Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is the Strategists episode 568. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Gents, how are you? Good.
Carter
0:13
What's not to be good about? Tomorrow's the third Super Tuesday. Yes,
Corey
0:17
Yes, Super Tuesday 3. How this naming convention is really, really annoying.
Zain
0:23
annoying. They were calling it Separation Tuesday on Meet the Press. Oh, good. They've come up with a new name. Yeah, well. Is
Carter
0:30
the day that your wife leaves you when you're on the campaign?
Zain
0:33
Is that what happens? If you're Marco Rubio and haven't won anything by Separation Tuesday, or won anything big by Separation Tuesday. It
Carter
0:39
It sounds like he might have got that guy's girlfriend, though. So he has that going for him. Good.
Zain
0:43
Good. These vague generalities you speak in, I have no idea
Carter
0:46
idea about. Come on, you did not see the viral video of Marco Rubio being accused of stealing another man's girlfriend?
Corey
0:53
That was classic. I did not, but that's pretty amazing. It's gone off the rails
Corey
0:57
rails already. already it's
Carter
0:59
rails already this is this is the service we provide to our listeners in fact as a matter of fact listeners take a moment go to youtube search
Carter
1:06
search it come back to us half of
Zain
1:08
them forgot this podcast was a thing they're not coming back we'll wait
Zain
1:13
let's get into this lot to talk about our first segment feel the burning sensation that is riots guys a lot of controversy yeah feel yeah yeah no that's
Corey
1:23
was your worst one yeah ever
Zain
1:25
Want me to do it again? No, no, keep going. I've got several alternates. I chose that one because I liked it. All right, give us an alternate. I don't have any alternates.
Zain
1:36
Just like the Democratic
Corey
1:37
Democratic race, there's not actually choice.
Zain
1:40
Oh, okay, let's start right there because the point I want to make is on the Democrat side first. Let's go there. there cory hogan has bernie sanders despite potentially losing this democratic nomination effectively won the messaging war that is this
Corey
1:57
a consolation prize nobody's that excited about when they've come you know if bernie sanders had done slightly worse he would feel really good about setting the message but he did just well enough to feel disappointed about uh not
Corey
2:09
not winning if he doesn't win now i still think that it's pretty long odds for him he'd have to win something like 55
Corey
2:15
55 to 60 percent of the vote going forward but wow you gotta you gotta hand it to him since we last were sitting around this table doing a podcast he had this big michigan win everybody's talking
Corey
2:27
about him the fight with trump is really giving this sense of it's like bernie v trump which i actually think could help bernie a fair bit um yeah
Corey
2:36
i don't think he's i don't think he's in it for the moral victory and so in that sense i think he'll be a be disappointed. Carter,
Zain
2:41
Carter, his messages seem to be dominating the Democratic nomination. But if you are standing there right now as Bernie Sanders, what do you do? Do you wait this out? Do you stick around? Do you concede this? Do you take this to the convention? What do you do?
Carter
2:57
Well, normally candidates stay in until they've run out of resources, right? So the resources question for Bernie Sanders seems to be, he seems to be in the enviable position of being able to raise money every time he opens his mouth so he may as well stay in uh there's obviously an audience and uh a donor market for his particular uh brand of of uh socialist chaos cory
Zain
3:22
cory is it is it just about money i mean carter talks about resources but we've seen hillary clinton for example wait out barack obama in 2008 for six eight weeks when he had it locked up what is bernie sanders waiting for if you're on the campaign right now and what what are you waiting for or what are you trying to do lots
Corey
3:38
lots of things you're trying to do lots of things not least of which is is uh is get some of those policy initiatives that you care so much put forward another thing happens at the convention that doesn't really matter but it is a bit of a symbolic thing for the
Corey
3:52
democratic party and that's that they actually set their platform as well right so they'll vote on different things becoming policies and if 40 plus percent of those are sanders delegates you only have to peel off a a few Clinton supporters to get what will be a very left-wing platform. Now, I want to be clear, that doesn't mean the president or any member of Congress needs to run on said platform. It's a bit of a symbolic thing in many ways. But if I'm Sanders, I'm definitely going to stick around for that, especially at this point, because I can and because I'm likely to have many delegates. But I'll
Corey
4:24
I'll go back to what I said last time, which is as long as you're in the race, you have a chance to win the race. And Bernie Sanders has no good reason to drop out. He's got the money. He's got the supporters. You could even argue, and I'd love to talk a bit more about this,
Corey
4:38
that he's got the momentum right now. Whether that momentum is enough to push past Clinton, highly dubious just because of where he's coming back from. We'll
Zain
4:45
We'll talk about momentum. Yeah, that's a great point. We'll talk about momentum in a second. Stephen Carter, I see you rolling your eyes as it relates to that. We'll talk about it in a second. I want to ask a Hillary question, though. If you are Hillary, is it in your best interest right now as the Hillary campaign to ignore Bernie Sanders and let him be in the race? Or do you actively try to ensure that he leaves this race before the convention?
Carter
5:10
The amount of momentum that Bernie Sanders has— We're going to
Zain
5:12
to talk about it, I guess, anyway. Go ahead. —is
Carter
5:14
—is such that she can't ignore him, right?
Carter
5:18
right? Right. He is
Carter
5:20
is enough of a nuisance that if you were to ignore him and look past him, he does have the capacity to occasionally win a state like Michigan.
Carter
5:30
I was going to say Missouri. I was just looking at Missouri. I'm like, that's not right. Not even close. Not even close. But it's it's
Carter
5:39
start with an M. But this is where we are. This is where we are. Bernie Sanders has made note of himself as this campaign has gone forward. And he's made himself a player in the Democratic Party, I think, for years to come.
Zain
5:55
Okay, so, Corey, this was going to be – Carter talks about the momentum of Sanders being a nuisance. We've had these conversations offline. Does it matter when he's got the win behind his back when the only thing that really seems to be the metric now are the delegates? He wins Michigan on that same night. Hillary Clinton gets the most delegates. How do you marry the two at this point? Well,
Corey
6:14
Well, first of all, I'm really disappointed that you guys don't think Missouri and Michigan are even close. They're both Midwestern states with similar demographics. That's not what I meant. So, okay.
Corey
6:23
Second of all. Corey
Corey
6:25
teased you. Second of all. I'm
Carter
6:26
I'm glad he's picking on you today.
Corey
6:28
What we have to consider is, is that delegate race at this point? And what's interesting is the momentum versus delegate contest that is now ahead of us. Does he have
Zain
6:40
have something to say? Corey's Googled Midwestern United States, and he's got a
Corey
6:47
Sorry. Before I called you out, I wanted to be very sure. Such a fucking
Corey
6:53
Anyways, continue. That was totally.
Carter
6:56
A little over the top, Cain, but it'll be okay. Sorry. Yeah.
Carter
7:00
I'm sorry. Go ahead. He is a douchebag, but he's not a fucking douchebag. Let's be clear. Sorry.
Corey
7:09
Bernie Sanders is not unaware that delegates are what are going to win this election okay but in order to ramp up that delegate count he needs to look like he's got momentum and so the interesting balancing act that Sanders has is that he needs to win states to look like a winner and get more delegates but he needs to be very mindful that this is about delegates and not pull out entirely of contests where he's going to lose where there's maybe low-hanging fruit the calculus right now going on in the campaign is if i spend x number of dollars in either illinois or in
Corey
7:46
or wherever right let's say missouri if i spend the money in missouri i might not win but do i get 10 more delegates than i would if i spent the same number of dollars in illinois even though in illinois it might be the difference between winning and losing the state it's not going to be 10 delegates of difference i think those are the kind of calculations that they're going on right now and they're not easy calculations especially if you are in bernie sanders position where you need to continue to show momentum so even if bernie sanders somehow manages to you know win run up such big leads in certain states that he's actually winning the delegate counts if he's winning one state to hillary's five for example people
Corey
8:25
people are going to start saying hillary's putting this thing away it's a complicated challenge for them they really do need to show like they're still on the march carter
Zain
8:32
carter what do you think of cory's take right there on the balance between momentum and delegates. Where do you see
Zain
8:39
see the fine line for Bernie Sanders going?
Carter
8:43
I've actually been very frustrated watching the
Carter
8:46
way that the news has been reporting both the Democratic and the Republican race, because the Democratic race, you know, Bernie Sanders wins the state, but Hillary gains most of the delegates. delegates uh and they're just you know they focus on the fact that bernie had 51 to hillary's 48 and that becomes this major story except it's it's not a winner-take-all state so those delegates are apportioned out proportionally
Carter
9:17
that's not so the overall story is hillary clinton marches towards victory but the momentum story is bernie standard's upset victory yeah
Carter
9:25
and the same thing is happening on the on the republican side where you've got this inevitable trump victory being talked about this is an inevitable trump victory and yet he has yet to win a state uh ted cruz has won more state when i say win a state yeah what do you mean by the majority of the states and he hasn't triggered one state's winner take all now that's going to change tomorrow on
Carter
9:44
super tuesday yeah another
Carter
9:46
super short day uh there are winner take all states cory talked about this four to four podcasts ago a
Corey
9:52
a million podcasts where
Carter
9:53
where he was talking about the winner take all
Carter
9:56
models and those winter take all models to this point you had to get over 50 to trigger the winter takes all right uh starting tomorrow you don't have to trigger using a 50 whoever gets well well you want
Corey
10:10
want to explain that yeah that's not entirely accurate uh right now mostly accurate no no not even actually a bit i was being charitable so basically there are a number of states that apportion their delegates and it was considered proportional with congressional congressional district winner takes all by the way let's not forget south carolina donald trump won all the delegates because he won the congressional districts and he won the overall vote there uh they're kind of an outlier though they're allowed to be winner but
Carter
10:37
they're all weird generally
Corey
10:38
generally speaking you have to keep in mind in the republican race that well we think of them as here's a bucket of delegates from this state that's not how the republican party thinks of them and that's not how they're going to be a portion going into to convention right so they have three types of delegates and i may have talked about this before they have at large delegates which
Corey
10:57
are just a portion to the state based on how many republican office holders there are they have congressional district delegates which are three per congressional district and they have what are rnc delegates where uh the committee uh chair person i think the male and the female chairs plus the representative to the rnc are all automatically delegates and they are either bound or unbound they either have to vote with their state or
Corey
11:20
act as kind of a watered-down version of the superdelegate. People always say Republicans don't have superdelegates. That's mostly true, but that's not entirely true. And when you look at all of these contests, sometimes they're proportional at the state level, winner-takes-all at the congressional district level. Sometimes vice versa. Sometimes they're not even bound on the congressional district. There are a lot of different permutations here. But
Corey
11:44
But the point is, come the 15th, to be a winner-takes-all on the at-large delegate side is
Corey
11:53
is suddenly allowed, right? And same with the congressional district. And that's why things change. Which is what I said. But it's a little more complicated than you've stated because— No, but seconds
Carter
12:03
seconds ago, I was completely wrong when
Carter
12:06
when mostly I was right.
Corey
12:08
We've got it on the record. because uh now
Corey
12:11
now we're getting into an area where those arcane rules are really going to determine who wins this republican nomination potentially so i wouldn't brush past them and say it's winner takes all there are going to be states where it looks like there's a clear winner takes all winner but maybe cruz takes just enough to deny donald trump the victory okay
Zain
12:28
okay corey you've brought up ted cruz let's talk about him a little bit he in terms of his viability what do you see as his his pathway going forward, because it's that odd mix between momentum on one side, states and delegates that we've just been talking about. But if you're Ted Cruz right now, you're looking at Super Tuesday, or this third Super Tuesday, what do you make of it? You
Corey
12:50
You know what I think is amazing right now is that Americans who have always had two political parties, or for a very long time, have just sort of discovered that there is a thing called strategic voting. Yeah,
Corey
13:00
I was going to ask you about that next.
Corey
13:01
You ask, you look at CNN and they're like, you know, maybe these people should vote for for the person who's most likely to stop Trump from getting the majority, as though this is a new thought in politics, right? And if I'm Cruz, I need to ride that wave. So if I'm Cruz, the one thing I absolutely need to avoid is becoming the guy everybody's talking about. We need to keep the race focused on Trump because he's the most viable not-Trump candidate. But make no mistake, Ted Cruz is a loathsome human being. And if people start thinking about, oh, do I want Ted Cruz to be the nominee? nominee, he's going to start sliding back in the pack. He's in a funny position where he needs to keep in such a strong second that he can propel himself at the convention. So
Zain
13:44
So Corey, am I hearing you correctly when you say that the Ted Cruz strategy is not about Ted Cruz, but about Donald Trump being the anti-Trump?
Corey
13:52
Ted Cruz's strategy, if he's smart, is drafting. It's like when you're on the highway and you stay behind a semi-truck that's going to take all of the hits, all of the wind, and you're just going to ride up behind him and you're going to just pass at the the last minute. Stephen
Zain
14:03
Stephen Carter, what do you make of that? Is Ted Cruz supposed to define himself as the anti-Trump candidate? We talked about strategic voting here as well. What do you make of those two concepts as he heads into...
Carter
14:12
into... I'm a little bit shocked.
Carter
14:14
I'm a little bit shocked because I think that Ted Cruz is more vile than Donald Trump. Sure. He's just less bombastic about it. And that's the fascinating thing is that this anti-Trump campaigner, I totally agree with what Corey said. He is right. The best way for Cruz to win is to talk less about Cruz and more about trump and trump you know people are voting against trump he is the dump trump candidate but be careful what you wish for because if you're voting against trump and you're voting for ted cruz because you don't want a vile human being to become the president of the united states you have not succeeded yeah he is vile how
Corey
14:52
fucked is the republican establishment that they're now thinking ted cruz is their saving grace i
Carter
14:57
i mean really when you look at who's left and because Because Rubio's done, right? Let's get to Rubio in a second. But yeah, go ahead. So you've got Ted Cruz and Kasich, you
Carter
15:06
you know, and Kasich's barely hanging on. He'll win Ohio. And then the rest of it is just gong show. If
Zain
15:13
If he wins Ohio. He'll
Carter
15:14
He'll win Ohio. And then he's going to get Utah
Carter
15:16
Utah because Romney's endorsed him. But, you know, there is no vital path. I mean, there's no path forward. I think that his thinking is these two other vile human beings in Cruz and Trump cannot get elected at
Carter
15:30
at a convention. Everybody by that time will understand how vile they are. And Kasich or Ryan or someone will come in and win a brokered convention, which I got to be honest, I will watch all of it. It will be phenomenal. I'll tell you this.
Corey
15:49
If I'm Kasich, I think that's a poor strategy because this notion of strategic voting is so new in the States. In Canada, we're really used to the fourth place person coming up the middle. I think in the United States, they'd see a lot more backlash about a guy who was on the ballot moving from fourth place to first place. I think they would say more than a white knight that would come in because the white knight, you could say, I
Carter
16:10
I think Paul Ryan's
Zain
16:10
Ryan's the guy that everybody will ultimately look. Let's get to the Brokwood Convention in just a second. I want to run through. You bring up Kasich, so let's talk about Kasich for a second here, Corey. I mean, you may have given me your strategy for Kasich through what Carter said, but you're on that campaign. You see Ohio. The calculation was that you need 113% of all the remaining delegates, effectively impossible going forward. What do you do? What do you hold out for? If that's not the right strategy, holding out until the convention, what is one for John Kasich? That's his best strategy right
Corey
16:39
right now because he's
Corey
16:40
already in the race. But
Corey
16:42
But I do think that if you could say I'm coming from outside the race, you were electing delegates, and these delegates select somebody who – I guess the thing is it's a negative judgment thing, right? You can say that Kasich was on the ballot and people didn't choose him, but
Corey
16:57
but because – and people will say that means he was voted against. But because Paul Ryan, for example, was not on the ballot, you can always spin a hypothetical like, well, you know – If he had run. If he had been, he could have potentially done it, and maybe those delegates would have gone for him and all that. And I think it creates a different situation there. But Kasich is where Kasich is. His best bet is actually to take the opposite of what I've just said and pretty much be at the convention. And if it's a total cluster, just say, look, I was the only guy on the ballot. You can't bring someone in at the last minute. That's patently unfair. It's undemocratic. If you want somebody to win, it has to be somebody who was out there.
Zain
17:34
Who's on the ballot until the end. And, Carter, do you feel like there's another pathway forward for Kasich, or do you agree? I know you've mentioned your strategy in brief, but in response to that, anything?
Carter
17:45
No, I mean, Kasich
Carter
17:46
Kasich is in real trouble, right? I mean, he does not have—he
Carter
17:51
have—he can't win this thing on anything except backroom deals that occur at a crazy-ass convention.
Carter
17:58
Interesting place to be.
Zain
17:59
And you agree with Corey's notion around the white knight might be better suited.
Carter
18:02
Oh, I totally do. I think that that is a much
Carter
18:04
much stronger position to find oneself. Let's
Zain
18:07
Let's move from Kasich to Rubio. You say he's done. If he loses in Florida, that's
Carter
18:13
that's probably the case
Zain
18:14
case on Tuesday. You're
Zain
18:17
now in the Rubio camp. Is there a saving grace, a Hail Mary for Marco Rubio?
Zain
18:27
let's grant him Florida. You
Carter
18:28
You can't grant him Florida because he's going to lose Florida. So
Corey
18:31
we're essentially at a point where you're saying he needs to win Florida. He won't win Florida. He's out.
Carter
18:35
He's going to lose Florida. If he can't win – so you're a senator. There's two senators from every state. I mean everybody knows that, right? Two senators from every state. You are by definition popular in your state because you are a United States senator in your state and you can't win the
Carter
18:56
state you're from. Yeah.
Carter
18:56
Yeah. I can't even deal with it. He's done. it's over cory
Zain
19:02
cory i want to introduce the concept of strategic voting and marco rubio right now are you i
Zain
19:07
know we're less than 24 hours away you know but if you are marco rubio are you endorsing the fact of strategic voting having the the cruise people come to you have the case of people come to you what do you do hey listen uh
Corey
19:18
uh rubio's camp did exactly what i've credited steven for in the past where he they said we can't win in ohio vote casick yeah
Corey
19:27
and what they're saying is effectively K-6 supporters in Florida, vote
Corey
19:32
It's a way that you almost implicitly tie those two campaigns together.
Zain
19:37
He's endorsed him. The
Corey
19:39
The opposite is true in Florida. So the implication is you've got to come and support Rubio in Florida. He's all in on Florida. I think that's clear. He won D.C., the D.C. convention. Over the weekend.
Corey
19:50
He's won a couple of small contests. Minnesota he won, I believe. Right? Right. I mean, but he's not exactly piling up the states. Cruz is. If I'm Rubio, to my earlier point or building on it,
Corey
20:06
I you need to make the contest about Cruz as well. You need to bring Cruz into the conversation. And I know right now everybody's on this United dump Trump effort. And so any targeting that he does towards Cruz will be seen by many as like, what are you doing? We've got a bigger problem here. But
Corey
20:23
But he's got to. I mean, it's not going to make them friends, but frankly, he's going to be out of this race if he doesn't do it. It's his time. He's got to do it, and it's maybe even too late for that. Corey,
Zain
20:32
Corey, going back to you on this, for the brokered convention, we talked about the concept of a white knight from the floor. Carter talked about Paul Ryan. Mitt Romney's been thrown around. First of all, let's talk about the likelihood of that, and secondly, how are people or how are these prospective candidates preparing for that going forward? Well,
Corey
20:49
Well, you talk likelihood. you know there are a lot of places you can bet on outcomes and what you find is there are actually people who are not in the republican contest with better odds on these betting markets than people that are in the republican contest right
Corey
21:02
so i would say the likelihood is a non-zero likelihood i actually put a fair bit of predictive power into these markets because if you actually put money behind it you're probably not just taking a flyer um i
Carter
21:12
also like the money model right
Carter
21:14
right and there's money starting to flow into packs for some of these people sure right
Corey
21:17
right well there's there's these orphaned packs from guys like jeb bush who have a lot of cash uh but like there's
Corey
21:25
would say the likelihood is still low let's not overstate it i mean as much as we've just spent all this time talking about hypotheticals and what could happen in brokered conventions or some people prefer contested conventions whatever you want whatever um the reality is at the end of the day it is most likely going to be donald j trump or ted cruz of calgary our homeboy so i
Corey
21:49
i mean that is the that those are the two most likely outcomes and why that is the case is because they will both get there they will realize that if it goes absolutely to shit neither of them wins and probably the guy with the most will say hey guy with the second most want to be my vp because
Corey
22:05
because that's how these things happen if you go back and look at the history of brokered conventions contensions right it's not like these guys can't stave off their own defeat and in the same vein by the way if
Corey
22:17
trump plus cruz that's what will happen but if it ends up being trump plus somebody else or cruz plus casick plus rubio point being the guy who comes in there with the with the strongest hand in that coalition building is almost certainly going to be either trump or cruz and they are going to just offer somebody else the vice presidency and get get it done. Stephen
Zain
22:36
Stephen Carter, someone approaches you with a suitcase full of cash and they say, hey, listen, again,
Zain
22:42
for the umpteenth time, someone
Zain
22:46
they say, we've got a candidate. We want to try to win the president or the nomination from the floor.
Zain
22:51
If you've got a candidate from the floor, what is a few steps that you need to kind of have secured? Assuming, of course, that we're headed towards a contested or brokered convention. How do you position that? And
Carter
23:01
And you're doing it with the Republicans. You
Zain
23:03
You are certainly doing it, the Republicans. Well,
Carter
23:05
you're going to need a baseline number of states.
Carter
23:08
So you're going to need to find delegations who will move on
Carter
23:12
on almost on mass to come over and support you. And that's where things are going to be tricky. So
Carter
23:19
let's say you're doing this for for Paul Ryan. And I don't
Carter
23:23
don't know which state Paul Ryan's from. He's
Corey
23:25
He's from Wisconsin. Wisconsin, yeah. Yeah,
Carter
23:27
Yeah, okay, so he's from Wisconsin. Oh, man, they're crazy in Wisconsin.
Carter
23:30
So he goes from, he's in Wisconsin. He moves the Wisconsin delegation first, and then he finds a way to get Romney's Utah delegation, and then he jumps over. He's got, I think the number is eight, Corey, is that right? Eight or nine delegations that you really need in order to get your name onto a ballot.
Corey
23:49
You know, I honestly, I keep meaning to look this up between shows because we keep pointing to it, and I don't. but yeah it's around
Carter
23:55
but regardless of whether it's six or whether it's 12 the bottom line is if you don't have one you don't have anything yeah
Carter
24:02
so you're going to have to start with one delegation that you know you can get and you have to move those people early in the process so you're actually going to see this well before the convention where
Carter
24:11
where states are going to declare their interest in a outside white knight candidate and
Carter
24:16
and that's when shit's going to get real if that doesn't happen before the convention then what cory has described where number one plus number Number two or number one plus number three will
Carter
24:24
get together and create momentum or
Carter
24:27
or an outcome, if you will.
Carter
24:29
Then that can occur without, you know, because the white knight needs to be able to say to everybody, I'm a white knight. I'm going to happen so that, you
Carter
24:38
you know, the episode of the West Wing where it just kind of happens doesn't ever happen.
Carter
24:43
It can't. You need you need some outside movement. So
Zain
24:46
So Carter's saying you need at least a block of votes for at least some of these states, and you need to have this parade building up as it heads into the convention. Corey, anything to add if you are strategically working on a campaign for a white knight from the floor?
Corey
24:59
Yeah, there's a couple of things that you would be doing right now if you were smart. And so when we talk about the caucus states and we see those caucus results coming in, those are usually precinct level who are electing delegates to go to their congressional district level or what have you, who then go to their state conventions. conventions you want to start putting your people in the positions or making sure that say for example yeah it's a cruise delegate but his number two choice would be paul ryan to use
Corey
25:24
as an example you want to start moving those pieces behind the scenes to grease the wheels when you get to the convention but then the next thing you need is chaos right you need to make sure that that convention goes so off the rails and that kind of pairing between one and two or two and three and four or what have you yeah just cannot happen and the best way to do that is just to sew no dissent and acrimony between everybody. Yeah,
Carter
25:46
Yeah, you need a bombshell story.
Carter
25:48
So right now, let's say someone's found Trump's tax returns, which
Carter
25:52
which everybody has been expecting as a bombshell story. If
Carter
25:55
I were sitting in a campaign for Paul Ryan and I had them,
Carter
25:59
I'm sitting on them.
Zain
26:00
You're sitting on them. I'm
Carter
26:01
sitting on them. I'm going to hope like hell they do not leak until,
Carter
26:05
I'm going to say 10 days before the convention because I think that would be maximum chaos by that point. See,
Corey
26:10
See, I think that if you wanted to go into the realm of dirty tricks, you would start seeing things like something purporting to be his tax returns would just fall onto a reporter's lap beyond the Internet. No good reporter would actually report the actual returns, but they'd say something purporting to be it is out there. And then Trump would have to respond by releasing his actual tax returns.
Zain
26:30
Fascinating. I want to hold it with one last question on this segment. We've talked about all the possibilities for the GOP. Don't do that, by the way. That's illegal.
Zain
26:41
Yes, the cautionary flag. We've talked about the possibilities. Trump, Cruz,
Zain
26:46
Cruz, who's potentially more vile. We've talked about a brokered convention. We've talked about Cruz and Trump in a VP slash presidential role. Is there any, is there any, any, any silver lining for the GOP in how this nomination has gone? Anything to salvage? Yeah, a lot of people have gotten out. A
Corey
27:04
A lot of people have gotten involved. And if you can sort of bring it together at the end of it all, which seems remote now, but it always seems remote in the middle of these contested races. I mean, who thought that Barack Obama was going to pick Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, if we're going to put it just plainly like that? Is this
Corey
27:22
level of fractured, though, Corey?
Corey
27:24
I'm asking. I mean, I think we're suffering from a bit of a recency bias,
Corey
27:27
I do think this is particularly bad. I do but I will say we tend to forget with time how bad we thought those ones were as well I'll
Zain
27:37
I'll push back a little bit I mean on this same podcast we've talked about this potentially being the moment of a new era and how the parties are split and where they go is that not a different level of
Corey
27:47
fracturing Corey well yeah it's a possibility if it's happening I would also say though it's happened in the past when we talk about it these things have occurred right and and just because Because those two are not mutually exclusive, I guess saying is how I would put it. Just because we're now in a new era and the Republican Party is something different does not mean the Republican Party inherently has to fall to total pieces. It is possible for them all to say this is the way the boat is going now and we've all got to get our oars in the water. That is entirely possible. Stephen
Zain
28:17
Stephen Carter, any silver lining Corey brings up effectively turnout as his big one. Do you have one for the GOP right now? Yeah,
Carter
28:26
Yeah, so I'm absolutely torn. Sure. And I mean, yeah, Corey's pointed out turnout is a good thing that people are involved. There are huge rallies for your particular party, except much the same way that when the Conservative Party of Canada was formed out of my party, the Progressive Conservatives and the crazy ass reformers. I wasn't particularly excited about that because there were too many crazy ass reformers and the party lurched that direction. And it remained that direction. And we'll wait and see if there's actually a leadership that brings
Carter
28:58
brings it back to normalcy. But
Carter
29:02
reality is that this
Carter
29:04
this party has been taken away from many Republicans. Many Republicans have watched that happen. Now, this isn't a one cycle phenomenon.
Carter
29:11
The Tea Party, which is really, I think, the precursor to Trump's run. The Tea Party is what now? Twelve, twelve years, at least three, three cycles, three full presidential cycles. In fact, it might even be closer to 20 years now from the very first kind of Tea Party. Yeah, it really
Corey
29:30
really depends on where you define it. So
Carter
29:34
that you've got this party that is a
Carter
29:38
very strange coalition of, if you will, fundamentalist conservatives. So I'm staying away from religion and just saying fundamentalist conservatives and a pragmatic conservative. And
Carter
29:51
the pragmatic conservatives, of
Carter
29:54
of which ironically now we look back at McCain and Romney and say clearly they were pragmatic conservatives. conservatives but
Carter
29:59
those pragmatic conservatives may be left behind uh by this party that is lurching wildly we'll
Zain
30:05
we'll leave it there our next segment bros with different mo's the trudeau obama love fest is oh man is something real it is something on social media it's something on traditional media it's something that has been everywhere over the past week steven carter to you back back to you on this what
Zain
30:24
what does this mean well
Carter
30:25
well i'll tell you something i sat in this very house and my wife came to me and said um
Carter
30:29
um during the during the summit during the state dinner just
Carter
30:33
just how proud she was to be canadian yeah
Carter
30:36
because at that particular moment it didn't matter what your politics were it
Carter
30:41
didn't matter um who you voted for who you didn't vote for this was a moment of of diplomacy where people where people were talking
Carter
30:50
talking about canada where Americans were noticing Canada and where Canada had returned as an equal. And I would say the last time that we saw that was Reagan Mulroney, where those two leaders genuinely liked each other, stood for similar ideas.
Carter
31:07
there was a Canada had a position on the world stage that has eroded and eroded tremendously under Stephen Harper. And it was it was nice to see it come back. I liked it, too. I mean, you know, I didn't fall in love with the kind of romanticism that Heather had, but there
Carter
31:24
there is certainly, it was
Carter
31:28
was a positive experience, I think, for me as a Canadian to see us held up like that.
Zain
31:33
Corey Hogan, your analysis of the Obama-Trudeau thing.
Corey
31:38
Yeah, I mean, for Trudeau, it was just a win across the board. A number of people have pointed out how good it was. I was on a panel with a conservative the other day who said how good it was, which tells you you're in rare territory because there's not even something really to complain about. Obviously, it's a positive thing when you have such a close, tight relationship with a nation as powerful as the United States and that you're getting the recognition that it is a partnership in some way. The way Obama passed the baton on climate change, which we can roll our eyes about the specifics of it, but that was a moment where the leader of the free world said, hey, this
Corey
32:12
this is you now, right? Right. And that's and to Canada. And and that was that
Corey
32:17
was powerful. And that was something that Canadians will rightly look on and say, what a nice, refreshing change from the past couple of years. I you know, I don't know that state dinners have ever changed the course of history. No.
Corey
32:31
Right. You're right. It's it's a nicety. It's a way to say, how do you do? And frankly, it's this was with the guy who's not going to be there soon. yeah i
Corey
32:40
was describing it the other day as it's like you went on this awesome first date with someone who's leaving town yeah
Corey
32:45
yeah it's not going anywhere and um and
Corey
32:48
and then we're going to have to deal with uh you know president bernie sanders or president donald trump whichever one of those
Corey
32:56
really let's let him just let him be if you're still paying attention to me paying attention
Corey
33:00
but it was it was good it was positive diplomacy is made of niceties right and these things are never like, boom, there you go. The course of history has changed. But it's a series of pleasantries that lead up to something big.
Zain
33:15
I want to go back to your notion about being on a political panel, because there's a line of questioning there that I want to go to. But before I do that, let's quickly talk about what goes on if you're in the prime minister's office to successfully execute a state dinner and a state visit, because the logistics are heavy. But Carter, what are the metrics of success? You said this was a total win for Trudeau across the board. This could have actually backfired potentially. But what are the things that caused this to be a win for him in terms of optics, et cetera?
Carter
33:50
What are the things? I mean, optically, how
Carter
33:53
how do you put this into place? I think one of the most interesting things was the photograph that just went around of the two uh leaders kind of in a very i
Carter
34:01
don't want to say an embrace but their heads were very close and
Carter
34:03
and it was all about how pretty they were and
Carter
34:06
and you know i mean if it was two uh female leaders we were having a different conversation um
Carter
34:12
it was a two male convert well politicians and they
Carter
34:16
they are attractive and that sucker went viral and
Carter
34:19
and that virality has currency right
Carter
34:23
right there is a powerful powerful thing
Carter
34:26
thing that happens when these things go
Carter
34:29
go not just across Canada but throughout the world and
Carter
34:33
and that happened because of this state dinner Trudeau's
Carter
34:40
has embraced the media or the and the idea of Twitter and communications in a way that in exactly the opposite way of Harper Harper, you know, Harper rejected them all. And in the same way that Harper rejected everything and made it work for him, Trudeau has embraced it all and made it work, is making it work for him in a way that I
Carter
35:03
I think you could write. You could write a textbook on how visual communications matters, how the human human condition, how
Carter
35:11
how we interact with one another matters. You remember the picture that went viral of Stephen Harper shaking his son's hand after the first election victory?
Carter
35:21
that's how not to do it kids trudeau
Carter
35:24
trudeau has a natural knack for putting himself in the right position and getting getting
Carter
35:31
the most for that and he got the absolute most from this visit speaking
Zain
35:34
speaking of viral pictures this is a little bit of a detour but the one of ted cruz trying to give his daughter a high recall oh my god that was amazing if you haven't seen that cory carter talks about a few very interesting things the human condition the you know the visual sort of you know imagery country uh were those or would those be metrics for success if you're planning this going into it on on the campaign side yeah
Corey
35:56
yeah i mean it's not like we had a really in-depth set of meetings that we're going to determine the course of a treaty or anything like that so that's the only metric right now it's how well
Corey
36:05
did everybody seem to get along and on that metric trudeau gets very very very high marks i mean he understands visuals he understands how he looks the way he needs to look Now, I will say, however, there's a risk to being
Corey
36:20
being that close with a leader, which is that the other side, if, say, Ted Cruz becomes president or Donald Trump becomes president, well, you're
Corey
36:29
you're going to start off in a funny place, right? You had this love-in. And let's be clear. It wasn't a love-in because we love Canada. It's we love your progressive prime minister. He went to American University. He got a bunch of softball questions about how great he was, how he let in all these Syrian refugees. Of course, no one in America is talking about how he promised to let them in much sooner, right? I mean, it was really a showcase for being a progressive as much as it was being a Canadian prime minister. And that has risks. And I think that while it was all very positive, and I think that it's likely a Democrat will be the president after November, I would put that at a 60-40. I certainly wouldn't put that at 100%. And so there is some risk there that needs to be mitigated. Yeah,
Carter
37:11
Yeah, but okay, let's play that risk out. So, I mean, let's
Carter
37:14
let's say that Trump wins and this state hadn't occurred. Do you think that Justin Trudeau is going to be Trump's buddy?
Corey
37:24
No, but I think that the next time the Canadian prime minister is in town, he is going to almost reflexively set a very different tone. Yeah.
Corey
37:31
And I think that's where the risk is. Let's
Zain
37:32
Let's talk about progressivism. This is exactly what was talked about on the Everything is Political panel that you were on on Friday, Corey. And the line of questioning, and I find it fascinating, so complete credit to them, was what does this mean if progressivism has this image, this image being Trudeau and Obama and this concoction of this virality and visual imaging that Carter talks about? What does this mean for progressivism and more specifically conservatism in Canada? Should they also be trying to, you know, the next conservative leader pushing the envelope for what it means on visuals, on youth, on vibrancy? What should they be doing? Yeah,
Zain
38:07
Yeah, I guess I'll rehash a bit what
Corey
38:08
what I said on that panel. And that's, look, progressives
Corey
38:12
progressives have always had the youth, right? I mean, it's just not that cool to be a conservative. And when you're big or when you're young, you want to think big. You want to change the world. You want to be grand, right? You want to solve all of those problems. You tackle the apartheids of the world. You tackle social inequality, injustice, racism, all of that. As you get a little older, your universe shrinks a bit. You start thinking about the problems a little bit closer to home until ultimately you sort of hit the point where you're like, I just want my home rental to go okay, right? And that is where the conservatives' bread and butter has been, right? Those pocketbook issues that like that practical, I just need X. And if I can get care of X, you know, that's great. You have those concerns and those problems and somebody should be fighting for them. But are those our priority right now? I think that's ultimately a bit of a depressing thing
Corey
39:02
thing about aging. And there are there's a study from the UK from last year that showed with every year you get older in the UK, this is you get more likely to vote conservative by point three eight points or something like that, which
Corey
39:15
which adds up to a lot over a lifetime. And they controlled for all sorts of different things. And that, I think, is sort of borne out. So I would say if I'm a conservative, I'm
Corey
39:24
I'm probably exerting too much effort trying to get the youth. There is a base for me and I should fight for that base. Now, and
Corey
39:33
and this is what I want to talk about since you've opened this conversation,
Corey
39:37
the knock against progressives, as long as I can remember, you know, through the, you know, 70s, 80s and 90s, and some of it's not so much remembering as history, was that they're just, they're not serious. They're flaky. You know, they are thinking big when we've got to be taking care of the small. And the conservatives were the sensible people. I remember hearing once in the 2000 election that George W. Bush was successful relative to Al Gore because Al Gore reminded you of your first husband and George W. Bush reminded you of your second husband, the one you married after the first husband couldn't get anything done. It was like a total flake. Right. Right.
Corey
40:16
I think there's some truth to that. I think that's what conservatism always used to be the serious option. If you wanted to find serious as pocketbook issues. Right.
Corey
40:24
Right. But that seriousness has been utterly lost in the United States. And you're starting to see that being the case in Canada as well. And if the progressives are both the interesting, exciting, new, young option and the
Corey
40:37
the serious option, they're going to win a lot of elections. And I think that's where the conservatives really have to look in the mirror and look hard. Because they are no longer serious. It's not that they're not cool. They've never been cool. They're not serious.
Zain
40:51
Carter, is the pivot to serious or is the pivot to cool? Or is it both? Is it neither? What do you think? I know you've got a ton to say.
Carter
41:01
Where to start? I think the big thing is you must start with authenticity.
Carter
41:07
Sometimes when we have these problems is when you try and shoehorn someone into a role that
Carter
41:14
that they don't fit. right
Carter
41:15
right you can't make um
Carter
41:17
um you know brad wall is is actually a pretty uh brad wall fits closer to justin trudeau's ability to do media to do uh twitter and those types of things than he does stephen harper's shun the media at all costs right
Carter
41:32
right when when allison redford got her second team of advisors or maybe her third it's hard to keep track um they came in from the federal government and tried to instill the stephen harper model of communications management don't ever talk to the media and that didn't fit with with
Carter
41:48
with who she was and what she needed to be in order to be successful um politicians need to define themselves based on who they are and i think you've seen politicians like christy clark uh struggle
Carter
42:01
struggle with who they are and try and figure it out and try Try and get their own voice in a quote-unquote conservative
Carter
42:08
conservative model. And the conservative model has been Stephen Harper's seriousness. But that doesn't fit with Brad Wall. It doesn't fit with Christy Clark. And you
Carter
42:20
you have to be true to thine self. Your
Zain
42:22
Your point's well taken. So the candidates need to be authentic to themselves. But if I'm the party right now, let's just make this local and domestic. If I'm the conservative party here in Canada, what am I looking for? On that spectrum of serious versus interesting and hip, what is the concoction that I'm looking for in a candidate to put me forward? Corey's got a thesis. Do you have one? Before,
Corey
42:45
I just want to mention something here, Stephen, which is you talked about two conservative leaders, but neither brand themselves as conservatives, right? You have a B.C. liberal and a Sask Party person. And the reality is – He makes a point.
Zain
42:59
point. That's a man. No, no, not –
Corey
43:02
let him make his point and then we can say it is right. Like we're talking about the conservative movement as a whole and what makes the conservatives conservative. And the fact is, they don't even call themselves conservatives.
Carter
43:15
would argue that both of them call themselves conservatives. They are. Their brand is not conservative. I concede that point, but I think that they're both conservatives. Well,
Corey
43:23
I think they call themselves.
Corey
43:24
I think Brad Wall would call himself conservative. I
Corey
43:27
I don't know if Christy Clark would, because I think she'd be very worried about the ramifications of that. I
Zain
43:31
I want to quickly close it on that question I asked you, Carter. Do you see a formula that the conservatives need domestically for their next leader? Do we go down what Corey's saying? And if it's as simple as that, then we leave it there. But I want to get your take on it.
Carter
43:47
formula for the next leader i mean it is to me sometimes
Carter
43:50
sometimes these formulas are just so dead wrong right you wind up lurching from one extreme to the next right sure quite possibly you know
Carter
44:00
getty succeeded laheed right then getty failed so it had to be the anti-getty and we wound up with klein and klein uh was leaving so it couldn't be you know the guy who helped klein so we could we had to move on to Stelmec. You
Carter
44:13
You know, these formulas tend to result in lurching. It would be really impressive if we just chose the best person that's available in the crop. And that's where things get a little bit fuzzy because, you know, like Michael
Carter
44:29
Michael Chong might run for leader of the Conservative Party because, you know, it needs to move to the center. You know, well, is Michael Chong the best leader for the Conservative Party? Well,
Corey
44:40
Well, interestingly enough, Michael Chong's what kicked off the conversation on everything is political. They played a clip of him saying we need to get young people into the conservative party.
Corey
44:49
Look, I think the conservatives have lost their philosophical more ins. I believe that ultimately, if
Corey
44:55
if they start playing with things like barbaric cultural practices, hotlines claiming the day after the election that the Trudeau government had created a $10 billion deficit in a day. yeah
Corey
45:05
things that just the average person the average non-partisan the guy who just like takes in data and assesses it for its validity would be like what
Corey
45:13
what a load of shit right i think they're getting into that too much there's always a bit of that in politics and i i do worry that um the conservatives in the states the republicans are the ghost of christmas future when you start seeing guys like kevin o'leary i think you have to concede a bit of validity to my point there They need to continue to be a serious option. Yes, Stephen Harper lost. He was dour. But in his best days, he was serious, right? And when you compared him to some of his options out there, they seemed flaky by comparison. We'll
Zain
45:43
We'll leave it there. Our next segment, Meanwhile in Alberta. Guys, let's talk about some of our biggest stories in Alberta right now. Let's start with the NDP's caucus outreach office in Calgary. This is an office in a northeast industrial park located in Calgary. where the official opposition, the Wild Rose here in Alberta, have called it a partisan office across the street from the Calgary Greenway riding, which is currently undergoing a by-election. Stephen Carter, I'll start with you first. Where do you rank the government's position on this? Was this a mistake, or should they power through and defend the establishment of this office? They
Carter
46:19
They should totally defend it. I mean, caucus is a different thing. So one of the fundamental things that we have to get straight is
Carter
46:26
is that there is a difference between a party, right
Carter
46:29
right so the political party is the progressive conservative or the ndp let's let's talk about the ndp sorry cory don't yeah
Carter
46:36
going to thank you it's going to be even 40 years i made a mistake it is not the ndp party we don't need a party party but
Corey
46:43
we do need a party party a
Corey
46:45
but they're not a
Carter
46:46
they're not a party party the
Carter
46:48
the the the ndp are a political party they
Carter
46:52
they have elected representatives the elected representatives form a caucus yeah that caucus The caucus is funded by the government. Correct. There's a methodology. And then there is a government.
Carter
47:04
And the government is not the caucus. It is not the party. And this is what has the problem is the wild rose. Our official opposition either deliberately chooses to ignore these differences or
Carter
47:17
or doesn't understand that these are different levels of organization. I would like us to – there was a – in Alberta. Alberta, and I think that you see this wherever there's a longstanding party, there is a blurring between the political party and the actual government. But you have to go through the political party to the caucus, to the government, or
Carter
47:37
or official opposition, whatever side you're on. These are different things than the individual caucus office. So having a caucus office is absolutely not a problem. It is expected that you do work within that caucus. Okay,
Corey
47:53
Okay, well, let me jump on and agree 100%. The conservatives have come out since, and some people have observed, like, well, the conservative caucus always just met at McDougal, which is the government building.
Corey
48:06
Yeah, but should they have been? For the very reason Stephen said. I mean, here's your grade 7 history lesson, guys. The legislative branch and the executive branch are not the same. We have responsible government, and the executive branch in our system is responsible to the legislature, which is why the premier comes from there. But the premier's job, and this is why we could have Jim Prentice as premier, even when he was not in the legislature, is separate from that of the caucus.
Corey
48:30
So you're the conservatives. And for a couple of decades, you're meeting in McDougal instead of having a separate caucus office. That does not mean that was right. That
Carter
48:38
That was wrong. And in fact, I proposed the following when I was chief of staff. I said, first of all, let's open up McDougal and let's open up government house to the opposition parties. just
Carter
48:48
just you know these are there these are public buildings that can be used for opposition to have public meetings and do the things that they need to do absolutely was rejected second thing i proposed let's take the legislature move the cabinet minister's offices out of the legislature yeah
Carter
49:02
and move all of the mlas into the legislature so right now mlas are housed outside of of the legislature their offices are across now they used to be at the annex now it's across that's
Carter
49:14
that's absurd Sir, the government offices should not occupy the legislator's spaces. Legislators.
Carter
49:20
It's legislator's spaces. When you go to the United States of America, one of the things that they have done is they have built these beautiful buildings for each of the branches of the government. And each of the buildings is distinct because each of the branches of the government are distinct. And one of the things that we have forgotten is that you have, you know, the legislature is distinct. think that we should have those those led those led to mlas are not ultimately responsible to their party nor are they responsible to the government they are responsible to actually do the speaker okay
Carter
49:51
but like it's so fascinating here's let me can i just stop you for a second here oh no your
Zain
49:56
your argument is is well taken and the history lesson is is is is well necessary and accepted but if i'm the wild rose i know this is a a distinction without a difference to the population at large why is this not an effective political attack okay
Carter
50:11
well well there's a few reasons yeah yeah
Corey
50:13
i'm gonna do it first no i mean look i i'm gonna throw more facts because this is what we do we ignore zayn when zayn wants us to
Carter
50:19
wants us to do one thing we just do the other look
Corey
50:23
if caucus doesn't have their own space right and they meet in the government space what does that say about the relationship about government controlling caucus government's literally controlling where caucus can meet caucus
Corey
50:34
caucus has to be the master of its own domain that's
Corey
50:37
that's the reality of it we have a system of government where we elect representatives to a legislature and they have to be able to exist independent of the executive branch now to your question about why the wild rose should or shouldn't make this attack i think this is the trap the wild rose always gets themselves in they see those easy targets those targets nobody else is shooting at and they think my god this is brilliant but there's a reason that other people don't shoot at them right because at the end of the day what they're doing is they're diminishing their credibility you know how just like i don't know three minutes ago i was talking about conservatives not being the serious option talk about a great example of that if you're a thinking person how
Corey
51:18
how do you support this party when all they do is torque the facts when all they do is try to spin things for partisan gain that is a really problematic place to be at at the end of the day this is not a philosophical thing about the wild rose being a small government thing you You know what? I would have had a lot more respect for their attack if it was, we don't need a caucus office. That's a waste of resources. That would
Carter
51:38
would have been perfect.
Corey
51:38
But that wasn't their attack. Their attack was, this is a campaign office.
Carter
51:42
office. It's a secret campaign office. It's a secret
Corey
51:44
secret campaign office 30 blocks outside of the, I mean, it's the most ridiculous thing ever. Not least of which is because, like, look,
Corey
51:53
look, if you believed that, okay, and let's just say that was true. Let's say that was true. true why
Corey
52:00
why in god's name why wild rose would you say it now why wouldn't you wait until they shut it up right after the campaign and then there would be like perfect indismissible evidence that this was a campaign office you opened it in january the campaign ran to march you closed it april that is a that is a smoking gun what they have right now even if that was what the ndp was up to they're just going to keep that office open forever now the
Zain
52:27
the great point cory carter how would you tweak this line of attack is how would you go into this well and and make it a viable line of attack if you are the wild rose like they haven't
Carter
52:39
have to be able to show cause and effect when you're doing these types of things so if they'd won the bio you know if if they're actually doing better in the by-election if there's actually if you can show that
Carter
52:50
that there was a person uh that they held actual meetings from campaign staffers in there if you you need to be able to show that they're doing something inappropriate just the mere existence of something does not in and of itself to show
Carter
53:02
show that there's something wrong so another thing that they did recently the wild rose did uh they they suggested
Carter
53:11
suggested that the fundraiser the ndp fundraising was unethical and so they went to the uh
Carter
53:18
they went to the ethics commissioner who duly investigated all the the NDP fundraising and found them to be completely ethical.
Carter
53:25
This is the equivalent of the boy who cries wolf. The NDP, the wild rose must be able to show and prove cause and effect. If this is truly unethical, you
Carter
53:35
you must demonstrate it, not just simply state it. And that's where the wild rose is completely missing it. And so politics 101 for those across the country, if you're actually going to be doing something, if you're going to allege something, you must actually prove it. this
Carter
53:50
this is how politics works you don't just get to stand up and say it's unethical that's not good enough you must prove the ethical breach otherwise it will not have legs and it will not go forward and you
Carter
54:05
when we did the wild rose lake of fire in you know thing we'd
Carter
54:09
we'd spent weeks setting that up before it actually started to happen cory had done a website not related to my campaign but But he'd done a website knowing that the social conservatism was the Achilles heel of
Carter
54:20
of the wild rose. And
Carter
54:23
you set things up so that you can actually have impact. There was no setup.
Carter
54:27
There was no setup. There's no crafts. This is the most upsetting thing about the wild rose and other parties like them across the country. Where is the craft? Where is the actual commitment to the jobs that we do to show people and to attain something? This is not a
Carter
54:44
a game of gotcha. This is politics, and it is professional. And step up, for God's sake, because you look like amateurs. Yeah,
Corey
54:53
I mean, it's chess not looking more than one move ahead. They're like, hey, there's an empty piece.
Corey
54:58
get a point. No, it's a bad, bad thing. And I will say, in the short term, I suspect they will find an audience for it. They will. They absolutely will. But in the long term, the damage they are doing to their brand and their credibility could prove fatal. And frankly, the more they do things like this, to Stephen's point, the less people will care. They're not picking their moments. If they thought this was their moment, they're dead wrong. If they thought this was a secret campaign office, if they couldn't wait until after the campaign because they thought it was such explosive ammunition to win a by-election, they
Corey
55:31
they should have done it the week before the campaign. But here we are. And there's just too much time for everyone to forget, recover, move on, say, hey, didn't Derek Fildebrand say something stupid this week? right? Like the cycles move too quickly at this point. So that
Corey
55:49
what's the word I'm looking for? Amateurish is not even the word. Because that implies that at a certain point, you will become a professional who knows how to do these things. Incompetent, it was incompetent.
Zain
55:59
incompetent. Let's move from one line of attack to another. This one about the NDP hiring or the government, I should say hiring a former AUPE negotiator to now come on their side and work for him or work for them.
Zain
56:12
Corey, what do you make of that move on behalf of the NDP? Something to be defended, something to be admired, or is it conflict of interest, as the Wild Rose have called it? Well,
Corey
56:20
Well, yeah. I mean, the Wild Rose would love for us all to think it's a conflict of interest. I'll tell you who should be screaming conflict of interest. It's the AUPE. Look, it would be like if you were in the middle of a lawsuit. Say you were in the middle of a divorce and your lawyer left to go be your ex-wife's lawyer, right? That to me is actually who should be angry about this everybody else should be like oh man good on the government they just got an inside like union negotiator like inside track yeah inside track because that's how these things work in the real world you find people with expertise to extend the lawyer example
Corey
56:52
you may have a lawyer who's great uh
Corey
56:54
uh and in the real world you will hire them regardless of what side they were on on their last case right because they understand the system and they understand the way these things work a negotiator is very much in that line uh if anybody thinks that the negotiator the government hired is driving the philosophy of those negotiations you do not understand anything just stop listening to this podcast it's way above your head just move on i
Corey
57:18
i think he was talking to me but i
Corey
57:24
i've said i said this on cbc i'm going to give a shorter version of it fdr appointed joe kennedy jfk's dad to be the first chair of the securities and exchange commission in the the united states joe kennedy was well known as one of the biggest offenders on wall street but yeah
Corey
57:40
yeah hire a cook crook to catch a crook it's the same as with hacking where you have like white hat hackers people yeah sure hackers who then try to hack into your system and usually they started as black hat hackers people who hacked into systems illegally ah
Corey
57:52
that's how you test for these things that's how you run your things through the filter the last thing you want are more voices around the table that are the exact same as yours carter viable political attack by by the Wild Rose, admirable
Zain
58:03
admirable position by the NDP. Where do you stand on this?
Carter
58:07
I think, you know, I'm going to refine my position from TV last week and say, I'm not sure there was so much upside on the government side that they should have done this because there was some downside. This had more impact on the negative side than most of the opposition's attacks. Having said that, we are now the
Carter
58:29
the better part of a week away from this story of having broken and it's done right
Carter
58:33
right it's it's over and there's no sustaining there's nothing to sustain it and and this is where you can make these kind of one-off mistakes and you can do okay with them uh and the ndp have made a bunch of one-off mistakes and because they haven't yet formed pattern they seem to be doing just fine a
Corey
58:50
a one-off mistake core you want to add something well to that point uh the reason why this one may have not been worth it is because it plays to a concern people have about the ndp right their coziness with organized labor the other one like the office does that's not a concern that people carry throughout them for the ndp right now dirty tricks is just monopolized by the pc still to this point in the future maybe that kind of attack would seem more valid and more legitimate but come
Corey
59:16
come on i mean do
Corey
59:18
do have we totally forgotten the the last 40 years of PC
Zain
59:22
Today's March 14th. In one month from today, the provincial budget will drop. Let's quickly have a quick conversation about if you're the NDP right now, one month out, what are you doing to set the groundwork for your budget that's coming in 30 days? Carter, I'll start with you first.
Carter
59:38
Well, the very first thing is to define expectations on the size of the big number. And the big number is your deficit or your surplus. And this time it's going to be a deficit do
Zain
59:47
do you start saying what that number is right now well i don't understand why
Carter
59:51
why joe cc's being so timid about this yeah um you
Carter
59:54
you know he was asked if it would be 10.4 billion he gave numbers at the latest at the third quarter update and basically it was it will be
Carter
1:00:03
four billion dollars larger than it was i think four or five billion dollars larger than it was before and the reporters then added the two numbers together and said will it be two will Will it be $5.4 billion? $10.4, yeah. I'm sorry, $10.4 billion. Right. And CZ's like, maybe.
Carter
1:00:19
maybe. You know, like, it was embarrassing. Say the number. This isn't a time for political games. This is a time when you say, we
Carter
1:00:26
we are facing a $10.4 billion deficit. These are the reasons why. This is what we're going to do to mitigate that deficit. And then you come in at $9.3 billion because you're
Carter
1:00:38
And that's when you've saved the day.
Carter
1:00:41
because now you're better than what the projection was.
Corey
1:00:44
talk to me about the number. Yeah, I think Stephen almost stole my point at the end. I don't really have a problem with him kind of getting in people's minds a bidding game of is it north of 10.4 if it comes in south by enough that people can say is a materially different number. Like if it's 9.9 or less, huge win for the government. They've got us all expecting a larger than $10 billion deficit. I don't know. If it turns out that it's 10.4 though, I will say this. Guys, what were you doing with the expectation game? because all you did then was sort of like just make it less of a blow and that it came out longer, right? I think that you would probably have benefited
Corey
1:01:21
benefited from saying things like, well, you know, right now it looks like it's going to be, if it turns out to be 10.4, I'm talking. Sure.
Corey
1:01:27
Looks like it could be north of 13. We're still trying to figure some things out. There are ways that we can kind of spread out. You know, start hinting that you are working hard to keep it lower. And then when you actually get it lower than the number that's been floated, And everyone's like, I guess they did. They did their job. They did a good job. But if you're sort of floating 10.4 and it's 10.4, well, God forbid it's more. Yeah.
Carter
1:01:48
could be. I mean, things
Corey
1:01:49
things aren't good. Then there's trouble. Then there's trouble. I don't think we can judge Joe Sisi's actions on this, is my point, until after the budget.
Zain
1:01:56
Softening the ground with the numbers, one. Carter, do you have a second point on what the province should do on the budget before we wrap up this segment?
Carter
1:02:04
Oh, man. Man, you know, the budget's such a mess because we rely, you know, Ralph Klein put us in a position where we rely on resource revenues. Let this be a cautionary tale to all those around the world who rely on resource revenues. When
Carter
1:02:16
When you put all of your eggs in the resource basket, occasionally the resource basket springs a lake, or in this particular case, the bottom falls right out. And when that happens, you're screwed. And now we're screwed. We were screwed.
Carter
1:02:29
We've been screwed. Keep in mind, we've run deficits for, I believe this will be the ninth straight year. That is, seven of those were boom years. But because we didn't have a natural gas boom, we only had an oil boom, the natural gas revenues were what floated us. And if you're not prepared to learn those lessons, I just don't know how you can balance a budget.
Zain
1:02:54
Corey, did you want to add any other point outside of softening the ground with the number? Well, only that
Corey
1:02:59
we are in a situation where it's going to be painful to fix it. And Albertans are ultimately going to have to pay for what they use, which is a novel thought after 20 years of not doing that. I understand. But it's going to have to happen. Unfortunately for the NDP, it's probably going to have to happen under their watch. And the voters being trained to get things for free for the past 10 years, 15, 20 years are going to react to that. Now, hopefully there's enough that say that
Corey
1:03:26
that was a serious choice that they can be reelected, but it's going to be a tightrope walk for the next couple of years. Oil will come back, maybe, probably, but when oil comes back, I just hope that we don't think everything's good forever.
Zain
1:03:40
Let's move it on to our last segment. Our last segment, our over, under, our in or out, and our lightning round. Guys, are you ready? So ready. Here we go. Yes or no, Stephen Carter, Donald Trump wins Florida on Tuesday. Yes. Corey? Corey?
Zain
1:03:53
I think so, yeah.
Zain
1:03:54
Are you in or out this week on Rachel Notley, Stephen Carter?
Zain
1:03:58
I'm in. I still think she's doing a good job. Corey, do I know your answer already? Oh, you know my answer.
Zain
1:04:06
Tuesday night, is Marco Rubio, after Tuesday night, is Marco Rubio still a candidate for the GOP nomination? Corey?
Zain
1:04:14
Maybe if you'd ask me after Wednesday night.
Corey
1:04:17
Great. These are going well. Yeah, no, I think he's going to drop out if he loses Florida. I think
Carter
1:04:21
think he drops out Tuesday night.
Corey
1:04:24
I think he waits till Wednesday.
Zain
1:04:25
GOP on Tuesday night, Super Tuesday number three. Who wins the most states, Stephen Carter, for the GOP? Donald Trump. Corey?
Corey
1:04:35
I just don't have line of sight on that. I refuse to make a commitment.
Corey
1:04:39
Who wins the most delegates for the GOP, Carter?
Carter
1:04:41
The most delegates will be Trump, but it will not be a majority of delegates.
Corey
1:04:45
You want to take a can or do you? No. Look, I don't know. I mean, actually, even my Florida one, I kind of feel like hedging on. Trump has had one of the most insane weeks I've ever seen in politics, which we didn't even talk about.
Zain
1:04:56
haven't. We didn't talk about the riots. Yes or no. Give me this one on Bernie. Yes or no. He takes Illinois on Tuesday night.
Carter
1:05:06
Carter. I agree with Corey because Bernie is no longer in my. Now he's leading
Zain
1:05:09
leading in the polls. He's
Carter
1:05:11
He's no longer in my primary. I'm scared
Corey
1:05:12
of the Hillary Clinton voters.
Zain
1:05:13
voters. This this past week, a seven out of 10 over under on seven out of 10. Justin Trudeau's performance state visit state dinner in the United States. it's carter over
Carter
1:05:20
over it was nine it
Zain
1:05:23
was really good yeah
Zain
1:05:24
yeah it was over yes
Zain
1:05:25
yes or no do we have a brokered convention for the gop cory i
Zain
1:05:30
think yes at this point wow carter ah
Carter
1:05:33
ah you're not gonna give us till wednesday hey i'm not no right now yes
Zain
1:05:37
yes brokered yes on both final question trump
Zain
1:05:41
trump v clinton is Is that what it's going to be,
Corey
1:05:47
Really? You know what?
Corey
1:05:49
There's enough uncertainty. I'm going to say no. He hedges
Carter
1:05:52
hedges again. Carter, lay it on us.
Carter
1:05:55
I don't know. Yes, it will be Trump versus Clinton, I believe, because I think actually the Brokered Convention will fail. Here's
Zain
1:06:03
Here's the last question I have for you, Carter. What's the one thing you're looking forward to in the next week? You have Super Tuesday number three tomorrow. Mauro, what's the one indicator metric that you're excited about and looking forward to?
Carter
1:06:14
I'm going to say – damn
Carter
1:06:16
damn it, Zane. I don't want to answer what I'm looking forward to because this makes me sound like an ass. But I'm actually – I'm anticipating something horrible at a Trump rally in the next seven to ten days. And I don't want to sound like I'm looking forward to it. I'm not. I just think that it's the natural progression of what's going to happen.
Corey
1:06:37
Fantastic point. I like that. Corey? Yeah. Um, I think that tomorrow is going to tell us a lot. If Donald Trump at the end of this manages to pull out, you know, most of those states, then I revise all my previous answers. Trump's going to be the guy, it's going to happen and all that. But I just, this has been a weird week. And I have a hard time believing that his rallies being shut down, some of his remarks in the wake of that, that that's not going to have at least a bit of an impact. and you combine that with some strategic voting some people who are really scared about Trump I
Corey
1:07:10
also think Trump's campaign could be all over in butt name tomorrow as well if he loses everything
Zain
1:07:16
We'll leave it there, a lot to talk about That's episode 568 of The Strategist My name is Zane Velgey, with me as always Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time