is becoming an issue because if I was the liberals, I'd be like, sure, you can see my costing. I don't know why the liberals are holding off on it right now. But, I

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I mean, we just know they're going to run a deficit. So they have the ability to spend far more than the other two parts. Weak

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Weak wedge, you called it earlier. Carter, would you be happy going with this as an issue?

Carter 30:11

No, it's not strong enough to actually win. I mean, I'm not going to get hurt by it because it's not strong enough to lose on either. They

SPEAKER_00 30:16

They don't want to run deficits for the sake of deficits. And to that point, they think they can take the hit on deficits even if Canadians don't want to run them because they can pay for things Canadians actually want. Which is the stronger wedge.

Carter 30:28

Stronger wedge is actually the infrastructure side. So

SPEAKER_00 30:30

So when we talk about them doing the math and layering wedge upon wedge, they're saying, okay, the same group that is willing to accept a deficit will absolutely love this social stuff.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Talk to me about balanced budgets. Mulcair and Harper on the same side of this wedge. Is it a wedge? Would you be happy if you're the NDP? Let's look at it through their lens, being on the same side as Harper on this issue. You bring

Carter 30:53

I mean, this is one of those places I don't get Thomas Mulcair, right? Right. The NDP doesn't care about deficits or debt. It is one of their kind of almost foundational pieces. And yet they're coming across like, no, really, we're the fiscally conservative party.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

party. And they're bringing up. And they made this concerted choice to stand there. On that populist

Carter 31:13

populist NDP, which is not

Carter 31:15

their core base of

SPEAKER_01 31:16

of NDP. Corey, you've mentioned many times that they're expanding now beyond their core base and they need to win support across the country. If you're overseeing the NDP campaign, is this a wedge you're happy to be on the side of Harper? Well,

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Well, I'm not so heartbroken about it. I still think that when

SPEAKER_00 31:29

when we talk about wedges, it has to be considered in the context of a lot of other things. And one of them is where people feel the parties naturally rest and what they think about those parties as sort of preconceived biases. And I think one of the reasons why Canadians as a whole have discounted the New Democrats in the past has been a lack of seriousness in economic planning. I get a kick out of this, by the way. The New Democrats are now asked to be costed. They have to do all of these things. Sometimes they seem almost surprised by it, because when you're the third party, nobody cares if your numbers make sense. Nobody cares.

Carter 32:02

This is brand new for them. All of a sudden they can form government. So now they're on kind of a... And

SPEAKER_01 32:06

And they've taken a side on fiscal discipline on this issue. And now you

Carter 32:10

show all your work. I mean, before you just kind of wrote stuff down and hoped for the best. Now you have to show your work. Talk

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Talk to me about the issue that Stephen Harper is taking, pivoting the refugee crisis into one of security, ISIS, and the broader sort of defense notion. Are you happy? Are you good with taking this as a wedge issue for the conservatives right now in the face of what could be a compassion deficit? I'll go with you first, Carter. Well,

Carter 32:35

Well, I don't really understand this whole wedge itself. This

Carter 32:40

might be my own ideological failing. I would be really uncomfortable being on that side of that wedge. wedge um so let me just put a precursor up there sometimes as strategists we can be blind to a wedge right because we ourselves are on the wrong side

SPEAKER_00 32:54

side because we have opinions we're yeah right

Carter 32:56

so this is one of those places where i can't see that wedge being that good because i think i'm on the wrong side of the wedge yeah

Carter 33:02

right um obviously they think it's going to work um

SPEAKER_01 33:06

i mean this this this this sentiment i shouldn't mention extends to you know the conservatives saying that they would would you know fight the whole niqab ruling that that they got defeated on that yeah but that's

Carter 33:16

that's about winning seats in quebec okay

SPEAKER_01 33:17

okay yeah and that's that's another notion and the bloc quebecois with their ad that came out yeah that was so well

SPEAKER_00 33:22

well it wasn't today it was a few days

SPEAKER_01 33:24

ago sorry yeah that that vitriolic ad that came out but cory i want to go with you on this where would you you know what what is your thought what do you think right now if you are running that conservative campaign are you happy that you're on this side of the issue on a strictly electoral love and partner i understand your your humanity is finally showing a bit but no i'm just saying

Carter 33:41

saying i can't even see it i get it sometimes i will push my humanity to the side sometimes i've worked for a lot of different people um

Carter 33:48

um yeah give us the money but i just can't in this particular case yeah

SPEAKER_00 33:53

yeah yeah fair enough cory did you have an opinion on this well look i'm i'm in the same place probably and more so but um it is troubling for me and maybe i'm kidding myself to believe believe this is the case but i think that they are maybe doubling down on something uh you know imagine like you came home and it was a little late i had a friend who's notorious for this i'm not going to name them on the podcast but they would you know they'd be a little late and they knew they were in the wrong and their wife would be like you're late and they would go on the offensive they would go on attack right they're like well you know remember last week it doesn't matter what but the point is i kind of feel like this is what they're doing right now and that That situation can blow up big time, big

SPEAKER_00 34:32

big time. And if something else happens on this refugee file that just, again, showcases how much of an ass they're being, just as this always happened to this friend of mine who shall remain nameless, then I think they're going to find themselves in a much worse position than if they hadn't taken this tack to begin with. So

SPEAKER_01 34:50

So talk to me about other wedge issues that you would right now consider for any of the parties. If you were sitting there right now, Carter, you know, you've talked about health care. Would that be a wedge issue or would that just be an issue that would coalesce more than anything?

Carter 35:03

I think you could make health care into a wedge issue by talking about how payments are made and how people feel about health care in Canada. That's one of the reasons I keep talking about it, because it is a big wedge in terms of who cares.

Carter 35:15

The people who care about health care are in and of themselves a big wedge population that I want to take. Right.

Carter 35:20

And what the conservatives have done is,

Carter 35:23

is, you know, by pulling themselves out of how the transfer payments are given to the provinces, they're essentially now you just get a big check. And it's like, good luck. Good

Carter 35:31

Good luck with that health care problem.

Carter 35:33

Even in the conservatives early years, they came with conditions. Right.

Carter 35:38

There are there places to wedge. I would absolutely take that. I was surprised to see wedge today develop. develop yeah tell us about that was the um f-35s right

SPEAKER_00 35:48

yeah what was interesting to me was where mulcair ended up this is

Carter 35:50

is exactly it so so traditionally one would have expected the conservatives to be on one side of the f-35s correct and the new democrats and liberals to be on the other side of it mulcair winds up on the same size as the ndp or as the conservatives again this is twice now yeah on big issues that we do not expect the ndp to be on big issues with With a conservative lean,

Carter 36:10

All of a sudden, the NDP are, I mean, clearly they're trying for the blue-orange vote switchers, which sound like they never happen, but they do happen. It's a strange, it's a strange

SPEAKER_00 36:19

strange thought. Well, I think the NDP's position is a little more nuanced than that. I think they would still rerun the, I think everybody's sort of accepting that we're going to have to rerun this tender now because these costs have run out of control. But you're totally right. Who knew that they were going to be the ones who were like, yeah, we might need these F-35s. That's really weird. um as these widgets start to uh unfold though you ask if there's another way yeah

SPEAKER_01 36:43

there's something in your mind right now that you would consider testing the waters with i

SPEAKER_00 36:48

i think that we're we've seen almost everything tested at this point and i think there's been some interesting pickup on some of them i saw the trial balloon from the ndp about universal pharmacare which i thought was really funny considering our we were talking about this on that special but how much

Carter 37:01

much they put into it though oh

SPEAKER_00 37:02

oh well almost literally nothing 2.3

Carter 37:05

dollars that wouldn't give

SPEAKER_00 37:05

give give you universal they wouldn't give you seniors pharma care in alberta so that was by the way the source of my the ndpr almost surprised when people are saying hey what's with your numbers right uh and you know page is saying their numbers don't add up and whatnot they're

SPEAKER_00 37:18

they're getting into a shaky place there in my opinion um and every time they do something like that they just buttress trudeau's we're the only ones being honest with you arguments but that's let's put that aside But, you know, we've seen that. We've seen affordable housing come out as a wedge. We've seen infrastructure. We're really running out of wedges right now. And the ones that seem to be landing the best, in my opinion, do seem to be those social ones, particularly the ones related to seniors and more on the tail end of life. So

SPEAKER_00 37:51

maybe there's more to be done there. I know, Stephen, you would probably think there is. I

Carter 37:55

I do like those issues. And I think that there's lots of wedges to dig into. I

Carter 37:59

I wish I had more information on polling issues

Carter 38:01

issues around that to

Carter 38:03

to drive some wedges from.

Carter 38:05

And that's ultimately where you go. This is why we're so derisive of the polling and how it's used in the media. We're not polling to see who's voting for us. We're polling to see issue identification, how it ties to voting intent, and where you can devise a wedge that will draw some of the other guys to vote. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Okay, I think that's a great segue to our next segment. I'm going to move it on to our next segment.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Doctor, help. My pole is not getting bigger. Okay. Oh, come on. Yeah, it's

SPEAKER_01 38:33

it's cheap. Dad humor. Dad

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Dad humor. No, that's

Carter 38:37

humor. That's teenage boy humor.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Oh, yeah. Well, listen, I straddled the line. You know what? There's a Venn diagram there. That's good. It's true. Most teenage boys, most dads lose their teenage boy sentiment. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 38:50

I'm going to move it on because in the interest of time, talk to me about, and we've We've talked about this before, but Corey, you've mentioned it eloquently many times in the past. This is a race between Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair. As it stands today, there are competing polls coming out that one is ahead of the other. And I want to talk very quickly in this segment about how you guys, if you're in the position, would start making the case that we are going to be the party of change. Because they need to start doing it now so that it ultimately ends up 26, 25 days from today that they're going to be the party of change. Okay, so how do you start making that case today? Corey, you've got your hand up. Let's

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Let's set the table. The polls are tied in some of the polls. Ipsos, for example, actually shows the Liberals with a significant lead over the Conservatives, who are back in third six points back from the Liberals. Correct,

SPEAKER_00 39:37

And there are other polls that show a variety of outcomes. But that's

SPEAKER_00 39:42

that's just top line. How many votes are you going to get nationwide? Nonsense. That doesn't tell us anything about government. And there's two big caveats I want to put on it. One, as we've put on before, is that because the undecided seem to be wavering between the liberals and the New Democrats, the conservative number is actually probably a little lower than reported. The other really big caveat I want to put on, and you knew it was coming, is seats are not necessarily given out in the same proportion as percent of the vote. And I've run a lot of seat projections in the past week. and the liberals have to win by like six points over either the new democrats or the conservatives to win uh a government right there's just so many their vote is not very efficient at all at this point and and maybe six is an exaggeration but it's probably four or five points we could very easily have a situation right now where the liberals end up with four points more than the next party and end up in third place it's possible yeah

Carter 40:39

is this is the downside of the the system the way it is so how do you break away zane how do you break away how do you position i mean

SPEAKER_01 40:46

mean that's i'm still trying to process that information you just dropped on us because i think that's very fascinating but how do you break away or what are

SPEAKER_00 40:52

are you breaking away from there there is no three-way tie the three-way tie is a myth the new democrats are in the if the election's called right now the new democrats lead the conservatives and the liberals are fighting in the back but if the if the number is even on the top it goes new democrat conservative liberal okay

Carter 41:10

okay Okay, so I think you've partially answered my question. No, but he has. Okay, how about I get you to go first, and then I'm going to go to him. Go ahead, Carter, go ahead. He's done what Corey does, which is to take us on a different direction. That's fine. I'm here to bring us back.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, you're well known as the steady hand on the wheel here. I really

Carter 41:26

People have commented on the Twitter.

Carter 41:30

So here's the thing. What I would start doing is talking about how Thomas Mulcair has channeled Stephen Harper.

Carter 41:37

Thomas Mulcair doesn't want deficits, even though it's the right thing to do. Thomas Mulcair won't invest in infrastructure, even though it's the right thing to do. Thomas Mulcair is siding with Stephen Harper on F-35s, wasting billions of dollars just

Carter 41:49

just because he has chosen to try and become more electable and not do the right thing. And I would be talking about becoming more electable and not doing the right thing because that is what people are perceiving our duplicitous Tommy as being. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Okay, so maybe I backtrack my question a little bit. it if i'm making the case as the ndp today that you know um like cory said that the liberals are you know this many points behind how do i make the case do i go out regionally to voters and say hey look you know this tie is actually a myth it's not

SPEAKER_00 42:18

not a tie they're trying to do that i saw literature in my mailbox i think yesterday that showed the ndp you know it didn't address it all it totally ignored the fact we've had local polling that shows the new democrat being crushed crushed by

SPEAKER_00 42:30

by the local candidate for the liberals matt grant ignored that but what what it did say is hey under all of the seat projections even at a tie right now we're the ones we're the ones who are in this race the liberals are not because of the seat projections they actually took eric grenier's work which is oh come on it's not very far off my work right now so be careful where you're grunting i can grunt

Carter 42:52

grunt to you just as easily as i can grunt to grenier and

SPEAKER_00 42:55

and what they said was this is really a race between the conservatives and the new democrats they're trying this they're trying i don't think it's working like that i don't think enough people have enough comprehension of seat projections and all of those things what

SPEAKER_00 43:07

what they absolutely need to do is they need to say the liberals aren't in this and for me that does zane to answer your question in a very long way mean focusing on regional polls carter

SPEAKER_01 43:18

it have to start today oh

Carter 43:21

i mean this election is really i mean i remember the podcast at the very beginning it doesn't matter it's early days days in summer no more excuses kids yeah

Carter 43:29

are in this we are now inside how long an alberta campaign usually takes how which is a blink of an eye so we are going to go 28 days we're gonna have results uh right about now in four weeks wow

SPEAKER_01 43:42

i want to move it on to our last segment our last segment are over under in our lightning round you guys are ready oh boy so ready old stock canadians how bad from a scale of one to ten steven three

SPEAKER_01 43:55

over under on three the number of polls that show the conservatives in the lead between now and election time over

SPEAKER_00 44:03

come on it's like we're

Carter 44:04

we're getting six polls a day wow really

Carter 44:08

really in fact i was just looking at one today that

Carter 44:10

that had the conservatives up on his daily tracker has the conservatives at uh 31 over 29 29 no

SPEAKER_01 44:17

no comment okay um do we see Do we see more aggressive wedge issues by the NDP going forward? Do we see more aggressive wedge issues? Corey, yes or no? You're going to see the same wedges, but

SPEAKER_00 44:27

but you're going to see the intensity dialed up.

Carter 44:30

I think a good campaign will start to put forward new wedges, so it won't come for the New Democrats. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Okay. From the Conservatives, do they get more intense than they've already been right now, Carter? Yes or no? More intense than they've already been, or have they reached peak intensity? You

Carter 44:43

You know what? Conservatives always got one more notch on the dial. Conservatives can go to 11, baby. conservatives go

SPEAKER_00 44:49

go to 11 you

SPEAKER_01 44:50

you agree with that cory you're going oh

SPEAKER_00 44:52

oh they're gonna we're gonna find look if their polls do start to slip yeah

SPEAKER_00 44:56

or if they start to look at the same numbers and say my god because of the undecideds we might be a little screwed and they have smart people in their war room yeah they do you ain't seen nothing like the last week of this election shit's gonna get crazy justin

SPEAKER_01 45:07

justin trudeau is on lonely man island it seems like with his wedge issues do we see intensification on some of his carter oh

Carter 45:13

oh i think so and we're starting to see the regionalization too so uh expect that to continue i

SPEAKER_00 45:18

i think it's paying results they're the only ones right now who can reasonably say they've got momentum and

SPEAKER_01 45:22

and you see it getting more intense yeah

SPEAKER_01 45:24

one word strategy for the liberals going forward carter

SPEAKER_01 45:31

i interest i like that cory narrower

SPEAKER_01 45:36

bigger and narrower not necessarily contradictions nope

Carter 45:39

nope Nope, but I'm right.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

One word strategy for the NDP going forward?

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Well, that's not a strategy. That's not a strategy. It continues to be

SPEAKER_01 45:48

be the strategy they're using.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I hate to do this, but I kind of agree with him. I think that whatever their strategy has to be. He's building to

SPEAKER_00 46:02

word, Corey. It has to be one of sincerity. Right now, between their $15 an hour minimum wage, between their universal pharma care, between, between, between, they are starting to accrue a number of things that just look wholly

SPEAKER_01 46:16

That's a very good answer so far. Last one. The conservatives. One word strategy, Stephen.

Carter 46:23

don't know. Caveman. How was that?

SPEAKER_01 46:25

to keep working your wedges.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

That's my caveman. They've got to scare us into thinking that the other two are just a total threat to our way of life. And my God, they've already started this. Canadians, please don't fall for it.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

That's it. That's a wrap on Episode 549. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. We will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Listeners of The Strategist podcast, remember,

SPEAKER_01 46:56

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 at Zane Velji.

Transcript