Transcript
SPEAKER_00
0:02
This is A Strategist episode 565. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? Oh, really good. You didn't jump in to announce your names like you did last time.
SPEAKER_00
0:16
Oh boy. Here we go. Yeah. I
Carter
0:19
I was only going
Corey
0:19
going to say it once. I was expecting multiple. No, he has about the energy and enthusiasm of the Kasek campaign.
SPEAKER_00
0:29
And Kasich is good for one I think
SPEAKER_00
0:33
think that's what we can say Kasich is good for one yeah I agree Can we just put that to rest so we don't have to discuss it with the rest of the show It's big
Corey
0:39
it's huge It's going to be dominant themed Do you want to talk about what is big and huge and dominant You know in case somebody didn't care About the guys Second place finish
Carter
0:48
finish Second place in New Hampshire The Granite State is a big deal Is
Corey
0:54
Is it actually the Granite State You're also going to say live free or die Live free
Carter
0:58
free or die. Stephen Carter knows three
Corey
1:01
three things about New
SPEAKER_00
1:02
New Hampshire. And where do they all come from?
SPEAKER_00
1:04
Where do those three
Corey
1:04
three things? The West
SPEAKER_00
1:06
The West Wing. I
Carter
1:08
them all from President Bartlett, who was the former governor of New Hampshire and descendant of the first settlers. Let's
SPEAKER_00
1:17
Let's turn our focus to Corey. Corey, why have you not seen the West Wing in its entirety multiple times? No, wait, even one time?
Carter
1:23
Yeah, this is very upsetting.
Corey
1:25
I'm not really sure it should be. i've seen most of it once i guess okay
Corey
1:31
okay that was a fucking boring answer okay what
SPEAKER_00
1:32
what do you want
SPEAKER_00
1:34
let's talk about this our first segment ballin with a burn guys the big news last night is bernie sanders can hit a four-foot bank shot and fox news roots is their fucking shit they think this guy is mj in his prime he hits like five bank shots and like yeah oh my god God, he's better than Obama in every way possible.
Corey
1:54
possible. Basketball is life, right?
SPEAKER_00
1:57
Basketball is life. Yeah,
Corey
1:58
Yeah, he celebrated winning New Hampshire.
SPEAKER_00
1:59
Hampshire. Okay, Carter, it seems like you haven't seen this. Have you not seen this? This is like the one-minute clip where Bernie Sanders is standing one meter away from the hoop, just hitting a couple shots, and people are losing their shit. I
Carter
2:09
I saw it. I couldn't watch the whole thing because old white guy shooting basketballs does nothing for me. Larry Bird
SPEAKER_00
2:16
Bird was a disappointment. Yeah,
Carter
2:17
Yeah, I mean, Larry Bird, why bother, right? Steve Nash,
SPEAKER_00
2:21
Nash, not a Canadian legend. That's fine. move on he
Carter
2:23
he wasn't old he was young now he's old lately and he sucks he's
Corey
2:28
but because money is that
Corey
2:30
that how age works he is younger than you but can
Carter
2:32
can we just stop with the constant basketball references like do we have to do it every episode i mean yes
SPEAKER_00
2:38
yes yes we do yeah bernie sanders wins last night that's the big thing he wins by a fair margin donald trump also wins last night so off the top let's just get your thoughts before we get deeper into what i think are the two two overlying sentiments on this. Corey, what do we make of what happened last night in New Hampshire? Well,
Corey
2:56
Well, let's talk about
Corey
2:56
the Democrat side first. And Bernie Sanders obviously won by a lot over 20 points. What I think is noteworthy about that is not that he won, everybody expected him to win, but the margin. And there was some hope in the Clinton campaign that they would tighten it up and they would do better than the polls expected, but quite the opposite happened. And this makes after the Iowa caucus, two contests in a row where Bernie Sanders outperformed the average of polls so in iowa sanders was trailing by four in the average of polls he ended up tying in new hampshire he was expected to win by 13 or 14 he ended up winning by like 21 i mean this was a this wasn't just a victory this was a beat down yeah
Corey
3:34
and the next couple of states up are nevada and south carolina in that order for the democrats opposite order for the republicans and there
Corey
3:43
there hasn't been any polling in nevada since december and it's a caucus state now Now, Iowa as a caucus state gets a lot of activity and participation because it's first in the nation and every Iowan knows this and there's a higher subscription to that level of civic engagement. But the fact is most caucus states see fewer people show up. And if Bernie Sanders owns the enthusiasm as he appears to, that
Corey
4:07
that 20-point gap that the poll in December showed with Hillary could A, be non-existent and B, even if it does exist, overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of Sanders supporters. Oh,
SPEAKER_00
4:17
Oh, man. OK, I've got so many questions there. But Stephen, I'll let you chime in first before I before I go back on Bernie and the
Carter
4:22
the enthusiasm of the Sanders supporters. When you say that, do you mean the young white people? Because that's essentially what you're describing. And when you move from state to state, you change your visible minority population. You change the the number of recent immigrants. Sure. And
Corey
4:39
is 80 percent white. But let's continue.
Carter
4:42
I wasn't simply speaking about Nevada.
Carter
4:45
South Carolina, you're going to hit me with that being 80 percent white. But it's not. Not, by the way, it's not. But the point of the matter is that each state is different. And Bernie Sanders, his performance in Iowa, I agree, was pretty impressive. His performance in New Hampshire was entirely expected. You're the senator of Vermont to move to New Hampshire and do well. If you can't do that, you're out of the race as of yesterday. He had to win in New Hampshire. He knew that. He put a lot of resources and effort there. He's going to be done. Write it down. He's going to be done by Super Tuesday, the day after Super Tuesday. Yeah,
Corey
5:23
Yeah, well, no. Write
Corey
5:25
Just not going to happen. Write it down.
Corey
5:27
We're starting to see
Carter
5:28
see this one. Who
Corey
5:28
Who are you telling to
Corey
5:30
scribe here or something?
Carter
5:34
of talking to Zane. Why am
SPEAKER_00
5:35
am I writing this down? First of all, I've gotten a lot of tweets last week about not keeping you guys accountable on the over-under. I'm not going to do it this time, but I may write it down. I may get someone else to write it down. You say lots
Carter
5:45
lots of tweets. You mean like your mom and your dad tweeted you or something? First of all, my mom is not on Twitter. Oh, okay.
Corey
5:52
That's important to the story.
SPEAKER_00
5:54
Corey, you're losing the plot. No, we're not. Yeah. Back to burning basketball. Now, Corey, what did you want to say?
Corey
6:00
you look south carolina is a different ball of wax i think hillary clinton is going to win south carolina i think that the uh knowledge gap that exists amongst voters in later primary states as to who bernie sanders is is too big to overcome in the short time he's got but voters are going to start paying attention to this guy particularly if he performs well in nevada and he does not need to win nevada he just needs to outperform expectations here now what
Corey
6:26
I think that we would forget too quickly is that it's not like in 08, Obama won a bunch of early contests and it was over. They traded. They went back and forth for quite some time. I think you can expect this contest to play out a bit the same. Nobody is going to write the Bernie Sanders obituary if he loses South Carolina.
Carter
6:44
They would have written if he lost New Hampshire though. I
Corey
6:47
I think so. But that
Corey
6:49
come close to happening. No,
Carter
6:50
No, he did exactly what
SPEAKER_00
6:51
what he needed to do. No one's
Carter
6:52
one's arguing that. They exceeded expectations in
SPEAKER_00
6:53
in my mind. Am I exceeded? Yeah. Okay, let's, we'll get back to Bernie in a second here and we'll couch it in a few larger sentiments. Donald Trump, Stephen Carter, what do we make of Donald Trump coming through last night on the Republican side? Him followed by a log jam, the heir apparent institutional candidate, Marco Rubio, fifth
SPEAKER_00
7:12
fifth place. Falls to fifth. Your homie, Johnny K. Johnny K. The
SPEAKER_00
7:17
most boring man in the history of boring. Let's talk about Trump though. What do we make of Trump in this situation? I don't know. I
Carter
7:22
I mean, you know I don't like Trump, right?
Carter
7:25
right? I mean, we're all clear on that. I've written it down. So Trump is this crazy anomaly, right, where he is campaigning. And I mean, New Hampshire is kind of this weird mixed personality. I mean, obviously, they're electing Trump and they're electing Sanders. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that Trump got 35% of the vote. Now, New Hampshire
Carter
7:48
Hampshire does not often deliver an actual majority to one of the candidates. Usually, there is too many candidates in at that point to deliver a majority. And a plurality is the way that they traditionally go. But they tend not to pick – they're all over the map. And there is no more off the map than Donald Trump. This is a guy who – you
Carter
8:11
you know, he actually sounded more like a politician in his speech last night than I've heard him sound before. He is starting to maybe – I think he's going to start getting serious about this. And if he does, I think that will be the end of his campaign. I just was shocked. I was shocked that he got
Carter
8:27
got 35. I thought honestly the thing that I was watching in New Hampshire was for him to fall below his poll numbers like he did in Iowa. The thinking being that he's all hot air and no ground game. Yeah.
Carter
8:37
But in New Hampshire, he actually delivered with the actual numbers that he was getting in polling. Corey,
Corey
8:42
Yeah, he got 35% of the vote. Stephen's right. right? It's rare that somebody gets a ton just because the race is usually a bit more crowded at this point. This is the largest, this is a big victory. This is a pretty large margin as far as New
Corey
8:55
Republican contests go. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's over, signed, sealed, and delivered. The fact is the so-called establishment branch was very fractured. And like, let's say, you know, even with the people who dropped out today, Chris Christie and Fiorina, You know, those votes are now available to somebody else, right? So I think if I was him, I would feel very good about New Hampshire, but I would also see some things that cause me concern just because you don't – there are so many X factors coming out of New Hampshire. Well,
Carter
9:24
Well, and I think that Kasich, this is one of the reasons I was excited about him weeks ago, is that with
Carter
9:28
with Christie dropping out, I think a large number of those votes could go to Kasich. And that
Carter
9:36
is an opportunity for him. Now, he has to capitalize on it. He has to actually do something in Nevada and South Carolina. And he's nowhere in those two states. So it could be exactly one and done, just like Rubio. But at some point, the person who's going to beat Trump needs to be declared or Trump's going to win.
Corey
9:56
Well, Kasich, he was
Corey
9:58
was the best case scenario coming in number two for Trump because it just further muddies the waters. It's not at all clear who's supposed to be the so-called establishment candidate at this point. As long as they're divided like that, Trump is going to start cleaning up all over town. Okay,
SPEAKER_00
10:12
Okay, let's talk about that. Corey, you make a great segue. On both sides of the ticket, in the sense of the Democrats on one end, Republicans on the other, what do you guys make of the nature of elites and party elites and institutions? institutions have we moved away is are these initial results an
SPEAKER_00
10:34
indication that we have moved away from the importance of effectively institutions have we moved to something else steven carter well
Carter
10:40
well i think right now we're seeing a across the board rejection of authority right so when when scientific experts come out and say that fukushima is not going to impact fishing there's a subset of the population that refuse to believe that when there's a group of people who come out and say, don't worry. When scientists, when the leading scientists say, hey, climate change is real, there's a group of people who refuse to believe that. When scientists and medical researchers say, vaccinate your children, there's a group of people who say, I don't believe that. And what we're seeing right now is this rejection of formal authority, this rejection of leadership and political leadership is manifesting itself in Donald Trump and
Carter
11:22
and to a a lesser degree bernie sanders okay
SPEAKER_00
11:24
okay so is this the same argument you've been making in the past about the anti-intellectual movement in the united states not
Carter
11:29
not just the united states right we don't trust large corporations we don't trust scientists we don't trust government uh that is just the reality of our society today um and there's
Carter
11:41
there's a problem there because what we're moving against is actual knowledge and we're replacing it with pseudo knowledge so
SPEAKER_00
11:48
so carter's carter's whole premises around authority trust of of institutions cory do you have another sort of hypothesis or any hypothesis as to are we moving away from the institution here well let's maybe but
Corey
12:00
but let's pump the brakes a bit because the fact is you can talk about across the board rejections of authority but we've had two states uh vote i get your point about vaccinations but the vast majority of people support vaccinations we just really didn't have the channels to allow those anti-vaxxers in the the past to get together collaborate make their voices heard nobody would put them on the news right that would that just wouldn't happen and and i think that you've you've got to kind of look at a bunch of these factors and it's almost impossible to pull them all out and they kind of create each other but is this really that bad has the situation really gotten that out of hand i don't know i can remember an awful lot of ignorant people my entire life you know well before the internet and and that's not that has not changed and i don't think that's necessarily started to run away with it.
Corey
12:46
It is interesting to see in these early contests how little control the so-called party elites have over the process. But to me, I think that is not necessarily about a rejection of authority. It's about a seizing of authority for yourself. And I think there is a distinction there. One is a skepticism that somebody else knows what they're doing. The other is saying, no, I absolutely can take this for myself. And when you talk about Bernie Sanders Sanders in particular. I loved, I loved his speech last night when he said something along the lines of, I'm
Corey
13:16
I'm not going to New York to hold a Wall Street fundraiser. I'm holding a fundraiser right here across all of America. And he raised $5.2 million in the 18
Carter
13:27
18 hours after. That
Carter
13:28
totally unheard of. That is insane. Keep in mind the first person who was able to really harness the power of the internet was Howard Dean. I'm just pointing that out. I'm
Corey
13:35
I'm not, who's disputing? It's those those new england guys they've got it figured out but uh but
Corey
13:41
but that speech he made carter
Corey
13:43
carter could not have been made even even 12 years ago it just wasn't possible the technologies weren't there you
Corey
13:49
raise that kind of money like that and you are seeing the movement of power away from institutions to networks and that to me is the bigger point it's not about a rejection of authority it's about who holds authority in the first step steven
SPEAKER_00
14:01
steven carter you have gone up against the institution, one would argue, when you ran the campaign for Ellison Redford for PC Leader, you believe in this network concept, do you not? Is this not where the new targeting of creating a campaign goes from or starts at least? Oh,
Carter
14:17
Oh, absolutely. I mean, so just
Carter
14:20
just to dig deeper into the whole social networks model, we tend to vote with our group of peers or we tend to behave with our group of peers uh one of the stories i love to tell is my mom bought a horse once um she's never ridden a horse uh she didn't want a horse really and she wound up selling the horse but all of her friends thanks for making
SPEAKER_00
14:42
calgary look good and she didn't she didn't want to be
Carter
14:44
be left behind we
SPEAKER_00
14:45
we all own horses yeah
Carter
14:46
yeah we all were anyway she she she got rid of the horse well why do we do those types of behaviors why do we look at our neighbor and say you know i you know Our neighbor bought a Volvo. Should we get a Volvo? That's the type of – it is kind of keeping up with the Joneses and we are interested in what our peers are interested in. So when our social network starts to move towards a Nenshi or a Redford or a Rubio or a Kasich, that is part of what defines momentum. Why did Bernie Sanders outperform Poles? Because there was a momentum behind him. That momentum is the surge in the social networks. And if you can capture that, you win.
Carter
15:27
And if you can't capture that – and this is what's interesting about Hillary Clinton, right?
Carter
15:35
– I think she's still campaigning in 1992, right?
Carter
15:39
right? And she didn't learn the lesson in 2008 and she doesn't seem to be learning the lesson now. And what's the lesson,
Carter
15:44
Find the social networks and move them. And it's not just as simple as saying, hey, women, vote for me. I'm your girlfriend. That's not how the world works. um women who what did what did uh madeline albright say women who uh don't support other women have a have a special place in hell um you know like it was a terrible quote but
Carter
16:06
um that's not how you move people you find out what their values are and you appeal to those values and you will move them en masse that's what bernie sanders you speak
SPEAKER_00
16:15
speak to them on their own terms right effectively about what matters to them and what was surprising yesterday now And what I want to get into the second larger thrust of this conversation is how do you build those constituencies? Because last night, Bernie Sanders won in every single demo. Men, women, college educated, no college education, almost every single demo you can think of, he totally hit
SPEAKER_00
16:38
hit out of the park. And the one that seems to be surprising a lot of people is the one of younger women, where Hillary almost thought there would be homers for her and thought that they would totally come on board. He's winning everyone in this very small sample. But the question I have here, and Corey, I'll go to you first on this, is how do you start building your constituency? What's the low-hanging fruit? How do you figure out who's first tier, second tier? How do you start speaking to those networks if that's the new reality we live in politically?
Corey
17:02
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if there's anything that I can conceive of more obnoxious than three guys sitting around talking about why women vote the way they vote. But let's keep doing it. Let's be clear about a couple of things here. One is exactly what Stephen was talking about with this notion of there was a sense in the Clinton campaign that women would vote for Hillary Clinton. And I do think that is because there is a bit of their mindset stuck in 1992. As we get further away from, you know, we have not gotten to a point of equality between the sexes yet. But some of the bigger battles are now in the rearview mirror. mirror and as that is the case it becomes a little harder to make that argument and suggest that to all women that just having a woman in the white house is what will be most beneficial to you it's also a bit of a facile argument uh you know bernie sanders is very strong on uh you know income equality bernie sanders is very strong on women's rights as well i don't know that it necessarily follows that only a woman can support women's rights i think if that were the case we'd be in a lot of trouble as a society because we get this 50 50 polarization on every damn issue yeah
Corey
18:11
but that notion amongst the clinton camp that
Corey
18:14
that maybe existed maybe didn't maybe everybody's just sort of pointing from the outside and saying how stupid they were to think that women would follow i
Corey
18:22
think it looks at women way too broadly right uh the very the very same things that stephen carter talks about a lot in the advertising and marketing sense and and i think myself and the analytics and whatnot in our day jobs is that you know the notion of the broad group right yeah like the
Corey
18:39
the women 45 to 65 oh it's
Corey
18:42
dead well it's dead and the and the groups that you're trying to appeal to are smaller and more nuanced and you can't paint everybody with those brushes we just have too many channels we have too many opportunities to get our our
Corey
18:52
our social networks are constructed in
Corey
18:55
in very different ways yeah
SPEAKER_00
18:56
yeah yeah steven carter it brings down to earth a little bit for us you started the
SPEAKER_00
19:01
the nahed nenshi campaign in a very similar fashion I remember you and I chatting about this offline one day. You eventually found your first network and tried to replicate them and model them and figure out where they existed elsewhere. Give us a little bit of insight as to how that started on your end.
Carter
19:16
Well, I think this actually models very closely on the primary system, right?
Carter
19:19
Where you can start very small. New Hampshire is a very small state. Iowa is a very small state in the overall scheme of things.
Carter
19:29
It's not huge. There's three million Iowans.
Carter
19:31
Yeah, but the caucuses aren't three million people voting. Okay. So you go in and you find these small numbers of people and you target them. In the Nahaddenchi case, we went into two communities, Hawkwood and Edgemont. What made those communities particularly special is that they have the highest visible minority population in Calgary. But they're not first generation immigrants. Those familiar with Calgary will know about Northeast Calgary, which is what we often attribute the highest visible
Carter
19:57
minority population to. But
Carter
19:58
But the second and third generation immigrants who live in Hawkwood and Edgemont, those
Carter
20:05
those folks, if it's the East Indian physician next door to you in
Carter
20:09
in those communities, it's often just the doctor next door.
Carter
20:12
Right. Your kids play hockey together. Your kids play soccer together. There's a different connection.
Carter
20:18
connection. And once you start to get that, that was what we needed with Nenshi because we needed to break through this. We're going to elect a guy named Nahid Nenshi. How do you even say that? We had to break through that and now those populations were very willing. They'd already broken through it. Their values were already aligned with us and then we could mirror that out. When we found things that they liked, we found issues that they agreed with, we were just able to essentially multiply it. Bernie Sanders has been doing that. Hillary Clinton has not. Hillary Clinton is running a big time campaign. Donald Trump is
Carter
20:53
is doing that. Donald
SPEAKER_00
20:54
Trump is finding people who've
Carter
20:55
who've got these values. Now, we may say these aren't values. These are small-minded principles, whatever. They're values for
Carter
21:03
values for them. And he's finding people with those values and he's appealing to them. And he's growing via social networks. Those people are saying, you know what? I agree. Donald Trump's the only – the
SPEAKER_00
21:14
is the only one who will stand up for me. And they'll tell people in their horizontal that have similar viewpoints. Corey, we saw exit polling coming out of both Iowa and New Hampshire that said that
SPEAKER_00
21:24
that sticky factor on Donald Trump voters was something crazy like 80%. They had no real second choice. It was him or who else. Do you agree with Stephen that Donald Trump is also playing this network game?
Corey
21:36
Yeah, I think it manifests a bit differently than the Bernie Sanders network. But both of them are essentially suggesting a certain toughness needs to be taken, right? right? Donald Trump is suggesting we need to be tough with people outside of the borders. I should say we, but the Americans need to be tough with people outside of the borders. Bernie Sanders, we need to get tough with Wall Street inside our borders. But ultimately, they're about,
Corey
22:00
you know, manning up, right? Just really sticking it to the guy who's been sticking it to you. And that is a common thread that I think should cause Americans concern because it's not a very friendly thread. Now, I
Carter
22:09
I happen to think Bernie
Corey
22:10
Bernie Sanders is actually correct.
Corey
22:12
I don't think Donald Donald Trump's correct. I don't think that would shock anyone who's listened to us for more than 30 seconds.
Carter
22:17
seconds. The orange apologist, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, okay.
Corey
22:21
But there are significant differences in how they've assembled their groups. And Trump also has a very eclectic collection from people across all sorts of walks of life. Bernie Sanders, it's
Corey
22:33
it's true he won everything in New Hampshire, but his strength is really being driven by certain demos. And one of them is youth. He
Corey
22:39
is absolutely murdering Hillary Clinton with people under 35. And I think it's still two to one nationally with people under 45. Wow. Those
Carter
22:47
Those guys are real voters too, aren't they? You know what?
SPEAKER_00
22:49
what? Well, hold on. Last question. I want to talk about this. We are in the age of technology. We're in the age of scalability where you can create something and find thousands of people to be your eventual customers, donors, etc. How important in this day and age, I'll go to you first on this, Carter, is that component of retail politics in targeting your network?
Carter
23:10
Retail politics is changing, right? So there once was a time when we talked about retail politics being, you know, New Hampshire was retail, right? You
Carter
23:20
from house to house, Iowa, the caucuses, you go and you find those leaders and you'd go to
SPEAKER_00
23:24
to every single, you'd
Carter
23:26
you'd meet with them. With the digital world, we are changing the way that we're now interacting. You
Carter
23:33
You know, the Barack Obama team in 2008, 2012, did
Carter
23:36
did some unbelievably good work on emails that made it feel, everybody knows intellectually, you're not getting an email from Barack Obama. Sure. Okay, we're very clear on that.
SPEAKER_00
23:46
But we felt like we were. I think there's two people who lost their minds right now. Yeah. Like, wait, what?
Carter
23:50
What? What? But we felt like we were. We felt like social media was him interacting directly with us. We felt like the emails that we were getting were him interacting directly with us. And they gave him a persona that made retail and extended retail into the wholesale space. And
Carter
24:06
And I think that that's
Carter
24:08
that's impressive. Bernie Sanders has that. Menchie had that, right?
Carter
24:12
Alison Redford did not have that, right?
Carter
24:15
right? There are certain people that you can take that retail and extend it out. Bill Clinton also
Carter
24:21
also had it. Hillary Clinton does not. And you kind of – what
Carter
24:26
what do they characterize it as? Kind of, I don't know, charm, personality, charisma? Sure. Things that Corey's unfamiliar with.
Corey
24:33
I'm sitting at this table. I haven't seen a lot of it. Oh!
Carter
24:35
Oh! Corey, that's what I think is interesting. Carter
SPEAKER_00
24:40
Carter talks about the digital meeting with the retail. We saw Ted Cruz spend a lot of time in Iowa eventually winning it simply based on his retail politics on the ground. Has retail changed? Is it still important? Morten, what do you make of retail given our new environment? Yeah,
Corey
24:55
retail politics is changing. Retail has changed, right? And you see Sanders and Trump are the Amazon.com of candidates. They show potential buyers what they want to see. They're retargeting, in a quite literal sense, their message out,
Corey
25:09
and they're getting people to buy it.
Corey
25:12
The Iowa caucuses were still caucuses in a state of 3 million people. There is a retail component. opponent i'm fairly confident most of the people who caucused still did not meet one of the candidates so let's not oversell it as well it is interesting that these people get to see the white of their eyes but it's on a jumbotron usually in some sort of hall like they're not actually talking to these guys they live in very uh very
Corey
25:38
very isolated existences even in these states relative to the real world i want you to do a mental exercise uh next time you were walking talking uh through your day zane i want you just to count every single person you talk to to
Corey
25:52
to see how many you go through and the reality is even
Corey
25:54
even if you were to go through and talk to one person a minute yeah
Corey
25:58
over the course of a day you're only talking to a couple hundred people sure right this is a state of three million people there were only so many days in the calendar
Corey
26:06
retail has we are long past the day where retail was actually retail there's always been a magnifying effect when people talk about retail now they really talk about how they can then bundle their folksy personas in a couple of sincere uh collaborations but it's been gone for a while it's
SPEAKER_00
26:22
it's been gone for a while we'll leave it there on that topic our next segment the legit meter is back for more on a scale of one to ten you're going to rank a few things that have gone on
SPEAKER_00
26:32
u.s canadian provincially we'll talk the whole gamut when
Carter
26:35
when you say ranking one to ten you mean we just get to talk i'm going to try to hold your feet to the fire
SPEAKER_00
26:40
fire like i said many tweets Two tweets have come through asking
SPEAKER_00
26:43
for more accountability. Oh, good. Scale of 1 to 10, what do you think of the liberal parties or the governments, I should say, federal governments, new line as it relates to the NEB and supporting pipelines? What is your take right now on the line that they're taking where they're not being cheerleaders? They say that they want access to Tidewater, but that's as far as they're going. Corey? I give it an 8. It's
Corey
27:02
It's exactly what they have to do. it doesn't it's interesting because originally of course the neb process was set up because of a pipeline scandal in the 50s they said we're going to remove politics from pipelines and now over the course of you know half a century politics slid back in and now we have to say we're going to remove politics from pipelines again and sort of reboot the neb process the neb is supposed to look at these things in kind of a measured even-handed approach considering the variables the government wishes to consider and then present to the cabinet what they're supposed to do what the liberals have realized and i think the conservatives should have realized much sooner is that if you're sitting there cheerleading this thing while it's going through the neb process it looks a little insincere it looks like you're just going to prove it no matter what when it comes out of it so what the liberals are now going to do is they're going to say nothing about it uh their opponents are going to light their hair on fire i think that's a mistake by the way because Because ultimately, this thing will be settled by cabinet before the next election. So if you're going to say the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Oh, the sky didn't fall. You might run into trouble if you're the conservatives. But then they're going to deal with it as a cabinet. And I'll tell you something.
Corey
28:13
If you want to see Energy East, if you want to see any of these pipelines, do you know what you don't want to see? The government saying anything. The minute they start opening their mouth, they are sending a signal they're going to kill the thing. It
SPEAKER_00
28:21
It gives it an eight. Give me a number before you rant.
SPEAKER_00
28:24
Ten. Ten. Okay. You love it as well. I
Carter
28:26
I love it. I'm going to tell you why. What I'm afraid of is them talking about it in advance because as soon as you start talking about the NEB process, every environmentalist group in the world gets to say – and let's be clear, this is the world. The world is coming after Canadian pipelines. Yeah,
Carter
28:41
for sure. It's not just 14 guys in Vancouver that are trying to stop pipelines here. But
Carter
28:49
the reality is if they start talking about the pipelines before they've gone through the process, they will completely invalidate those processes. Yeah.
Carter
28:58
And we can't have that. Now, what I think is interesting, though, is
Carter
29:02
is that one pipeline has gone through the process. One pipeline currently has cabinet approval and they refuse to talk about it. That's what I'd be if I was the Conservatives. That's what I'd be doing. The Conservatives are playing this completely wrong. Are you listening to this, Michelle Rempel? Listen to me now when I say this. You're playing this completely incorrectly. correctly you need to focus on the one pipeline that has actually been approved and and say to the government of canada are you going to make this national priority is this going to be something that matters to you or are you going to shit down the throats of the people of alberta
Corey
29:35
well i got a little excited i will agree with you on this that is probably uh where the liberals are currently most vulnerable because they are just sort of saying like let's forget that uh you know know northern gateway was even a project they're trying to kill it by stealth by saying there's a tanker ban i think you gotta put it to them and say like well okay this wasn't your process uh does northern gateway get to have an amended version of the process does it just need to go through one more step are you still going to stand by it are you still going to reject it if you're rejecting it out of hand why are you rejecting it out of hand i thought you set criteria and the uncomfortable position that puts the liberals in is that either it looks like they're hypocrites on process and they are deciding winners and losers or they go through a process and environmentalists on the left light their hair on fire and that gives the ndp a bit of a skip in their step and then all of a sudden they're being attacked by both sides i i totally agree with steven on this one that is their most vulnerable point energy east is not a point of vulnerability for them because nobody will get to pass judgment on it until the cabinet's going to approve it sorry i mean that it's going to go through the process it's going to be approved and then what are you you're going to have to work with conservatives is going to be 2019 and you're going to say
Corey
30:45
yeah i guess we
Corey
30:45
were wrong about that you know but they're still bastards i mean what are you going to say like think about this for more than one move ahead yeah
Carter
30:51
yeah try and actually think of it like a chessboard where there's actually going to be multiple moves but honest to god it's like they play checkers and they get confused like they're playing whackable
Corey
30:58
whackable with a chessboard i
Carter
31:02
got our title uh
SPEAKER_00
31:02
uh cory hogan one to ten one to ten the bc government's move move of giving alberta some dikembe matumbo shoulders yesterday and kind of saying we have lost our way as albertans as a province as a people what is your take one to ten give me a number oh man who am i rating it for for them what sort of move was it for the government of bc
Corey
31:23
bc i don't know five uh well
Corey
31:26
well i don't know what i don't know how to rate it it was it was kind of a shitty thing to do to a neighbor and kind of a kick a man when he's down sort of situation yeah Yeah, we get it. Alberta is hurting, and that's because we're dependent on resources, and resources are in the toilet. We totally get it. We elected a new government last year. We've been talking about it forever. The government's brought out a number of diversification programs. But let's pump the brakes a bit, BC. You're sitting there giving us some lecture about how we lost our way. And by the way, they said Alberta is a similar-sized province, so this is a comparison that is fair. And that's not actually the way they phrased it, but they said Alberta is a similar-sized province. Well, guess what?
Corey
32:04
Decades ago, we were not. Decades ago, BC was 50% bigger than Alberta. But we have been on such a tear, population, GDP, any metric you can count, that, yeah, now we are similarly sized. So to sit there and be like, oh, man, did they ever fuck up, does not carry water. This has been a pretty unprecedented run for any province, what Alberta's gone through here. We are, like, you know, we're one more boom away from actually being a larger province than BC. I don't know how many Canadians realize that. There's only half a million people who separate us right now.
Corey
32:34
So, like, look, when I think about it from interprovincial, that was dumb. That was kind of a stupid thing for them to say. But I don't think it's going to hurt them because ultimately all politics is local. And Christy Clark is trying to make political points that are relevant in her province. And she's trying to smugly say, look at us.
Corey
32:50
She's trying to turn into a virtue the fact that her natural
SPEAKER_00
32:53
natural gas plans collapsed, frankly. Stephen Carter, 1 to 10. BC government, what sort of move was this? It
Carter
32:58
It was a 2. It
Carter
32:59
It didn't win the many points of the local population. and it certainly didn't bring them any points. You
SPEAKER_00
33:03
You don't think it wins them anything locally?
Carter
33:05
No, it doesn't bring them any points locally. I mean, Corey's bang on. This government put all of their eggs in the LNG basket. That completely died. And now they have to find a way of backing away from it.
Carter
33:19
The BC people aren't stupid. They're going to see right through this. And not only that, the entire media cycle is on a very small set of paragraphs from your throne speech. That was bad politics. This is a bad idea. It's a two.
SPEAKER_00
33:36
Scale of one to ten. Carter, I'm going to you on this. Justin Trudeau's new position, I should call it new in a sense, on ISIS that he recently announced. What do you think of that? Oh, this
Carter
33:44
this is about a three.
Carter
33:50
when you tell people you're going to pull out from bombing ISIS because it's not helping the matter, okay, there's a group of people who like that message. They were really engaged in that message. A group of people who really disliked that message because they thought that bombing terrorists was probably a good idea.
Carter
34:08
You know, terrorists who were, you know, attacking Christians, throwing homosexuals off of buildings, you know, perverting the Islamic faith. This is not a good group of people. So going after them, probably a pretty good thing.
Carter
34:23
When you do this move that he's done now, both populations are mad at you. They're
SPEAKER_00
34:27
They're both mad at you.
Carter
34:28
you. Now you've made enemies that you didn't need to make because the people who were the pacifists who wanted you out of there certainly didn't want you contributing more ground troops, especially we saw Canadian troops already attacked by
Carter
34:39
by the Islamic State. We've seen that. This is going to happen more frequently now. We've got more troops on the ground. And frankly, it's a heck of a lot more dangerous to be a guy on the ground holding a gun than it is to be the pilot in the air dropping a bomb. Stephen
SPEAKER_00
34:53
Stephen Carter gives it a three. Corey Hogan, Justin Trudeau's new plan on ISIS. Oh, man. I'll give it a five just for the stones.
Corey
34:59
stones. I can't believe how many promises the liberals have broken at this point.
Carter
35:03
point. Oh, my goodness. And when
Corey
35:04
when they don't break them technically, they break them in spirit. And it's almost – I don't know. I mean I'm pretty unimpressed. But I guess if you're going to break a bunch of promises, do it now.
Corey
35:17
Try to recover over the next
Carter
35:18
next few years. That's really your move. I mean that's what everybody
Corey
35:21
mean it starts to become very clear to me how little the liberals thought they were going to win based on how half-baked many of their ideas were. based on how quickly they've had to walk back from them. And so be it, I guess. We're stuck with this government for the next four years, so I wish it the best. I really hope they do good things. I'll tell you, though, they are really... You know, if Trudeau broke hearts the way he's breaking promises, he would have been run out of town by angry fathers. You know, it's just, it's bad.
SPEAKER_00
35:48
By angry fathers. Feel
SPEAKER_00
35:50
Feel the burn, Jenny Byrne. Her letter that she published in the Globe and Mail on a scale of 1 to 10, Stephen Carter. murder the effectively i tried i didn't have any control i told them to do things differently letter that she published now give us a little bit more context maybe for people who haven't caught up yeah
Carter
36:08
yeah i mean i'm not sure how much more context i'm going to be a conservative campaign manager
SPEAKER_00
36:11
manager who just said it wasn't my fault it's
Carter
36:13
it's not my fault um you
Carter
36:16
know what i mean first of all you don't get to take that right i mean sure there's lots of people what's the saying cory uh victory
Corey
36:24
victory Victory as a thousand fathers defeats an orphan.
Carter
36:26
Yeah, this is what that is. I mean, is it Jenny Byrne's fault? Of course it's not Jenny Byrne's fault. I mean, but
Carter
36:33
course it is Jenny Byrne's fault. So
Carter
36:34
So writing a letter like that, I think this is stupid.
Carter
36:40
you know, I mean, you take your lumps, man. This is what you did. You signed on to a campaign. You're going to be a senior strategist on it. You're going to take a position like that. What is it, campaign manager? I
Carter
36:49
she was, campaign director. You don't get to walk away at the end and say it wasn't me. it was the other guy you have to take your lumps you gave her a number on that two
Corey
36:57
i'll give it two as well i i'm not trying to pick on her or kick her when she's down but it struck me also from a strategist standpoint is a bit unprofessional i
Corey
37:06
mean as as furious as i was about you know some of the elements of the campaign in in 2012 when i was a campaign director you
SPEAKER_00
37:14
know those stories have come out as anecdotes throughout this show but i didn't write like this big
Corey
37:17
big piece afterwards words about like what uh what a jerk i thought raj sherman was sometimes or anything like that you just don't do that you gotta let time go a bit and they can kind of come out and then they're almost funny in context and the stakes are low right yeah but
Corey
37:29
but when you're sitting there and you're sort of throwing mud on the campaign that just ended as the conservatives are still trying to pick up the pieces and get a new leader yeah i mean come on it's one thing if you want to walk around the halls of the conservative party and say these things and be like god i'm so mad about how how it turned out but but like to try to salvage your public persona so brazenly uh right there when the body is still warm i i thought it was a bit unprofessional i did a
SPEAKER_00
37:56
unprofessional from one letter writing campaign to another scale of one to ten cory i'm back at you on this one tom mo cares letter to his supporters apologizing for the election loss and encouraging people to keep him as their savior and leader going forward i got that letter i i first you
Corey
38:13
would like to thank Rebecca Blake, Blakey first and foremost, for chairing the campaign, blah, blah, blah. It all goes on. Are you legitimately
SPEAKER_00
38:19
legitimately going to read this letter to us?
Corey
38:21
No, I'm not going to read it, but it's
Corey
38:23
it's a bit – I have to imagine at this point – let's back up a step. When I talk to New Democrats in this province and some from outside of this province, but particularly in this province, the one universal sentiment is there's just no way they can see Tom Mulcair surviving this leadership review. you i think there was an expectation by tom and the circle around him that uh with time everyone would calm down and they'd reflect and everybody okay and they'd see what a strong performer was in the house again as everything was going on and you really hold feet to the fire and you know that that tom's gotta go volume would go down yeah
Corey
38:58
it hasn't and the fact is the national convention is now at the start of april that's coming up pretty quickly and i don't believe it's going to go down before then and you got to keep in mind this is canada where some crazy precedence been said if you get less than two-thirds two-thirds which is a
Corey
39:14
crazy number yeah yeah you know then you're supposed to step down as leaders so what did you think of it what do you got a number for me i
Corey
39:23
i struggle with the numbers and it is what
Corey
39:26
what else are you gonna do i
Carter
39:27
i mean at this point why is he getting a cop out no
Carter
39:31
give it to the
Corey
39:32
let's You know what?
Corey
39:34
But, like, what else are you going to do if you're Tom Mulcair? This is his last Hail Mary. It's not going to work. In that sense, it looks a bit pitiful. Let's give him a three.
SPEAKER_00
39:42
Oh, my God. Stephen Carter, are your thoughts reflected in what Corey just said?
SPEAKER_00
39:47
Well, I mean, it's sad.
Carter
39:50
sad. I mean, first of all, I think it's sad that our leaders now – I mean, these leadership reviews were put in. They're relatively new, that these leadership reviews would be handed back to the people.
Carter
40:03
these things tend to be not manipulated in the sense that they're not stuff in the ballot box or anything like that, but how a person becomes a delegate and those types of things. I mean, the work that was put into maintaining Allison Redford and Ed Stelnack and even Klein to a degree during their leadership reviews was rather significant to ensure that they got the hold on. And I
Carter
40:27
I don't like the leadership review model. I actually do like the caucus model because ultimately Allison Redford stepped down right after her leadership review because of caucus. Ed Stelmack stepped down right after his leadership review because of caucus. He's a little more honest in that sense. This is our reality. And I think that this
Carter
40:46
this leadership review, this letter that's gone out, everything, it's kind of a fake process. But it's a fake process that Thomas Mulcair is going through because he's losing control of his caucus. because he's losing control of his party. Follow
SPEAKER_00
41:00
Follow-up question is that. Corey says this is his hill, Mary. This is what he has to do. Anything in your mind, Stephen, that he's got any other options given the reality that we have right now? Step down.
SPEAKER_00
41:11
To save his leadership, I know. No, I mean... You don't see anything else. What's saving
Carter
41:16
saving your leadership? Is this... Lead. You
Carter
41:19
You want to keep your leadership? Lead, right? Do it well and be... And in politics, doing it well means being liked by people. people he is not liked by people people do not want to vote for him he has to go well
Corey
41:32
well look i think that in what you said there was something that needs to be unpacked a bit and that's that you wear two hats as party leader you're the leader of a caucus and you are the leader of a political party and i don't think it's unreasonable that you need to maintain the support of both i don't think you should be able to continue just with the support of the caucus i think you should should have the support of your party as well. But
Corey
41:51
But within that, those confines,
Corey
41:55
you talk about leading. I agree. He has many ways he can lead. Because he has two leadership jobs, if he can show competence in one, that's going to bleed over into the other. But I think he's focusing on the wrong one. He's trying to prove that he's a good leader in a parliamentary sense. I don't know if that was ever in dispute. Where his leadership credentials are really being challenged is on the political front. And
Corey
42:16
And so he needs to shore those up. The notion that he's going to win this in the house of commons is flawed he thought he would win the election in the house of commons he was the best he was the prosecutorial tom it
Corey
42:26
it didn't happen he has to realize that the battlefront is not the battlefront he performs best in and that's unfortunate that sucks but if you want to win this battle you want to be leader you got to play in the right field and right now he's not doing that carter
SPEAKER_00
42:40
carter i didn't get your number what is it one
SPEAKER_00
42:43
gives it a one
SPEAKER_00
42:45
Okay, our last segment Our over-under, our lightning round Our in or out, are you guys ready for this? A lot of energy, high energy No! Go high energy This is the same criticism Donald Trump has of Jeb Bush Here we go, yes or no Stephen Carter, Hillary Clinton Wraps up the Democratic nomination By Super Tuesday On
Carter
43:03
On Super Tuesday! No, she does not She does
SPEAKER_00
43:06
does not? Wait, no Wait, no, you
Carter
43:08
yes or give it Yes, you will, yes you will
Carter
43:11
I'm sorry, I got confused
Carter
43:13
for a second Oh,
Corey
43:14
Oh, man. That's the first. What's in this water bottle? No, it's not going to happen. I actually think that this contest is going to continue for a while.
SPEAKER_00
43:22
Corey, back to you. Scale of 1 to 10. Scale of 1 to 10. The importance of super packs going forward on both sides.
Corey
43:31
I think it's probably a 3. I think that they're showing that they're not that great.
Carter
43:36
I think it's a 7 because money still matters and putting money into place. I mean, their attempt to curtail. I mean, take a look at what's happening in Alberta. We're starting to see super PACs come together. Now, are they effective in the ultimate political landscape?
Carter
43:50
landscape? Sometimes. Because money can make things good. Oh, that's
Carter
43:55
No, you know what? I'm going to follow up on this. The leadership on these things seems to be incredibly bad. Hold on. They don't seem to know how to spend their money.
SPEAKER_00
44:02
Christie got out of the race. Santorum is out. Fiorina is out. Most of them had a billionaire or at least a significant amount of money in their respective super PACs. Yet, they're all gone. And
SPEAKER_00
44:12
Carter, do you feel like their importance in the American system going forward has decreased like Corey's mentioned or no?
Carter
44:17
I think people with a lot of money will
Carter
44:20
will want to still be putting their money into something like this and they'll continue to do it.
Corey
44:24
Let me just say, I think that maybe we always overestimated how important they were. When you start looking even at last campaign cycle with like, you know, Sheldon Allison and stuff. Yeah,
Corey
44:34
There was a lot of money thrown around that didn't necessarily change the results. Part of it is the management that Stephen's talking about. The other is something we've talked about a lot but not recently, which is that there's a diminishing return for every additional dollar, right? Like the next dollar is not as valuable as the dollar you have in your hand because you run out of things to spend and you start being wasteful with it. And I actually do believe super PACs in general have created a – people
Corey
44:57
people aren't hungry. They're not lean. They're not innovative. They have too much money right now. And it's
Corey
45:02
it's causing some bad campaign habits to be constructed. If you just sort of farm off advertising to something outside your campaign, I
Corey
45:09
I think that qualifies as a bad campaign habit. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00
45:12
Yeah, makes sense. Okay.
SPEAKER_00
45:14
Stephen Carter, are you in or out on the new criticism being leveraged on the federal liberals that they're using consultation as a cover for making decisions? Are you in or out on that line of criticism?
Carter
45:25
I'm in. I mean, but
Carter
45:27
but every government does that, right?
Carter
45:29
right? I mean, what does consultation even mean? Right now, people think that consultation is another word for, I want to get my way. You know, and if you don't listen to what I said, then you didn't consult enough.
Corey
45:42
Corey, are you in or out on that line of criticism?
Corey
45:44
You know, I'm hard on the liberals, but I'm out on that particular line. If they did the opposite, they'd be called autocrats. The fact is, you're supposed to consult with the government. You're supposed to consider all of the different viewpoints. And you're supposed to be flexible enough to change your mind if the facts suggest you need to change
SPEAKER_00
45:59
change your mind. Stephen Carter, over, under on three, the number of primaries that slash caucuses that Donald Trump wins.
SPEAKER_00
46:06
Way over. Way over on three. Over, under on the same number, three for Bernie Sanders. Carter?
Corey
46:13
Oh, over. Over. You're going to start seeing some northern states coming on Super Tuesday. He'll win three on Super Tuesday alone. On
SPEAKER_00
46:20
On a scale of one to ten, what is the importance of political gaffes going to be in the Republican and Democratic race going forward? We saw Marco Rubio and the whole Chris Christie, you're a robot thing. What is the importance of gaffes going forward, Stephen Carter?
Carter
46:34
Let me tell you this. Chris Christie's out of this race. Marco Rubio's still in it. The gaffe machine, Donald Trump, not
Carter
46:40
not even touched by it. I'm going to have to drop it down to about a two. Oh, fair point. I was thinking of that.
Corey
46:46
Corey? Yeah, we might become gaffe numb like the Carson gaffe where he wouldn't walk on stage was pretty funny too during the debate. It seems like only some gaffes matter though. Is that the case?
Carter
46:54
case? no one has any expectations for carson or trump and every time he makes a mistake dangerous
Corey
46:59
dangerous well hold on sorry so the thing about gaffes are they're really only damning if they reinforce a negative people have about you which is why the rubio like repeating thing by the way that was the worst like especially because last week i'm like rubio he could be the guy yeah i'm very convinced otherwise this week who knows what a week will bring but like at this point it's not even like like he's going to pass donald trump he's not going to pass a turing test like
Corey
47:23
the guy just like he
SPEAKER_00
47:26
in the middle of conversation
Carter
47:26
conversation turing test unbelievable
SPEAKER_00
47:28
unbelievable last question on this steven carter i'm going to you in the united states of america is socialism still a dirty word
Carter
47:37
oh man uh i'd refer to the speech that was given in the west wing in the sixth season or seventh season where Santos defends the word liberal. I mean, I think at the end of the day, socialism is still a dirty word. But the way that Sanders is packaging it, a kindly old man and just wants to take care of people, it seems to be working.
Corey
47:59
Corey, still a dirty word? The thing about socialism is
Corey
48:02
is it's a concept people haven't given much thought to since the fall of the Soviet Union. And you remember a few episodes ago when I was talking about out uh the things that trump attacks and saying we should close the borders and people say that's outrageous we should have a pluralistic society and people have kind of forgotten how to make the argument for pluralistic society yeah well
Corey
48:20
well the opposite side has that problem true the republicans have forgotten how to make arguments against socialism right now democratic socialism is totally acceptable i don't know everywhere else in the world and the fact i actually think it's kind of funny bernie sanders self describes as a socialist because he's about the most weak socialist i've ever met he wants taxes lower than uh lower than reagan he wants
Corey
48:41
wants single-payer health care well so the rest of the world has that the rest of the western world does like these do not make big dramatic social change the way that some of his opponents are painting it but
SPEAKER_00
48:51
but in the united states of a it's fascinating i think
Corey
48:54
think that it's okay now i think some people are coming around on it and i think that's why you see it so popular or him and his campaign and his movement so so popular with youth cory
SPEAKER_00
49:03
cory hogan says socialism is okay now that's a wrap on episode 565 of the strategists my name is zane belgi with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time