Transcript
SPEAKER_02
0:02
This is a strategist episode 566. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, guys how are you?
SPEAKER_02
0:13
really pretty excited could
Carter
0:16
I don't even have an opinion surprising
Carter
0:19
is shocking really you're
SPEAKER_02
0:20
you're gonna be difficult to show aren't you I'm
Carter
0:22
I'm going to be like so agreeable I'm just gonna be like I totally agree with Corey the whole show. So I'm going to probably open every sentence with, you know what?
Carter
0:31
Corey was right. I agree with Corey.
Carter
0:34
So it's going to go. No objections
SPEAKER_02
0:35
objections on the other side. So you've got nothing to add to our substantive pre-segment discussion that we have.
SPEAKER_02
0:47
What, did you want to say something or
SPEAKER_02
0:48
or can we just move on? Yeah, I think we should move on.
SPEAKER_02
0:50
low energy. I love it. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02
0:52
Our first segment, Episcalea in Proportion. Get it? Scale? Scalia? Get it? it oh yeah
Carter
0:58
yeah it's good it's really
Carter
1:00
i love it zane i think it's some of your best words not
SPEAKER_02
1:03
not bad for that o'clock at night not too bad really good antinous glia becomes the second justice supreme court justice in the last six years to pass while still sitting on the bench huge controversy cory in the sense of what should go on if
SPEAKER_02
1:18
if you're the democrats what do you do let's get right into it well
Corey
1:22
well yeah i guess the problem is he's died
Corey
1:26
and somebody's gonna be our best work yes well and and the interesting thing is of course the republicans have said because this is an election year uh there can be no replacement let's have the election first and then let's have the replacement and on its face that's not the craziest idea we're not for the fact that he's only you know obama's got a year left of governing i mean it's not like this guy dropped dead in october yeah right before the election and there have been been cases in the past where justices have been appointed in the year, you know, right before an election. And in fact, there was even an interim appointment of a justice apparently before an election year that was then ratified by the Senate after the election. I think Eisenhower did that crazy stuff. But the
Corey
2:10
the problem becomes if you're the Democrats, how do you walk that line? What do you do? How do you just get the justice who was one of the most conservative justices in, you know, in recent american history replaced with somebody more moderate uh what's the plan and and i guess that remains to be seen it's very fascinating to me because of course the republicans have said now they are going to just not even vote on it they're not even going to allow it to come up for for discussion and
Corey
2:38
and they control the senate so i guess they could do that but this is amazing so you talk about i think it's really appropriate that this is on the death of scalia that we're having these big constitutional arguments it's really good because of course he was the big uh you know constructionist this is how the constitution is and this is how the constitution shall be it's pretty clear to me from this event and events like this that the constitution was written by people who were under the very mistaken assumption that uh the people trying to govern the country were going to try to govern the country and not be dicks to each other like this is a a really big problem they
Corey
3:14
they could just say nope we're not going to uh we're not going to have a vote on this so you're not going to get to have your appointment and you know the whole constitution is written on this crazy notion that everybody's just going to try to make it work and that is just not the case today cory cory hogan says that the constitution was created pre
Carter
3:31
carter oh cory forgets that you know there's like vice presidents in the united states have been killed in duels i mean this is the you
Carter
3:39
know he's kind of got this idea that everything worked It's worked really well in the past and it doesn't now. You know what? It is pretty bad now. I mean the Republicans are trying to make it so the executive office can only govern when there is a Republican in the executive office. But it's been so long really since that's been the case. I mean you go
Carter
3:58
go back eight years now all the way back to Bush and you're like, wow, that was so long ago. One of the things – this reminds me of the executive orders argument, right? Right. Like we don't want an executive order issued by Obama because, you know, you're ignoring Congress. But if it's an executive order issued by Bush or Reagan or, you know, any of the other Republicans, it's
Carter
4:23
it's OK with us. The point of the exercise of an election is to replace the government every four years. Now, this is not a uniquely American thing. We will see governments begin. Again, you know, the conservatives in the province of Alberta started screaming that there was no mandate for the New Democrats to do what they did three minutes after the New Democrats were elected.
Carter
4:45
They're doing the same thing with the liberals.
Carter
4:49
The reality is that sometimes the losers are just whiners. The difference here is that the Senate does, in fact, control the whiny chamber. So they get to choose who's actually going, you know, whether or not there will be a vote on this. If they do not bring this to a vote, if they do not confirm Obama's nominee, this is going to be an election issue. So as a strategist, I'm sitting here on the side of this thinking, if I'm a Democrat, I want Obama to select a moderate Democrat or a moderate judge and
Carter
5:21
then have the Republicans not confirm him because I will beat the Republicans about the head with that for the remainder of the election season.
Carter
5:30
it's not like in Canada where the Supreme Court justices don't matter. In the United States, they do matter, and they are a get-out-the-vote issue. Especially
SPEAKER_02
5:38
Especially with these five to four decisions that we've been seeing recently. Okay, so that sets the table for us. Corey Hogan says the Constitution was pre-asshole. Stephen Carter says that losers are usually whiners. Corey, I want to go to that same answer that Carter gave me about the Democrats. What should they do? Do you agree with that strategy around the moderate? Hopefully, if Clinton wins, you get it more progressive. whatever that means but you bash them with it in the middle oh why have we already jumped to clinton winning who knows but
SPEAKER_02
6:06
i'll tell you it really
Corey
6:07
really depends on where you're sitting in the democratic party uh if obama nominates a moderate and you're bernie sanders that's a bit awkward for you because right now you're in this who can love obama more uh thing with hillary clinton uh
Corey
6:20
uh but if they reject it then you get to be able to say look they wouldn't even you talk about needing to to meet them in the middle hillary he tried to be as moderate as possible we've got to fight these guys and we've got to push the boundaries of our arguments so that could work right
Corey
6:34
right uh if you're hillary clinton and a moderate gets rejected the challenge you're going to have is you're trying to sell moderation as a virtue and if moderation looks like such a failed strategy what do you do so it's fraught with peril for both sides i do agree it will be an election issue i do think that there's maybe more opportunity here for sanders though because a you could really show the failure of the clinton approach clinton is supposed to be able to reach across the aisle and work on things and b there
Corey
7:00
is maybe an opportunity that is not necessarily intuitive and that's that
Corey
7:06
that i think that probably the pressure will get onto uh you know mcconnell to uh to actually bring this thing to a vote at a certain point and if bernie actually starts to march people on washington do all those things he claimed could change washington and something that was going to happen anyways happens as a result he can sort of claim that his approach actually has merit carter
Corey
7:26
this a time where you regret saying y'all you're going to do this episode the
Carter
7:30
sympathizer i like it i can't i'm
SPEAKER_02
7:35
sure he makes an interesting point
Carter
7:37
though he does does he not incorrect come on and i'm already backing away from my i'm going to agree with everything gory says because
Carter
7:43
because clearly cory's on medication of some sort this
Carter
7:47
this is not This is not something that helps Sanders. You do not – this is something that helps someone who moves to the middle, not moves to the far left of the American political stream. So explain to me how. How does
Corey
7:57
does this help Hillary
Carter
7:58
Hillary Clinton? Because it's a moderate judge that gets appointed by Obama. Moderation is the way to go. The sensible center is the way that you win an election. But
SPEAKER_02
8:08
But don't we all know that whoever Obama's nominee is going to be is going to be a sacrificial lamb of sorts? That they're never going to be a justice in this sense. We
Carter
8:15
don't know that. the republicans could wake up with a strategy at some point right now there's the republican we'll talk about that in a second the real strategist the ones who are sitting down going holy shit what are we going to do about trump those strategists are saying to themselves you know we've got to actually come up with a way that we can hold the senate and hold the house and this may be uh one of the ways that they do that because it's those senators that are facing re-election too we're always focused on the top of the ticket but the senators and the house of representatives are also facing their re-election date and they're going to be saying hang on i don't give a shit about trump i want to make sure that i get elected and if that means i attach myself to michael bloomberg i'm
Carter
8:56
i'm attaching myself to bloomberg yes
Carter
8:59
yes i threw in a random variable michael bloomberg we'll talk about that i'm sure later i
SPEAKER_02
9:04
i struggle to understand your your narrative though you say moderation is going
Carter
9:08
going to be always under struggle to understand my narrative I think most is just the way it's going to work with you.
Corey
9:14
You know, I got to say, I'm going to back up our host here. That's pretty rare of me. But I just don't think that necessarily follows. I'm struggling. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, I don't think it's necessarily clear to me what a win looks like for the Republicans, what a win looks like for Hillary Clinton, what a win looks like for Bernie Sanders. There's a lot of conflating and confounding variables. But I actually think that that kind of chaos is a better environment for a guy like Bernie Sanders than it is a candidate. Yeah, because you like Bernie. No, because Hillary Clinton is talking about moderation and being able to reach across the aisle and work with people. And if the other side looks that intransigent, doesn't her argument start to look a little weak? Yeah,
Carter
9:51
Yeah, I guess so. But you still have to keep in mind that this is a bigger election just than the top of the ticket. Carter,
SPEAKER_02
9:56
Carter, this question specifically for you. You're put on the Sanders campaign right now. They give
Carter
10:00
you a gig. Oh, my God, I break out in hives. They give you a gig. What is your strategy or recommendation?
SPEAKER_02
10:04
recommendation? What do you tell them to do with the state of affairs we've just described? Well,
Carter
10:09
Well, I think I think Corey actually Corey was right. And
Carter
10:12
And if you were all fucking over the
SPEAKER_02
10:13
the place, my man,
Carter
10:15
if if if his assumption that Bernie can actually do the marches on Washington, restore the voice to the common people, then if he can actually mobilize
Carter
10:25
mobilize those voters, then yeah, that's his really his only way. But what would
SPEAKER_02
10:30
would effectively be your current sort of front of line strategy to attack this? Would you come out and say that we need a progressive justice? Would you hold
SPEAKER_02
10:40
tight? What would you do? No,
Carter
10:41
No, I would not concern myself about who Obama chooses at all. And instead I would focus on the process by which he's not being confirmed. And I would do marches on Washington, marches on state legislatures. I would do marches until I couldn't march any longer. uh to show what the real american people want take that right wing tool of the crazy lunatics all gathering on uh the washington mall yeah
Carter
11:09
right take that right wing crazy tool where they all line up and listen to alex jones and and have them yeah
Carter
11:17
yeah he's a crazy youtube fucking
Carter
11:20
crazy guy he's really
SPEAKER_02
11:21
really wild something like that yeah um
Carter
11:22
um like he's ezra levant times
Carter
11:25
times seven not more than seven Okay, you're losing the plot.
SPEAKER_02
11:28
plot. Yeah, yeah, okay. Corey, you've
SPEAKER_02
11:29
you've been thrown into the Clinton camp. How do you treat this current situation if you are on their side? A great opportunity
Carter
11:39
Why would you give someone of Corey's limited talents something as challenging as the Clinton campaign?
Corey
11:48
don't know what's going on in this episode, but I'll tell you.
Corey
11:50
If I'm Hillary Clinton.
Corey
11:52
There's a joke about underachieving
Corey
11:53
underachieving front runners there. Anyways, go ahead. Well, if I'm Hillary Clinton, I think that I work with President Obama in any way, shape, or form to create a situation that cannot be refused by the Republicans. Some obvious ones that have been talked about in the media, of course, already are people that the Republicans have already approved with votes of 97 to 0 or whatnot on very similar level courts, making it very tough to say that this is not somebody we would – You know, if I was Hillary Clinton, I would go so far as to have somebody who is an out and out moderate, not necessarily even a liberal, because that at least you can point to as as taking a situation that looked dire or perhaps impossible and moving it into something else through compromise. Corey,
SPEAKER_02
12:35
Corey, if you are
SPEAKER_02
12:35
Clinton camp, is your goal to actually get a justice appointed or is your goal, in fact, to know that it's costed in that that will not happen, but win the ultimate war, which is this election? Well,
Corey
12:47
first of all, she's well positioned to win the actual nomination and election. So I wouldn't overreact if I was Hillary Clinton. I certainly wouldn't make the nomination about this. I certainly wouldn't make the general election about
Corey
13:01
about your failure to get this done. I would beat the hell out of the Republican candidate for not allowing it down the road. Sure. But there
Corey
13:08
there there's there's just so many unknowns at this point. And what Stephen was talking about with all those down ticket races is a well taken point. One of the reasons why the Republicans may actually want to make this as big of an issue as possible is
Corey
13:21
is if they're worried that somebody like Trump is going to poison them up ticket, they still get their base out down ticket to get a conservative justice in theory. Right. They need to have President whatever Trump because Trump is better than President Clinton. Right.
Corey
13:35
Right. now that's very complicated and and i just don't know that that's going to work for the republicans
Corey
13:41
way they think it is carter
SPEAKER_02
13:43
carter let's move it to the gop side what do you number one make of their current strategy as it stands right now there's a gop strategy well the strategy is effectively tread crews coming out 25 minutes after it happens and saying next president don't care next president do you feel that
SPEAKER_02
14:00
that that is a knee-jerk reaction how would you advise a gop candidate right now well
Carter
14:07
well on this particular particular issue i i would suggest to them that what they're doing is actually a pretty poorly conceived strategy you've got to think more than one move ahead on the chessboard okay
Carter
14:19
okay so one move ahead on the chessboard simply says um
Carter
14:22
um you know when we win the white house we'll have the mandate to replace the chief justice or
Carter
14:27
or the i'm sorry not the chief justice the next justice um
Carter
14:30
um two or three moves down the the chessboard is what happens if the executive what happens if the new president is in fact hillary clinton yeah
Carter
14:38
right um you've just given hillary clinton the mandate to put the most progressive judge in the history of progressive judges on the on the supreme court sure and if you as
Carter
14:48
as a republican senate stand in the way of of that nomination you will be destroyed because
Carter
14:53
because it was you who simply said we're not doing it under this president we want a democrat a democrat democratically elected process.
Carter
15:01
This is not a smart strategy, but this is not new for the Republicans. The Republicans are not thinking more than one move down the chessboard. And this is, it's really frustrating to watch because it's not particularly a good strategy and you need to have a good strategy if you're going to win the president of
Carter
15:19
of the United States and hold the Senate and hold the House. Now they'll hold the House, I think just because of the sheer numbers, but the
Carter
15:26
the Senate is in play.
Carter
15:28
And if they lose the Senate and they lose the president, this is a really bad idea if you want to put a moderate or a conservative on the bench, because you will get the most progressive judge in the history of the United States Supreme Court. Corey,
SPEAKER_02
15:45
Corey, is this a lose-lose scenario for the GOP right now? I mean, do you agree with their strategy as it stands right now? I don't
Corey
15:52
not necessarily as down on it as Steven is because, of course, if they think they've lost absolute control over who their nominee is going to be, this
Corey
16:00
this might be a way to draw people into the race and make them care about it and try to hold some of those institutions that Steven's talking about. right i i don't know it's
Corey
16:09
it's pretty high risk low reward in my opinion but there are there are some reasons why it would be palatable not least of which is right now they're in a bidding war where the currency is crazy and and that's how you get the nomination they have to look like they're tough they have to look obstructionist some of these people could potentially i think it might be a little late for you know primary challenges but those are the kind of things that they're going to be worried about and who's going to come out and who's going to give them money and all of of those things and what the base demands right now in the republican party is obstructionism i think the question for me is not so much is this a good strategy it's would
Corey
16:43
would it have been a good strategy to go the other way and to me that's very unclear because their party over a very long time has gotten to this point and now they're it's one of those horrible situations where you know you have to do something that's going to hurt a lot uh to forego future pain that's in smaller increments because every time they do a shutdown it's smaller increment pain every time they do something like this it's smaller increment pain but it would be big pain for them to flip because of the way they've conditioned their base in the last bit so
Corey
17:14
so in the moment maybe it's even not a bad strategy i think you look at it overall you take a step back it's fucking terrible that they managed to get themselves to this place carter
SPEAKER_02
17:23
carter question for you you know we've talked in the past about how campaigns are effectively an aggregation of events and you want to downplay events or you want to really propagate them, depending on how important you think they are to moving people to your side in terms of victory. In this sense, how
SPEAKER_02
17:39
how do you create a strategy or deal with something like this that is an event? If you are, for example, the Democrats, do you make this an
Carter
17:48
Oh, I think so. I mean, this is going to be an event. That's why I was talking about Bernie Sanders marching on the state legislatures, marching on the state state courthouses this is a um the supreme court in the united states of america uh is a thing where people can name the justices they know who they are they know who the who appointed them yeah
Carter
18:08
uh this is not now i say that and of course you can't find you know there'll be the stupid americans video that comes
Carter
18:14
comes up where people can't name the vice president of the united states and that makes me want to hurt myself but i'm talking about people who are the influencers people who who know, you
Carter
18:21
you know, who understand politics, this is a big deal. And I think that you can make it into an event every single day for a number of months
Carter
18:32
to try and make this an election about, do you want a Congress that works or do you want a Congress that sits back and tries to stop everything?
SPEAKER_02
18:39
Corey, should they be making
Corey
18:40
making this an event? I think they've made it one at this point. They put their chips in and I know they should probably think of it as a sunk cost, and but they've made it an event so be it the
Corey
18:51
the the other point i would make is that there are a lot of avenues where this could get stranger still not least of which is that there is nothing that says there needs to be nine supreme court justices in the constitution yeah it's a piece of legislation but it's one that could be changed in theory as well and there's nothing that says you need to get it back up to nine and there's no consequences to do it maybe some ballsy republican down the the road says you know what nine's too many we're gonna go to seven we're just gonna starve it and we're gonna introduce this legislation they could really confuse the issue in a big way going forward and i wouldn't put it past them one moment we'll
SPEAKER_02
19:28
we'll keep our eye on it that is going to be a fascinating turn of events as as we move into um this primary season okay our next segment 100 days of sunny ways justin trudeau's 100 days are now complete stephen
SPEAKER_02
19:42
stephen carter tell me first of all why do we We care so much about the first 100 days of anyone's mandate. Why does that matter?
Carter
19:49
Because we are so preoccupied with the American system that we think that the Canadian system is exactly like the American system. Is that why? Really? Yeah, really, because in the American system, there is a kind
Carter
19:59
kind of a proven tenet that the first 100 days are when you have the most power and you can actually create the most things. In the Canadian system, Justin
Carter
20:08
Justin Trudeau is the majority prime minister for
Carter
20:12
for the entire four years. of his mandate. Five years, really, if he wanted to go. That is his option. That's what he gets to be. And he gets to introduce legislation and pass it with the same group of people. He doesn't have to worry about an obstructionist Senate or a House of Representatives that will delay things. So in the United States, that first 100 days is viewed as essentially the grace period. You put every major initiative in there and you try and push it through. And generally speaking, it works. Now, the House, the Republicans are becoming more and more, well, objectionable. But generally, the first 100 days is your honeymoon. Corey,
Corey
20:53
Corey, why do we care about the 100 days? It goes back to FDR. This is where the phrase originated. And he introduced and passed most of the alphabet laws that we know that created things like the Tennessee Valley Authority, the modern welfare state in the United States. In 100 days, you got to keep in mind, this guy had four terms. But those 100 days probably rivaled as much as any single term he had after that as far as activity. And because of that, there's become this nostalgia and this kind of legend of the 100 days. And every single president that's come since, Stephen's exactly right, has been measured on that yardstick. Right. And it's true. True.
Corey
21:29
That is when you have the authority, both, well, really just moral in all cases, but often you usually have, you come in with the House and the Senate on side, perhaps, and you lose those things in the midterm elections, or you tend to reduce your support in the midterm elections. That's when you get stuff done. And so if
Corey
21:48
if you squander your 100 days in the United States, that's a big problem. You squander 100 days in the Canadian system, who
Corey
21:54
who cares? You've got a lot more
Carter
21:55
more days. Yeah, you do a new throne speech and away you go.
SPEAKER_02
21:58
So, Carter, you were on the inside in the PC government here in Alberta. Knowing that this was a metric of, quote-unquote, measurement for any government or mandate, was that a plan that you had developed on the inside, being on the first 100 days we need to get this done? Was that a marker that strategists and chiefs of staff use to
Carter
22:17
Yeah, I mean, we had a little different problem. We had six months before the election had to be called. yeah so
Carter
22:22
so we had um you
Carter
22:25
you know we i don't know if you remember but we were really focused on the first nine days we had to get the education funding back in so in the first nine days we put the education funding back in kind of fulfilled one of our key promises a promise that you know doug horner said couldn't be done gary marr said couldn't be done so when we did that and we reversed it um within
Carter
22:43
within nine days uh
Carter
22:45
uh you know we were in a position where we could we had a moral moral authority at that point um
Carter
22:52
we then squandered lunch so
Carter
22:54
so we took our first hundred days and we introduced the 0.05 legislation yeah 0.05 legislation uh is legislation that provinces have introduced uh where people with a blood alcohol content of 0.05 or higher uh face various administrative penalties that are not uh congruent
Carter
23:14
congruent with the the legal remedies of the federal system system um
Carter
23:18
so we introduced that legislation and frankly it burned all of our 100 days it burned everything because we hadn't told people that drunk driving was a problem we kind of naturally just assumed that it was uh and it turned out that a lot of people didn't think it was a problem i remember one of our caucus members saying it
Carter
23:34
is my god-given right to drink a bottle of wine with my wife and drive home uh yeah
Carter
23:40
yeah he was classic um yeah we had some great guys the wild rose
Corey
23:46
rose had had some great radio commercials i remember one with this uh woman incredulously asking and now the premier wants to take my car away for drinking a beer yeah
Carter
23:55
yeah well that was just dead right like no one wanted to touch anything for a beer yeah
Carter
23:59
uh but uh you know the the problem was and we of course we never explained it properly this is the this is the great problem of politics if you do not describe the problem before you present the solution you will get killed yeah
Carter
24:12
right alberta has the highest per capita drunk driving deaths. We have the highest per capita drunk driving arrests. We are not doing a good job of stopping people from drinking and driving. And part of that is you go to the bar, Zane, you, as you do, and you're going to have a drink, maybe two. And then you have a drink, you have your second drink, and now you're a little fuzzy. And you know what? A third drink doesn't seem like a bad idea. The fourth drink is certainly not a bad idea. That's the best idea you've had all night long and by the time you get to the core he's grinning this happened to him last night i'm
Corey
24:47
i'm just thinking about zane one more for the ditch velji here one
Corey
24:51
more for the ditch velji yeah
Carter
24:53
yeah there's a good story there guys you should write in and ask about it okay
SPEAKER_02
24:56
okay so so you you kind of use it as a metric on the inside to achieve a few things quickly because you know you're at the beginning of your mandate i mean the universal here is that it's that grace period but it's still the honeymoon period is it not largely so with that being said Ted, Corey, how do you think this first 100 days for the Trudeau government went, given that it was that
Corey
25:16
that extended honeymoon period? Look, if you want to measure it by whether or not the honeymoon continues, it went great. The guy is really popular. If you want to measure it on accomplishments, I think you have to give him lower marks here. You obviously have some of the bigger promises that were broken, such as the Syrian refugees. They were all going to be here by December. Everybody remembers that. That didn't happen. happened there was the uh the budget the the notion that we were going to introduce this tax hike on the rich that would pay for a tax decrease on the middle class and it would be revenue neutral that obviously didn't happen the neb process was going to be overhauled and everything sent back to the beginning they just sort of amended it played around the edges we're going to stop bombing isis okay but we probably didn't mean we were then going to send troops in on the ground you know there was there was quite a few things that i would have issues with yeah
Corey
26:06
uh if i i were me and i am and then
Corey
26:10
then there's some things that they've hinted at that are going to be promises broken in the future they've started to talk about the um you
Corey
26:17
you know this was going to be the last first past the post-election maybe
Corey
26:21
maybe it won't anymore right maybe we'll have a referendum maybe the the changes will be less dramatic they have started to hint that perhaps the uh canada post yeah rollback of all those community mailboxes i
Corey
26:34
i listen i'll be really surprised if that happens happens at this point, just based on the whispers I'm hearing from my friends in Ottawa, right? Okay, so Carter,
SPEAKER_02
26:40
Carter, before I go to you, Corey, you make a really interesting point here. And I'd like to get your opinion on the trade-off that you have actually composed yourself. If you are a strategist leading the Trudeau government, in the first 100 days, would you rather get the most that you could get done? Or would you rather buy 100 more days of a honeymoon?
SPEAKER_02
27:01
Because you've effectively said it's the latter in this situation, where the honeymoon, or some sense of that where he's bought more time of goodwill what would you rather have well
Corey
27:10
well i i don't know i don't know if he did buy himself a hundred more days or not
SPEAKER_02
27:14
not sure what but it continues we
Corey
27:15
say it continues it's impossible to know but i'll tell you he may get a hundred more days of honeymoon but he doesn't get a hundred more days and the fact of the matter is even if he was incredibly unpopular right now he would still get the same amount of time to govern and i don't know if uh if it's a great idea just to break all all of your promises and be adored and then have to go into an election. I don't think it's a great idea to be hated and go into an election either,
Corey
27:41
but he is, he is supposedly somebody who among with his inner circle believes he will be judged by the promises he kept.
Corey
27:50
I have to give him pretty low marks at this point. Interesting
SPEAKER_02
27:52
Interesting Carter, before you answer and how you, in how you think they did same question. I posted Tori Corey in terms of trade off between a hundred more days of having similar sort of adulation like this, or would you have actually gotten stuff done?
Carter
28:05
I think in a perfect world, if you were running a government with a four-year mandate, you devise a strategy that encompasses four years of governing. And
Carter
28:15
And what I fear is all
Carter
28:17
all too often we go in and
Carter
28:20
we govern from day to day, right? We govern from day to day. And that
Carter
28:26
means that we react to media stories. It means that we're pushing around. We're making things up. We're being essentially
Carter
28:32
essentially manhandled by extremes.
Carter
28:35
If what Trudeau is doing, and we don't know this because obviously we're not in the inner circle. We don't know what he's doing. But if he has a four-year plan that says over the next four years, this is what we're going to do, and this just happens to be his first year, I have no problem with breaking promises in the first year of a mandate.
Carter
28:53
It just is what has to happen sometimes. Sometimes we go in and people say that we're liars or whatever. We
Carter
29:01
We don't necessarily lie, but we certainly don't necessarily have all the details to make the promises that we made. And some of what Trudeau is screwed up on are things that he reasonably didn't necessarily know the answers to. He didn't know that the Canadian economy was going to continue to drop like this.
Carter
29:22
And if this is a big plan, then I'm fine with it.
Carter
29:26
I just don't think it's a big plan. You
SPEAKER_02
29:28
You don't think it's couched
Carter
29:28
couched in something larger? I don't think that Jerry and Katie are sitting around with Justin trying to figure it all out. And they're sitting there having a drink of wine, worrying about their .05 blood alcohol content. And coming up with a four-year plan. I think that they came in and they are just hanging on. So
SPEAKER_02
29:47
So what I'm hearing you say is that if this is what has happened over the past 100 odd days, it's couched in something larger, you're fine with it. But as it stands in isolation, low marks? Or where do you stand on that?
Carter
29:59
I mean, I'm not as down on the promise-breaking as Corey is. I mean, I was very interested to see the Syrian, the ISIS stuff. I just think, man, that was just a lose-lose decision. Putting ground troops in, the peaceniks aren't going to be happy. Pulling the fighter jets out, well, the stop
Carter
30:20
stop the ISIS horde people People aren't going to be happy either. Just some lose-lose stuff is coming through right now.
Carter
30:28
I didn't like the NAB stuff either. It just added time to
Carter
30:31
to a process that's always too long.
SPEAKER_02
30:33
Okay, Corey, question for you. You have been brought in on day one, so not today, but on day one, and asked to be the architect of the first 100 days. What would you have done differently?
Corey
30:45
well i think i would have focused on very uh very immediate concerns and put all of my energy into them i think the syrian one to me still stands out that that could have been a
Corey
30:57
a real opportunity to reshape your relationship with the bureaucracy as well as keep a promise i i think it would cost a lot of money but it was the right thing to do they could have done it in my opinion i know uh It would have been absurdly expensive, but it was a promise that was made, and it was a promise made for humanitarian reasons. And to break a humanitarian promise for penny-pinching, I
Corey
31:20
mean, the people who that spoke to, that is not going to go over well with. And to me, that is the crux of the problem because, again,
Corey
31:27
again, using myself as a focus group of one, that
Corey
31:30
that led me to be so ready to be disappointed by the other promises that came. Ready to be disappointed. Interesting phrasing. so i don't really care if the tax hike is revenue neutral but it's just piling more on right uh you you talk about uh the changes to um potentially
Corey
31:47
potentially how we vote the first past the post stuff i
Corey
31:50
could really be persuaded that that is a reasonable course of action to take it to a referendum or anything like that but oh my god another broken promise they just started off to me their biggest boldest most audacious promise was
Corey
32:02
was the most clear failure and that to me was
Corey
32:06
was was beyond unfortunate from a political capital standpoint it was almost criminal
SPEAKER_02
32:10
carter same question to you're brought in on the architect on day one what do you do differently well
Carter
32:15
well i think the syrian thing is exact or the syrian refugee thing is exactly right um you
Carter
32:22
you know it was our restore education funding within 10 days right we are going to bring in the analogous version
Carter
32:30
syrians by new year's eve right like that was going to be the thing and those people would would face 2016 from
Carter
32:36
from the comfort of their homes in Canada. Maybe that's not the exact one that you go for, but even the pulling of the jets, right, for the bombing. You know, we're going to stop the bombing of ISIS. Why the hell did that take, you know, three and a half months? I mean, one would imagine it would be a relatively simple order to say, hey, stop bombing those guys. You know, it didn't strike me as a difficult thing to do, And yet I was surprised that we just kept bombing and kept bombing and kept bombing.
Carter
33:08
What was the objective? Hell, it seems the Russians are going to just bomb in our absence, you know, hospitals and stuff.
Carter
33:19
you know, if I
Carter
33:23
I was brought in on day one, I'd say, what is the low-hanging fruit that we can actually achieve? And let's actually achieve it. And
Carter
33:29
And I'm not sure that Trudeau has done enough to do that. I mean his middle class tax hike and his 1% tax
Carter
33:36
tax increase just never made sense and it didn't balance out. It's just been failure after failure.
SPEAKER_02
33:41
I'll go back to you on this again, Carter. So suppose you're not brought in on day one. You're brought in today, day 100 or whatever it is today.
SPEAKER_02
33:48
This may have been encapsulated in your previous answer, but what do you do going forward if you're the architect for the next 100 days, let's say?
Carter
33:57
For the next 100 days.
Carter
33:57
days. From day 100 to 200. yeah
Carter
33:59
the day 100 to 200 is going to be centered around the budget you
Carter
34:02
know i mean it's the budget is going to be the the document so
Carter
34:06
so one would assume that that budget's gonna
Carter
34:09
gonna be fine i mean to be honest if they brought me in today and said you know do something i wouldn't be focused on day 100 to 200 i'd
Carter
34:15
i'd be focused on day
Carter
34:18
right when you're when you're going to be faced with an election upcoming and you know exactly what's going to happen what's your story going to be How are you going to spin or how are you going to exemplify what you need when you're going back into the re-election? I mean, you
Carter
34:33
you know, do you increase
Carter
34:34
increase taxes in years one, two, and three and then decrease them in year four so it looks like you're a tax cutter? I mean, those
Carter
34:42
those are the types of things you have. That you want to think about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
34:44
Yeah. Nicely done, Stephen. Reject the premise, Carter. Corey, same question back at you. In the next 100 days, you're brought in today. What do you do? Well,
Corey
34:52
Well, look, you get a burst of energy after the election and you get a burst of energy before the election. Governing in the doldrums is tough. And it is, in my opinion, where governments live or die because it is easy to bring in big signature pieces of legislation. But that's not where most governance happens. It's dealing with the things that come at you and it's moving along those smaller things that are easy to put on the wayside. So if I'm talking, you know, next 100 days, next 200 days, next 300 days, I think what I'm doing is I'm very methodically moving through every single item that is in those mandate letters, every single thing that was in our platform that I can deliver and point back to. And I'm looking to paper up some of those things that happened before. So, look, you've got a problem with how we moved on the Syrian refugees. Well, but in the end, we brought in X percent more or something along those lines. I'm trying to make right what was wrong and I'm trying to make sure that the ball is moving and then we don't get stuck mired in the middle of the pacific so to speak just sort of casting about waiting for the next wind to move us and that that's
Corey
35:56
that's important for two reasons one is that honestly that's just the way it has to work otherwise you're only going to get big signature pieces of legislation you're not going to get those refinements that affect people's lives but the other is your senses get pretty bad and they get dulled if you're not constantly at the top of your game and when that crisis does hit you you don't react quickly enough good
SPEAKER_02
36:18
good answer i like that we'll leave it there our next segment antics about semantics guys i see it's so good you gotta admit you love it today the alberta ndp government has said no to ezra levent and his can
SPEAKER_02
36:34
can i call it journalistic organization opinion
Carter
36:36
opinion journalistic organization i will beat you about the head Oh, you
Carter
36:40
said you're going to be quiet. There
SPEAKER_02
36:42
There is much a
SPEAKER_02
36:44
organization is word for people across the country that do not have an idea. Our provincial NDP government has said no to Ezra Levent's news organization called the Rebel effectively because Ezra Levent himself has said under oath at some point in time that no, he is not a journalist. And therein goes the conversation. Stephen Carter, explain to me, number one, why the NDP government did this. But number two, do you agree with what they did here strategically?
Carter
37:13
Strategically. I mean, okay,
Carter
37:15
okay, so let's be clear. There has to be a line drawn somewhere in the sand, right? People on one side of the line are journalists. People on the other side of the line are Ezra Levant, okay?
SPEAKER_02
37:26
there has to be a line drawn. So you're saying most of us are Ezra Levant? Well,
Carter
37:30
Well, no. I mean, I'm not a journalist, okay? But we have a podcast, guys. I don't know if you know this, but people listen to it. it is essentially a medium we are part of a media now are we journalists should we be entitled to go into the budget lockup and see the documents and understand them and so we can immediately report on them uh after that after the budget i mean one could argue that if we did a budget special we should be entitled to go into a budget lockup if
Carter
37:57
if a if a government let us into a budget lockup i would i would be you know what the hell is wrong with you we're not journalists we don't approach things with a journalistic ethic, a standard and I think that most people when they stand on the sidelines can say yes this person is a journalist and no this person is not. Except I said most people and you know what most people can't because I'm watching people post things on Facebook that make me want to kill myself because the sources of the information Monsanto is killing, making the little baby's head all tiny now in Brazil. It's all Monsanto's fault. Well this took a rant Jesus Christ. You know what What is journalism today, right? We have fake journalism sites like La Paine and The Onion where people, honest to God, comment on them and post them as though they're real articles because they can't tell the difference. And Ezra Levant is far more The Onion than he is The Globe and Mail. Corey
SPEAKER_02
38:56
Corey Hogan, do you buy into that, what I'm going to call a very hot take by Stephen Carter around what
SPEAKER_02
39:03
what the NDP government did today? Were they justified in
Corey
39:05
in doing it? They were totally justified, but their justification
Corey
39:09
they provided was totally wrong. I think that's how I would put it. Look, Ezra Levant, what
Corey
39:15
what do you expect? Like he sits there poking somebody in the eye constantly and then they put their hand up and then he starts getting mad about it. I mean this was an obvious and reasonable course of action by the NDP government. Frankly, I would have probably just said, you
Corey
39:30
you know, screw that guy. You want to know what he's all about? Read it. But look, he said, I'm not a journalist. That's just lawyering. To say I'm not a journalist does not say I'll never be a journalist. And this does not mean you're not the boss of journalists. So when you send somebody from your organization, the fact you once said under oath, I'm not a journalist to me is not good enough. And if that's what you're hanging your hat on, sorry,
Corey
39:50
sorry, that's not great. The other thing is the budget lockup does allow non-journalists into it as well. Accounting firms are often in there, people who give their takes on the budget.
Corey
39:59
This is obviously quite different with a political take, but that's just not good enough. There is always going to be this question of what's journalism and what's not. but
Corey
40:09
but to me it's like are you going to act like a respectable human being or not that to me would have been how i excluded ezra levant and his cohort because frankly the muckraking they've done the fact that ezra himself has been hit with libel multiple times those should be enough to preclude him i wouldn't say you're not a journalist i would say you're a terrible journalist yeah
Carter
40:29
yeah i mean i think we've certainly seen a lot of those terrible journalists rick dolphin and his dolphin and reporter whatever the hell it is he's a terrible journalist and so but he's a journalist so
Carter
40:40
so i mean it's kind of a weird line so
SPEAKER_02
40:42
i'm hearing i'm hearing multiple things that the line of journalism is porous today that that the justification cory would have used was that he's a bad journalist what would you what would you have done i actually wanted to get you
Carter
40:52
what what would i have done yeah what was i would
Carter
40:54
have allowed him in okay
SPEAKER_02
40:56
okay what you okay explain that to me because i was not expecting that you would have allowed him in yeah
Carter
41:01
yeah but i would have also I would also then, you know, allow in Dave Cornway and I would allow in, you know, three liberal left-leaning bloggers in press progress for every one of Ezra Levant.
Carter
41:15
And that's how I would bounce it off. I mean, let's take another look at this. Let's look at this and say, okay, we're the Edmonton Oilers.
Carter
41:24
We've got a press box that seats 80 members of the press. Who are we letting in?
Carter
41:29
Well, it's easy. You pick the television networks. You pick the print people. You take the radio guys.
Carter
41:35
What do you take next?
Carter
41:37
Do you take bloggers? Does every blogger who wants to write
Carter
41:40
write a blog about the Edmonton Oilers get into the press box? Absolutely not because at some point you have to have an audience. And this is the interesting thing about the rebel. pebble how
Carter
41:49
big is their audience well it's probably about the same size as sun tv was well about a third of what sun tv was which means almost nothing so this is the thing right you know a
Carter
42:02
person with a facebook page you
Carter
42:04
you know kiki planet has
Carter
42:06
has an audience is she a journalist
Carter
42:10
but there's people with audio this is the weirdness of today's age you do not draw the online just because they've got an audience because otherwise you're going to be letting in every blogger you're going to let every everybody who's got a twitter account everybody who's got a youtube account they're going to come in and they're going to be standing up and saying oh pick me next i want to cover your stories corey
Corey
42:34
well the question of credentialed is is tough and i don't know why anybody thinks you have a right to be in a budget lockup even if you are a journalist i i think that's ultimately the government's decision and the government will be judged accordingly as they are right now and people are going to say whether or not they feel like the government is hiding something as a result but let's be real the
Corey
42:54
the ndp wasn't hiding anything from the rebel they were just saying you're
Corey
42:58
you're not of a caliber that should be allowed in the budget lockup and who's going to disagree with that i mean you read 30 seconds of or listen to 30 seconds of one of those videos
Corey
43:08
seconds i know it was an exaggeration They may actually only be five seconds long with a bunch of, like, test patterns, for all I know, because I cannot get through more than that. Carter,
SPEAKER_02
43:16
Carter, does this open up any other questions about a government's media relations strategy? On the inside, for example, give us an idea as to, you know, obviously you've got a very interesting strategy about how you deal with media during the campaign. Does that shift once you are in government? No, it totally does. Explain to us what that looks like. well
Carter
43:34
well i mean so in in in a campaign media are well frankly a medium for you to get your information out right
Carter
43:41
in government uh they tend to take on um a role of official opposition uh so the media often doesn't just play a role of let me get your story out and tell you and tell you know both sides a comment from this person to comment from that person the media actually take an active role in being your opposition is that right or wrong i don't know it is what it is so in government government uh
Carter
44:03
uh that adversarial role is pushed upon now i i really wanted to open up and change the relationship that the pcs had with the media um that was some heavy sledding it was hard um
Carter
44:15
you know why did media always have to put in a flip to get the information that they need why wouldn't we just put it out why would you know why wouldn't you put the expense reports out you
Carter
44:25
you know uh that's that's what we did put expense reports online um start changing you know when When they start foiping you on everything, hit
Carter
44:33
hit them with all the information that you possibly can. And then when there's something that you cannot put out. Yeah.
Carter
44:38
Because it is truly private. I mean, we had a terrible situation with a young man who was scalded to death.
Carter
44:44
Right. And there was literally nothing we can say about it. It was private information to this day. I can't say anything more than just the basics of the situation because it's private.
Carter
44:54
And that privacy can't be breached because journalists want to know. I want to know. I want to know. Now, there
Carter
45:01
there are implications that are bigger. So what we shouldn't do is be fighting over the small things. We should be putting out that information as much as we can. And then the
Carter
45:12
the things that matter, the things where we have to protect an individual's privacy, we
Carter
45:16
we should be fighting that tooth and nail with the media. Corey,
SPEAKER_02
45:18
Corey, I think this is an interesting line of thought because I'm not sure many people understand the relationship between strategists and the media. So effectively, you're the executive director of the Alberta Liberals, you know, during campaign time, thousands of people working under you effectively, but very different in the sense of how you deal with it on a non-election cycle. What's effectively the message you give to the troops when you talk about media to
Corey
45:41
to them? Well, when you're in opposition, you're starved for media, sometimes to your detriment, right? You want to go out and you want to get as much of it as possible. But when you're in government, you find that sometimes quiet is better than noise. And you don't necessarily want all sides of every issue covered because, frankly, you're the one who's most likely going to be chiseled away. way so yeah that is true but i don't think that necessarily uh is
Corey
46:06
is an excuse for the rebel to be involved in a media lockup i think we'd be conflated a couple of different things at that point if we started taking that stance media
Corey
46:15
media is inconvenient to government media
Corey
46:17
media is good for the public that does not mean the rebel is good for the public okay let's let's not draw those lines all right and uh i think if the government erred here at all it was simply in their very lawyerly response to this i would have just said those guys suck you
Corey
46:34
you know what i have a problem with them i
Corey
46:37
think they're professional in where they do i'm not saying they're not journalists i just don't think they're very professional and
Carter
46:41
and i think i think that that's where they made their big mistake because they should have said you know what we have to draw the line somewhere you
Carter
46:46
know we do we have to draw the line somewhere we cannot let every albertan into the budget lockup the
Carter
46:52
the purpose of the lockup isn't to give every albertan the information it's to give people who are covering the information and going to cover the information in a fair and balanced and intelligent fashion. And not one of those three criteria is met by the Rebel. Not one of them.
SPEAKER_02
47:06
Let's move it on to our last segment. Our last segment, our over-under lightning round and something I'm adding today called the main squeeze. I'll tell you in a second what it is. Aw, is Corey going to be my main squeeze?
SPEAKER_02
47:14
Who knows? Very likely.
SPEAKER_02
47:17
first to you. One to ten, Notley's move on the media and the Rebel today. What do you rank this move?
Corey
47:22
It's a five. I don't even know if I blame Notley. It's just something that happened. Carter, what's your number? It's
Carter
47:29
It's about a three. I mean, it was so poorly handled.
SPEAKER_02
47:31
The one person or institution that is the real winner outside of this whole SCOTUS challenge that's going on with replacing Scalia's seat. Who is the real winner? Carter.
Carter
47:42
Who's the real winner? Who's
SPEAKER_02
47:43
Who's going to be the
Carter
47:43
the real winner? I think the real winner is going to be the Democrats. I think that this is going to work in their favor.
SPEAKER_02
47:47
An institution or a person. Who is the real winner from this, Corey?
SPEAKER_02
47:50
About the Scalia thing. Oh, I don't know. How
Carter
47:54
How did you not just blurt out it was going to be Bernie Sanders? did you say anything for you is about bernie sanders well
Corey
48:00
i i think ultimately the real winner will be the supreme court because people will understand a bit more when this is all said oh
Carter
48:06
oh my god such a
SPEAKER_02
48:07
a high and mighty response i'm
Carter
48:08
i'm gonna go barf into my briefcase this is
SPEAKER_02
48:11
for for the republicans is the scalia event signal or noise carter for
SPEAKER_02
48:20
it is noise cory signal or noise for the republicans is not enough data points to to make that oh my god he goes god he's weak tonight it's the child of nate silver yeah
Carter
48:29
yeah five and then a couple of boring
SPEAKER_02
48:33
over under on six over under on six the likelihood that hillary takes south carolina carter over
SPEAKER_02
48:38
cory oh way over over
SPEAKER_02
48:40
over under on five the likelihood that sanders takes nevada over
Carter
48:46
over on five straight on five you're
SPEAKER_02
48:49
you're bernie sanders heading into nevada okay you've got south carolina for sure nevada's the one you could win carter what's your strategy for bernie sanders one word i
Carter
48:59
know you hate this praying really that well that gives me a lot of insight yeah in nevada load the dice the one word is very tricky uh
Corey
49:07
uh culinary the culinary union uh he's been playing nice with them he needs to continue to play nice with them they sat on the sidelines they're not endorsing hillary
Carter
49:17
hillary way more than one word that's
Corey
49:19
that's good he's justifying it for
SPEAKER_02
49:20
for us better than praying from an atheist okay are you in or out this week on justin trudeau as it relates to his stance on isis he's now being criticized for for not withdrawing for withdrawing are you in or out this week on justin trudeau carter i'm out i didn't understand
Carter
49:36
it doesn't make sense to me at all cory
SPEAKER_02
49:38
cory in or out on based on this this particular issue
Corey
49:41
issue of isis oh i'm out i i think that it was it was the classic mistake in politics where you tried to appease people people who weren't happy with you by sacrificing the people who were.
SPEAKER_02
49:51
On a one to 10, the liberal strategy for Energy East, we're now realizing that it could be liberals versus liberals when this really comes down to it. One to 10, where's the strategy of Energy East sit for you, Carter?
Carter
50:03
I think that right now, it's about a six.
Carter
50:09
It will be, I mean, the proof
Carter
50:12
proof is in the pudding. I mean, what does this look like at the end? And they've
Carter
50:16
they've slowed it down. That's not good.
Carter
50:20
They're not dismantling the NEB. That is good. There's certain – there's
Carter
50:24
there's kind of a tradeoff on this that I'm not real comfortable with. Corey?
Corey
50:28
It's an eight. They did what they needed to do. They're going to take a bit more time to do it than I would like as an Albertan, but
Corey
50:37
a tenth of the country. over
SPEAKER_02
50:38
over under on six over under on six hillary clinton's new argument against bernie sanders which seems to be getting some traction the fact that he's simply a one issue candidate carter over under on six on that key message yeah
Carter
50:51
yeah i think it's probably an under six because really it's really easy to beat the you're only a one issue candidate when you just trot out a new issue
Corey
51:01
i'd say it's an under it is pretty easy to get out of that box simply by talking about about something else the other
Corey
51:08
other thing is so what you know we talk about message discipline all the time what we talk about is sticking to one issue right and that's what bernie sanders has done masterfully okay
SPEAKER_02
51:18
okay finally your main squeeze okay this is the one thing political or not that you are reading looking forward to in in the week ahead cory
Corey
51:26
well i'm going to new york i'm going to try to meet up with some sanders people and sing solidarity forever jesus
SPEAKER_02
51:33
stephen carter Carter, one thing, political or not, can be anything under the sun that you're looking forward to or looking at this week.
Carter
51:40
I'm going to go skiing on the weekend. Like, there's
Carter
51:42
nothing happening. What a fucking
SPEAKER_02
51:42
fucking horrible segment. Okay, that's it. That's our episode. Episode 566 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.