Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 569. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? I feel a little out of place. This has been
Carter
0:12
I don't know what to
Corey
0:14
to do anymore. I'm not sure I remember what happens next. You make a bad pun and I say something smart and Carter says something simple. I had to write your guys'
Zain
0:24
I couldn't even remember. It's been way too long and there's only one person to blame, Carter. It's Corey. It's Corey Hogan this time,
Carter
0:30
ladies and gentlemen. Well, hold on.
Corey
0:32
Corey Hogan. Sorry, Hogan. Zane Velji goes, leaves the country for two weeks, and I go for three days to Ottawa, and it's my fault that recording was delayed. Yes.
Carter
0:40
Yes. I have a short memory. Yeah,
Corey
0:41
Yeah, exactly. That's what we call a recency bias. What have you not
Zain
0:44
not done for me recently, Corey? And you have left, abandoned us, and we've missed some crucial moments in Canadian and American politics, Carter. Well,
Carter
0:53
Well, you know what? Let's make up for it. Let's record every day this week.
Zain
0:58
We're not going to do that. We are not going to do that. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm leaving again. Oh, back to being Mel G's fault. Oh, it's Zane's fault
Zain
1:04
Listen, there's a lot going on. I mean, most of it's dated at this point, but we've got a ton to talk about. So let's get right into it. Our first segment, election night in Saskatchewan.
Zain
1:15
Okay, on to our next segment. Our next segment.
Zain
1:18
I mean, we gave
Corey
1:19
gave it all to do what it deserved. The poll was 10 minutes ago, so I'm sure it's been called already. Let's just move on. Brad
Carter
1:24
Brad Wall, your next premier of Saskatchewan.
Zain
1:26
Saskatchewan. Let's go. Great. Perfect. We're done with that. our next segment stifle the tower of trump guys oh is it over that's my first question have the wheels yeah
Zain
1:38
yeah well hold on let me let me expand the question broader and then narrow just
Zain
1:43
101 on moderation whiplash the way you pull me through these trump segments oh my god he's got it he can't win he's got it he can't win no hold on hold on hold on there's a legitimate point to be made and i'm going to try to make it right now that the wheels on the donald trump campaign are starting to fall off there's multiple anti-trump movements going on right now that are looking at trying
Zain
2:03
trying to have a contested election these are now institutional these are now formed these are now active and have money the the landscape has changed quite significantly since we last talked about this so
Corey
2:15
so i'll go to you he's picked up a whole lot more delegates here cory
Zain
2:17
cory have are the wheels starting to fall off yes or no yeah
Corey
2:20
yeah actually honestly it does sort of look like you know what you kind
Corey
2:25
this is why i call it never mind yes go ahead i'll let you speak you always do this to us so you do it the day before we've got like a super tuesday you want
Zain
2:32
want to record tomorrow or do you want to be away for five more days yeah you know what i
Corey
2:36
i just think um
Corey
2:38
i think now we're in the situation where we have to prognosticate tomorrow but you do not have to it does not look good for him in wisconsin and i think maybe that could be the start of a very bad slide for him the fact is with the republican system being as it is with winner takes all and whatnot yeah
Corey
2:55
maybe but on the other hand how many days have we sat here and said yeah maybe and you know what he's even had some bad days i think the problem for him is less even his primaries because let's face it he's still going to win quite a few as they go into the northeast corridor here or or at least he's well positioned to i think the problem is that he can't he can't actually back it up so you heard about louisiana where he won the primary and he's not going to have the the most delegates because he couldn't get his act together at the convention that followed so
Corey
3:25
i think what we're seeing is some of the weaknesses of trump becoming very apparent i
Zain
3:30
i don't think many people know about that and and what that could lead to do you mind for a second core explaining what that looks like in terms of when you say backing it up just just on a very high level yeah
Corey
3:39
yeah well and i think it's actually uh almost a segue into what happened last weekend and nevada too between uh
Corey
3:48
bernie sanders and hillary clinton's camps where even though hillary clinton won nevada on whatever
Corey
3:55
whatever tuesday that was whatever we were calling that tuesday the seventh probably
Corey
3:59
who knows um actually
Corey
4:01
actually it was a saturday i seem to recall so even though he uh he lost the
Corey
4:07
the number of delegates elected because his supporters are so much more enthusiastic they They actually showed up at the county-level conventions. He's going to have the most people who are at the state convention, which means he gets to pick a few more delegates. He's likely moved Nevada into an effective tie. He may even, at the end of the day, win Nevada depending on how things go. So that's because he had the organization to back it up. He didn't just leave town and walk out of town.
Corey
4:33
Hillary Clinton, maybe she should have and maybe it was smart to because let's face it. She's quite far ahead and she's probably not going to be in a situation where she's right down to the wire. Right.
Corey
4:41
But Donald Trump has notoriously little organization. And some of these Republican states, they all have very different rules. This is something I've touched on a lot of times. Some of them are electing the delegates right there on the ballot or some basic form of that. Some of them are essentially just assigned. But some of them, like in Louisiana, are chosen at a later date. So who's the actual delegate once you've got those spots? And Donald Trump could not fill all of his delegate spots. he was not able to pack it up after the primary and so ted cruz i believe ended up winning louisiana after donald trump won louisiana by a fair bit so i this is going to be a problem for him going forward and i think those republican states that do have those kind of rules that allow you to select the candidates after the fact through different means even if they're bound to trump on the first ballot i don't know how many people think this is just going one ballot now It
Corey
5:37
It could be his vote collapses after the first ballot at a contested convention. Stephen
Zain
5:43
Stephen Carter, we'll let you get in here. Are the wheels falling off on the Trump campaign? Yeah,
Carter
5:46
Yeah, they are. But Corey's pointed out the wheels weren't always there.
Carter
5:51
It was a giant bubble. It's been make-believe almost from the beginning. Because his campaign isn't a campaign as we're used to seeing them.
Zain
6:03
that a little bit more just so we're all on the same page. Any
Carter
6:06
Any campaign that we would construct, we would have a ground game and air game, right?
Carter
6:11
right? So you'd build ground construction of polling captains or people who are responsible for getting out the vote or managing a specific process.
Carter
6:19
process. So we're going to have a delegated leadership convention in the PC party. We all know how to manage delegated conventions, right? First, you focus on getting the delegates selected in each. each,
Carter
6:32
sorry, my microphone fell apart there, in each of the ridings, and then you'd move along until you get to the convention, then you'd
Carter
6:39
you'd work on moving your delegates.
Carter
6:41
All of that is ground game. And then you'd work on your messaging structure. How do you get into the media? How do you get these macro messages out into the zeitgeist? That's air game.
Carter
6:52
Trump excels at air game. And he's done some stuff that we, as normal politicians, we think what
Carter
6:58
Trump just did there is fatal, right? And I don't know how many times you've asked us this question. Is it all over for Trump? And it should have been.
Carter
7:07
Something different happened last week.
Carter
7:09
Something different happened last week because it wasn't that he did something ridiculously stupid. That's what he does. He does something ridiculously stupid, but
Carter
7:17
He backtracked. He changed his position. He changed his position. He put out clarifying statements. He put out four clarifying statements in the space 24 hours you
Corey
7:25
you know you've really nailed your first clarifying statement
Corey
7:29
wait he's not used to doing them he's
Carter
7:31
he's never done that before now he's changed his positions before but even when he changed his positions he's been steadfast in saying i didn't change my positions we
Corey
7:39
we didn't do anything yeah we were always at war with eurasia east asia was always our ally yeah yeah he uh you know your point about uh the air game and the ground game is a good one i i also think another way to look at it is almost the waves in the surfboard right and so your air game's the wave machine you get that wave the surfboard is what rides it and you need a ground game if you're going to be able to bring it in and it's looking right now what this looked for a while like this might be the campaign that shatters the idea ground game matters trump has spent so little money relative the other guys it's been all earned media it's been all the airwaves yeah but now it's it's coming down to it and it doesn't necessarily look like he's going to have the pieces in place carter
Zain
8:19
carter i'm going to to you on this you know let's get into the strategy a bit let's
Zain
8:24
let's say you have a position right now in the trump campaign let's just say you accept it because there's a because i'm
Carter
8:28
i'm not bag full of cash bag full of cash okay
Carter
8:31
okay great so we're on the
Zain
8:31
the same page perfect the premise is accepted by stephen carter you're working on the campaign you know this is your current reality how do you get trump through this what is your first piece of advice to the campaign seeing what What happened this week with his backtrack on, you know, women getting abortions and they should be penalized, his backtrack on his campaign manager, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What
Carter
8:55
What if I pose the following hypothesis?
Carter
8:57
The wheels started to come off or the mistakes started getting made when he started to become more of a respectable candidate.
Carter
9:05
He wanted to start to – he's starting to reposition himself in the last couple of weeks to be the guy who's going to be the nominee. You've seen kind of a shedding of some of the outrageous statements. If I was working with him right now, I'd go back home, go
Carter
9:20
go back to where he needs to be, where he feels the most comfortable. I'd build the wall again. I'd go after Hispanics. I'd go, you know.
Zain
9:28
You want to go after Muslims? I'm going after Muslims, Zane. That's fine. I'm right here as a target. I'd
Carter
9:32
I'd feel bad about it, but I'd go for it because that's where his base is. And at this particular moment, you have to go back and motivate your base. Now, that sounds horrible. But this is not something that I'm saying just because I like that particular move for this particular situation. This is the generic move that we make when we run into trouble. Always go home.
Carter
9:53
Always go back to your base. Always go back to where you're the most comfortable because that's where you need to go when you're in the shit.
Corey
10:00
Yeah, I think in this case you can't go home. Home's gone. Home was when there was a much more crowded Republican field and you could get away with that shit. And home was when the general election was much further away. way but all of the polls coming out that showed how badly he's being killed in swing states that's a reality and he needs to start to pivot if he's going to you know he doesn't want to just become the republican nominee he wants to be the president so
Corey
10:22
so are you saying he has to continue down the path of being more
Zain
10:26
more of a mainstream candidate than he was before no i i think that he has
Corey
10:31
donald trump it was described i think it was malcolm gladwell who who was writing about out trump and saying like trump is like the perfect bully right he looks at someone he immediately picks them apart and says the thing that's the meanest that sticks the hardest yeah right so you know like uh marco right little marco you know not up for lightweight what a dummy uh or cruz lion ted right just an unlikable guy jeb bush no energy you know some of these the
Corey
10:59
the people in the world master of branding the people in the world who are the best at insults are not the people who throw the meanest insults they're the ones who throw it's like the episode of seinfeld where elaine gets broken up with by the guy who's like who's a bad breaker rapper that's
Corey
11:15
she breaks up with him and he's like yeah fine whatever big head and
Corey
11:20
then the rest of the episode is her like becoming obsessed with the notion that her head is big i mean so this is donald trump's brand this is what he's very good at i should say it's not necessarily his brand but it's his superpower he needs to turn that on cruz in a big way and i think that what he needs to do is not so much do the crazy statements thing although there's a place for some he needs to really highlight the other guy you know ted cruz is yeah
Corey
11:45
yeah i mean he's a different kind of monster it's like you know surviving the zombie apocalypse and then there's ted cruz that's the worst thing i could think of actually so uh he needs to really focus on cruz and his His qualities and the reasons why it would be a huge mistake to
Corey
12:03
to do an anything but Trump into a guy who is potentially worse. So my basic feeling about Cruz is that on any given day, Cruz is actually a more reprehensible human being. But Donald Trump has no floor, and that's what makes him scarier. Carter,
Zain
12:19
Carter, is that a viable strategy? Can a crazy person tell the electorate that the other person is also crazy? Crazy?
Zain
12:27
Crazy knows crazy. It clearly does. I'm not buying
Carter
12:30
buying necessarily what Corey's selling. My thinking is different, but
Carter
12:38
but I guess in some regards the same. I mean, this idea of kind of going back and trying
Carter
12:45
trying to rebrand your opponent is interesting, going after Cruz, but he's done that. He's got that positioning. I think that the problem that Trump is experiencing right now is
Carter
12:58
the old Trump would never apologize. This Trump did. We had this conversation. We had this conversation about whether you should apologize or not apologize and you make
Zain
13:06
make a mistake. We said to double down,
Carter
13:07
down, yeah, yeah. And Corey and I both said double down. After
Zain
13:10
After extensive conversation. About how wrong
Carter
13:12
wrong it was to double down. I remember that, yeah.
Carter
13:14
And this is the time where he has to start. He has to return to his base of doubling down on lunacy and forget about the fact that he was going to be the de facto nominee. He still can win.
Carter
13:27
He's still the most likely to win. But if it gets to a second ballot and he's less than five percent, more than five points down, none.
Zain
13:34
none. You just you just use the term forget the fact can is Donald Trump in a position where he can forget the fact that after this nomination, he needs to be a candidate and win a general election. How does he do both of these things, Stephen, yet still remain a viable candidate in the general this
Carter
13:50
this year for me? So this is our bias. So here comes our Canadian bias. OK, lay it on me.
Carter
13:56
I don't understand this at all.
Carter
13:58
This does not make any sense to me. I'm the right wing. What did you call us? What did you call us on the panel? Right
Carter
14:05
yeah. So I'm the right-wing fanatic. I'm the most of the right-wing fanatics.
Carter
14:09
And I don't get Trump, right? So it is so far from my personal experience, so far from my personal values, I don't get there.
Carter
14:19
But it's working there,
Carter
14:21
It's working there, so it's hard for me to put into words what he needs to do to get back into the general because I think it's filled with such lunacy. But when you've got—it's
Carter
14:32
got—it's obviously working. he's got unbelievably high negatives now for me i would have chosen groups not to pick on right he's never picked on blacks for example right
Carter
14:42
right not yet and
Carter
14:43
and he never will i don't think i
Carter
14:45
i don't i think that all of the all the biases that he's got are out yeah
Carter
14:50
picking on women picking on hispanics picking on muslims one
Carter
14:53
one of them was too far and i think it was women women but
Carter
14:57
well it was women obviously um he
Carter
15:00
he he needed his path through like
Carter
15:03
like the bully that cory says that he is his path through was to pick on all the other groups except enough people that they all felt they were on his side that
Carter
15:12
that was his election strategy on in the general as
Carter
15:15
as well as the nomination cory what do you think well
Corey
15:18
well you know the thing about trump that i find fascinating is is that this was the bridge too far, right? Yeah. I mean, just
Corey
15:26
just because, let's detour for a second. Basically, he said women should be punished if they break the law and have an abortion. Right. So his great crime, and don't get me wrong, it's a bad position, it's a stupid position, but if you're a Republican and you believe it's a crime, why is the bridge too far that you should be punished for this crime, right? I mean, that to me is almost surreal, real and it sort of speaks to the double think that people hold about the issue of abortion but let's not detour there too much because that could be a whole thing you
Corey
15:57
know we always talk about donald trump's previous uh attacks on cruz but i think that it's worth noting those attacks have been largely defensive uh like it or not right uh he's gone out and he said he's lying about me fair point cruz is lying about me he's attacking my wife that's why i'm attacking his right they have in a way been defensive he has not actually started to pick out things that are specific uh to cruz that are not necessarily in reaction to something cruz said about him i would i for one would be fascinated to see what
Corey
16:30
what a guy like trump could find about cruz that we'd all be laughing about the next court
Zain
16:34
court i want to go back to you for a second here i agree with your your message about ted cruz is donald trump the right messenger for it maybe
Corey
16:43
maybe i just want to see it because they'll both go down in flames sure but i
Zain
16:46
i think there's a legitimate question to say is is this something meant for someone on the outside looking in that might be you know trump supportive look cruz
Corey
16:56
cruz is unlikable right until very recently he didn't have a single one of his colleagues in the senate back at him donald
Corey
17:02
donald trump is a monster but he has charisma i actually think that contrast works in donald trump's favor and he just needs to start playing on that contrast of it interesting
Zain
17:13
interesting carter you're typing away i don't know exactly what you're writing probably i'm just
Carter
17:16
just making sure that we're all up to date on the saskatchewan by uh election oh
Carter
17:20
oh good and and where are we at i'd like to point out that the strategists called the election just moments before ctv oh wow unbelievable
Corey
17:28
love this kind of live election very fulsome
Zain
17:31
fulsome update very good very good yeah carter question back at you yeah you're once again on the trump campaign How are you? Yeah, I'm giving you this job. I am a whore. I'm giving you this job. I'm giving you another bag of cash, okay? Okay. This time, your whole goal is to direct a strategy for a delegated convention. Number one, do you have an existing strategy in the bag if you are Trump? And number two, what are you doing to kind of effectively
Zain
17:56
effectively not downplay, but also be very cognizant that you may need to use it going forward? If
Carter
18:01
If I'm the campaign strategist for Trump, and I've lived this long because I haven't I killed myself.
Carter
18:08
very— And you haven't been
Carter
18:09
And I haven't been arrested. I haven't been arrested yet. But, I mean, he hasn't gone to trial, though, so he's innocent until proven guilty.
Carter
18:17
That's a good point.
Carter
18:17
Thank you. Thank you, Carter. It's an alleged— These campaign
Carter
18:20
managers I have, they're
Carter
18:22
dealers. Never mind. Go ahead.
Carter
18:24
They're rapists. Okay. I would have a team of people. This team of people would be more important than managing the client or the candidate at this stage. How are we going to get delegates on the second ballot? Like, let's imagine that it goes— That's the question. Is that your thesis statement, effectively?
Carter
18:41
No, absolutely. Okay. So let's assume that he's not going to win on the first, okay? Right,
Zain
18:44
Right, if he doesn't have
Carter
18:45
have 1,237, yeah. Yeah. Well, let's say that we're within 75, okay?
Carter
18:52
How am I going to hold my group that I've got, that got me to 1,150 or whatever that number would be? And then how am I going to find those 75 other delegates on the second ballot? Because if it goes to a third ballot, we
Carter
19:05
we are now entering gong show, shit show stage. And there is almost no way that Trump can win, which sounds ridiculous because he's the leader going in. But there's a certain momentum. There's a certain thing
Carter
19:17
thing that happens with the leader. And so this is what I learned on the on the on our on the Alison Redford leadership campaign. Right.
Carter
19:25
If Gary Marr can't win on the first ballot on the you know, on the first ballot of the second round of voting, he won't win. because he's the frontrunner and it's easy to vote for the frontrunner.
Carter
19:36
But if you're not voting for the frontrunner, then you're always going to vote for someone else. Yeah.
Carter
19:40
Okay, so these delegates aren't voting for Trump.
Carter
19:44
By the time they get to the convention, all of this shit will have accumulated with Trump. He will have the most baggage. He will be the frontrunner going into a convention. You never want to be in that type of situation where you're wearing that kind of weight, that type of lead jacket that is pulling you down.
Carter
20:02
He will not get it unless he gets it on the second ballot. So he has to focus on finding those delegations that will move quickly. There's already talk
Carter
20:12
of people, I think it's South Carolina, moving away from him after the first ballot. That kind of stuff is deadly. He needs to have a team that is nipping it in the bud. He needs to have the
Carter
20:24
the ground game. Corey and I were talking about before. you got to have that ground game of every single delegate needs to you need to know their names you need to know their telephone numbers you need to know what they want for christmas next year because you're going to make sure it's there or at least they believe that it's coming to them by the time you get to that convention cory what's the strategy
Corey
20:42
strategy for trump you need to know who they trust and you need to start building out those things to be like okay on this ballot this is who's going to be the contact person and this is how we're going to do it look donald trump does He does have an advantage the other guys don't have, and that is his wealth and his personal wealth that exists outside the campaign orbit and the fact that there are very few laws around the idea of delegates
Corey
21:05
delegates and supporting delegates, right? So what
Corey
21:10
what you have is a man who has a 58-bedroom mansion in Florida, and you have a month between the last convention or the last primary and the RNC convention. That gives you a chance to run almost 2,000 people through that mansion if you want to fly them down, talk to them, twist their arms, have relatively private dinners with them, just a dozen people for lunch, a dozen people for dinner, a dozen people, so on.
Corey
21:36
I think he's going to have to prove he's the consummate networker if he wants to win this thing if he finds himself more than a couple hundred votes back. I stand by my statement last time, which is if he's within a couple hundred votes, he'll
Corey
21:47
he'll just make a deal with Kasich or Rubio or somebody and it will just get done. Or somebody else will make that deal and there's no point to the deal Trump would make. The
Zain
21:56
strategy. I like it. Very, very nice. Corey, I'm going back to you on this one. Tell me about what you think the
Zain
22:04
the Republican institution needs to do right now, if anything. Are they thinking about potentially abandoning hopes for the White House so that they can save the House, the Senate, and Congress? What should their mindset be right now if you were trying to direct that strategy from the top?
Corey
22:23
don't know. I kind of feel like they're burning down their house to keep it from flooding right now. Supporting Cruz is not a way that they're going to be more electable in the mainstream. And I will say about Cruz, again, you know, I talked about Trump and his floor is so low, but
Corey
22:38
but his ceiling is actually closer to the American public.
Corey
22:42
I think that Trump could surprise us. I don't think Cruz is going to surprise us. He's just going to be an angry right-wing candidate who's a good debater, who nobody's going to like. And Hillary Clinton, or on a very long shot, Bernie Sanders will absolutely wipe the floor with him. There
Carter
22:58
There is no long shot Bernie Sanders.
Corey
23:00
We'll get to it. We'll get to it. a path to victory for
Corey
23:04
for ted cruz under almost any scenario and i think he will be as much or more of a drag on the down ticket as donald trump when all said and done carter
Zain
23:12
carter institutional strategy of the gop do they need to do
Zain
23:16
do they need to absolutely stop trump do they do they have to stop both trump and cruz where where's their mind start right now and if you were directing that strategy to save what is your institution what
Zain
23:27
what are you saying right now or what are you trying to think or do the
Carter
23:32
problem that they have is that jumping out of trump and into into cruise as is the frying pan to the fire there is an awful lot of arguments that say that cruise is actually worse than trump in
Carter
23:44
in terms of most things that americans care about certainly
Carter
23:48
certainly most things that canadians care about our
Carter
23:52
our brother cruise who we shipped to the u.s uh brother you know well no Oh, born in Calgary? Didn't he grow up in your neighborhood, Zane? Yeah, I grew up with you. Yeah, pretty close. Anyways, we threw him out and he went to the U.S. because his values didn't align with ours.
Zain
24:07
Aligned with mine. I mean, we were brothers.
Carter
24:11
we don't know him as well. And when I say we, I mean, I don't think the American people know Ted Cruz as well as they now know Donald Trump. Because the media has these cycles, right, where they focus on one group and then they focus on the next. You see it time and time again in an election. One group will get torn apart, then the next party will get torn apart, and then the next party will get torn apart. That's the nature of the media cycles. They have cycles. And the cycle is against Trump right now.
Carter
24:36
And I don't know when the cycle goes against Cruz, but I'm not sure that it's going to be fast enough. So the problem
Corey
24:41
problem with the enemy of my enemy is my friend is when your enemy is over, you kind of remember the guy, you hate him, and he's your enemy too. And I do think the Republican establishment,
Corey
24:52
even though it was always begrudging to come and support Cruz like this, is ultimately going to get to a point where they they are going to start to question whether this was even the move and and by the way i think it was the move because i do think trump at the end of the day because of his ability to go into much darker places is more of a existential threat to democracy and civility than cruz is but when you talk about an existential threat to the republican party cruz
Corey
25:18
cruz might be as bad or worse so i think that's going to be interesting to see more
Zain
25:23
more to to come we'll leave the trump conversation there okay i want to switch gears just a little bit let's talk about sanders tomorrow is a real election night let's let's forget about saskatchewan for a second carter i know it's enticing you tomorrow's wisconsin and i just want to read just a quick text message exchange just maybe if you don't know us that well you can just assume who each one of these actors are hey guys if sanders wins wisconsin by seven or more i think he can win the nomination no way no just no hey i'm just being led by the numbers
Zain
25:53
Corey, that was you. Yeah,
Corey
25:54
Yeah, I was the one who said I think that Sanders can – So tell – go
Corey
25:59
Let's unpack this. Are
Zain
26:00
Are you going to criticize me and then make
Corey
26:01
make your point? Yeah, I'm definitely going to criticize you. You sent a tweet that I assume you did to rile me up because if you believed in it, you're an idiot. And the tweet was fundamentally somebody saying out there, well, Sanders needs to win 57% of the delegates going forward. And if he needs to – if he wants to move that number to 56, he needs to win Wisconsin by 48 points.
Corey
26:22
Well, that's a great point, except to win the nomination, he just needs to win with 57% of the delegates. That's what that percent reference is. So let's actually look at what's happened in the past couple of weeks here. And it is, well, everybody expected that Sanders was going to do well in these caucus states in the Northwest. They did not expect him to do this well. And that 57% number is kind of funny because it was like 59%, or pretty close to it not too long ago. go it is moving down and sanders is making some pretty incredible ground up now i want to be clear
Corey
26:54
it is much more likely that hillary clinton will win the nomination we caught it a long shot two minutes ago that's fine i'll let you go ahead if
Corey
27:01
if sanders manages to outperform in wisconsin where i believe so in the polls i think he's up by like four or five on the average i think if it's seven or eight at the end of the day going into the northeast all of those are Vesela primaries,
Corey
27:17
primaries, as they're called, you know, along the train line there.
Corey
27:22
The window, which I had closed, I think I'd have to open a crack. Let's
Zain
27:27
All right. So Corey thinks Bernie Sanders will win by 46 points tomorrow night. Stephen Carter.
Corey
27:34
are six million people in Wisconsin.
Corey
27:36
Here we go. We have California and we have New York coming up to vote, not counting many other very populous states. there are tens and tens and tens and tens of millions of people yet to vote. Let's
Zain
27:48
Let's not put it all on Wisconsin. You know that episode about doubling down?
Zain
27:52
Cuts Corey Hogan for you right there. Doubling down constantly. Stephen Carter, is there a pathway? The answer I think we know. But we've discussed the momentum delegate count thing constantly. Just give me your synopsis on Bernie Sanders as we sit here today.
Carter
28:08
you haven't asked me if I was a strategist for Sanders. I
Zain
28:10
I haven't. I'm going
Carter
28:11
going to answer the question as though I was a strategist for sure because why not go to all the extremes?
Carter
28:19
Sanders lives every day, right? Every time there's another primary, he lives to see the next day because he's not getting annihilated. He's not getting destroyed. Correct, yes. So
Zain
28:30
So tomorrow, Corey is
Carter
28:32
is going to be all excited because tomorrow, Sanders is going to win by two or three points. No, I won't.
Carter
28:38
Yeah, you are. What are you talking about? Very
Carter
28:39
Very excited. it. Okay, 7%. Your note was 7%. If he goes over 7%, there's a path.
Carter
28:45
Here's what the path is. He lives until April the 9th, which is the next one. And then he goes to April the 19th, which is the next really kind of big one, which is New York. And then he'll probably be close enough in New York to survive until what did you call it? The train line? Yeah, the corridor there.
Carter
29:04
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island. Those ones are going to... he's going to he'll
Carter
29:10
he'll live to that day but the question that i have is how does he live through
Carter
29:14
what is essentially a dull month of may okay
Carter
29:17
okay may is is very minimal uh delegates available yeah
Carter
29:22
and then all of a sudden we get to june the 5th or i'm sorry june the 7th june
Carter
29:27
june 7th all hell breaks loose because it's california and new jersey and a few smaller states and no one gives a shit about
Carter
29:33
california is the big one everybody's going to talk about and everybody's going to be all excited about it, but it won't matter by then, right? Hillary Clinton would need to lose by
Carter
29:42
by like 10 points if this is actually going to happen.
Carter
29:46
And it's not going to happen. Her command of
Carter
29:49
of the superdelegates is just unbelievable.
Carter
29:55
unbelievable. And they're not going anywhere. And you know why they're not going to go anywhere? Because they believe that they can get more readily elected under a Hillary Clinton ticket than they can with a Bernie Sanders ticket. The same reason that the Republicans are scared shitless of Trump is
Carter
30:09
the same reason that the Democrats are scared shitless of Bernie Sanders. Not his ideology, but the reality. It's going to make it harder on the down ticket races.
Zain
30:18
Corey, I was just looking at you the whole time Carter was speaking. You're like shaking your head. You're smiling. You're blinking. You're just like all over the place. Yeah,
Corey
30:25
Yeah, I'm doing normal human things. No, no. Smiling, blinking, shaking heads, right? Look, here's the reality. Such a prick.
Corey
30:34
here's the reality of the situation it's
Corey
30:37
it's long odds but he's got a seat at the table he's got a chip he's still playing and we have a number of things that are coming up that actually could play in his favor we still don't know what the heck's going to happen out of this fbi investigation of the email service let's assume it's not like crucially horrible to the campaign and hillary clinton doesn't have to drop out because i don't think that's realistic well let's just say it damages her enough for him to pick up two or three points well all of a sudden that 57 percent looks a little bit more in in within you know grasp right let's say as we start to roll up all of these caucus states that have come by and passed and all of these primaries where they're picking the delegates after sanders starts to do really well there and he's starting to get a few more on the margins right now i don't know that superdelegates will credit him for that like if If he wins the pledge delegates by out-organizing, I think the superdelegates will say, I can ignore those. But he's
Corey
31:32
he's going to be able to put together a few good news stories through that dull month of May, right? And it's more likely than not, Hillary Clinton's going to have to deal with some static during that dull month of May. And at the end of that dull month of May, as you've mentioned, there is a pretty big prize that's there. So my point about the Wisconsin and the Seven and what comes later in New York and whatnot, not the
Corey
31:55
reason why i think if he wins wisconsin by seven he
Corey
31:59
he might be in it is because every time bernie sanders has done pretty well the next major contest that's in a content or in a state where hillary clinton can conceivably do well she has sort of outperformed where the expectations were in the days prior there's always been a backlash to the revolution right so you have illinois coming after michigan right and and sanders actually did fairly well there but my point is the polls Polls showed that he was potentially doing even better still. If that proves not to be the case, and if it proves to be the case that Sanders actually outperforms the polls, even by a couple of points, and that's the key here. Because if he outperforms the polls in Wisconsin by three points, you
Corey
32:40
you can kind of guess that he's outperforming national by three.
Corey
32:44
And then he's just a couple of points from winning it all, guys. And that is why I think Wisconsin could be an interesting. We
Zain
32:49
We could go down this rabbit hole forever, but I actually want to ask another question here. And I think, Corey, you brought something up about Sanders
Zain
32:54
Sanders having a card to play. And suppose, let's for a second, suppose Clinton takes this nomination. OK, let's get to that point for a second. Yeah. There still seems to be, and we've used this word constantly with Sanders, an enthusiastic base of people that love him, love what he's about. How do you, as Hillary Clinton, start bridging the gap between your voters and his voters, which we've said are radically very different, both demographically, but in terms of enthusiasm as well? What is she needing to do right now in terms of trying to stitch
Corey
33:28
stitch that divide? Well, look, I think that the good thing that Hillary Clinton has on her side, and let's not forget that
Corey
33:34
that when Hillary Clinton lost the nomination, there was a sense of hurt feelings and would Obama be able to stitch the party back together? that didn't prove to be this has happened before yes barack
Corey
33:44
was kind of a hope and change guy and that was his ticket to the youth bernie sanders is uh i'm mad as hell and you should be afraid guy and i think that hillary clinton's ability to pick that ball up is actually pretty good especially if the opposition candidate is cruz or trump right she'll be able to it's not going to be like a big happy positive enthusiasm right but the political revolution that bernie is espousing isn't really one that's based in big happy positivity so she can take that raw energy that's already there and start to refocus it is
Corey
34:15
is there going to be less enthusiasm for a hillary clinton candidacy yeah of course but i
Corey
34:22
mean look trump cruz you start getting people thinking about them right especially trump like trump is almost a caricature of everything sanders has been warning about you know a well-placed billionaire who just runs roughshod over the system and does whatever he wants, you're going to be able to transition that message in a not-too-difficult fashion.
Zain
34:41
Carter, I'll give you last word on this segment. What do you think Hillary
Zain
34:44
Hillary Clinton and her campaign need to do broadly to start bridging this gap? Corey's talking about the raw energy and the materials that are available with the Sanders campaign and how you can morph that, but can you still get that level of enthusiasm, or do they just not show up for you if you're Hillary Clinton?
Carter
35:04
2008 and 2016, the same thing seems to be happening to Hillary Clinton. It's losing women.
Carter
35:12
Women don't like Hillary. How do you get them back, right?
Carter
35:21
And the truth of the matter is, I don't actually know. Like, it is a very difficult thing. Like, Short of finding Bernie Sanders in a massage parlor, I don't think this is going to happen, right? It
Corey
35:33
It didn't hurt Jack Layton that much.
Carter
35:35
It did a little bit with women. But no, it didn't hurt Jack Layton nearly
Carter
35:39
nearly as much as one would have thought, but certainly not as much as the rebel thought or what was it then, Sun TV or whatever? Right, yeah. The only media outlet that covered that. Anyways, Hillary will
Carter
35:50
will get the women back as soon as Sanders is done. Until such time as he's done, she can't get there. She just can't get there.
Zain
36:01
Okay, let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, budget some time to care for the budget. Corey Hogan, how was the federal liberal budget? Give me your top of mind thoughts.
Corey
36:11
We're a little bit removed. That's why I want to hear where we're at. A couple more broken promises. No big, right? $30 billion deficit. Forget about that small business tax cut. That's fine, right? Who cares about promises? Promises are for political parties that aren't popular. If you're popular, you can do whatever the fuck you want, right? I mean –
Corey
36:30
We kind of expected that response from you. Top level, you
Corey
36:34
you know what? In a vacuum, fine.
Corey
36:37
fine. Good budget. Okay.
Corey
36:38
Okay. Not bad. I
Corey
36:40
I think that they kind of skirted around the edges and played a few games to get their infrastructure spending looking as big as it is. I'm not sold on the merits of social infrastructure as a concept because, you know, candidly, most
Corey
36:53
most things could be defined as infrastructure if you try hard enough, right? And then everybody's going to be working for Amarjeet Sohi, and that's where everyone's going to want to be. But the budget
Corey
37:03
budget is fine. I think that there
Corey
37:07
there were a couple of things that stuck out to me. One is that obviously somebody somewhere said, well,
Corey
37:14
well, we're not going to balance it, so we might as well do as much as we can. And in that sense, I think they staved off a few more broken promises. Some of their more expensive line
Corey
37:23
line items, the ones that were always going to be expensive first year, like their promises and veterans, they actually took care of. So good for them on that, right?
Corey
37:32
there is a pattern here, and it's a pattern that has dogged the liberals since times immemorial, which is say
Corey
37:39
say whatever you want to be elected, do whatever you want when you govern. And that is annoying to me, and I think it should be annoying to Canadians. Stephen
Zain
37:45
Stephen Carter, can you defend this budget? I mean, to Grant, as a Corey's point, he says in a vacuum, the budget's fine. His main gripe, the broken promises. Where are you set on it? I
Carter
37:54
I don't need to defend this budget.
Carter
37:56
It's, what is it, five days, five, seven days after the budget, and
Carter
38:00
and no one's talking about it. It's done. Mission
Carter
38:04
Mission accomplished. I mean, if you can put a budget out, a budget that's going to be debated for two months, a budget that's going to have line items gone through, it's going to be the center point of opposition, you know, attacks, hacks but no
Carter
38:16
no one cares five days seven days later like that is the very definition of a successful budget and that's where we are no one is i mean i i would imagine they talked about it the progress thing progress
Corey
38:29
progress summit yeah uh
Carter
38:31
but really no one's talking about it the media you know there's some analysis pieces there's some there's some stuff going on but this is pretty much the best budget that you can ask for in your first term, especially given
Carter
38:45
got such a staggering
Zain
38:46
staggering deficit. My next question was going to be about the content of the budget. Well, we've kind of top-line discussed some of that.
Zain
38:51
But, Carter, you've gotten to the second part, which is the communications of the budget. You're
Zain
38:54
You're happy with how this landed? Like the communication success, this is exactly what you want if you're putting out a budget where it gets a little bit of sizzle and then it just kind of dies down?
Corey
39:03
Look, you introduce a budget with a $30 billion deficit and everybody shrugs, Carter
Corey
39:08
Carter is right. I mean, that's a good day, right? Especially when you promised not to release a budget with such a large deficit. Yeah,
Carter
39:15
promised a smaller deficit. You promised more help. You promised more infrastructure spending. I mean, and there's
Carter
39:22
there's stuff that can be picked apart in this budget. I personally am concerned about the increase in indigenous people's spending. Is that all the politically correct stuff that we have to string together now to say First Nations? I don't know where the third
Corey
39:35
third rail is, but your foot is probably very close. Right
Carter
39:37
Right on it, right? Just on your point. $8.1 billion is being allocated. I actually like the Conservatives' transparency stuff that they put on First Nations that is being taken out by this liberal. I think it's actually an omnibus within the budget, is it, or is it not? I can't remember.
Corey
39:53
No, they would never do an omnibus bill. I know. Not after. No. It
Corey
39:56
It would be crazy.
Carter
39:57
But my point is simply this. I don't think that people are going to particularly give this budget a lot of they're not going to look very closely at the details even something like 8.1 billion dollars in additional First Nations spending that should be looked at what are we buying for that kind of money should be an open question, no one's asking it, in part I think this is just the complete halo that Justin Trudeau continues to to have after a very, very successful fall election.
Zain
40:32
Corey, we've gone through the content, we've gone through the communications. One more question on this. Potential landmines in this budget that may not strike today, but that the government may step on, that if you're on the liberal side, that you're potentially trying to shelter or hide away. And if you're in the opposition, you're trying to look for any landmines in this thing from your vantage point?
Corey
40:51
Well, they've made a lot of commitments, and they're going to have to make sure those Those commitments don't look foolish down the road, but I'm not sure that's a landmine. There
Corey
40:58
There are a few flanks on which they are exposed, but it's fights they've won in the past. You know, they essentially rolled up all of the child care benefits into one new Canada Child Benefit. And that meant canceling some boutique tax credits like the physical education and the arts credit.
Corey
41:17
And you're going to hear some people complain about that. But the reality is the vast majority of Canadian families will be better off. So it will be a pretty narrow audience. But I have seen the conservatives start to attack on that. So that's why I mention it. And there was a letter that was put out with a conservative MP greatly
Corey
41:34
greatly inflating the size of those tax credits, saying it's a tax credit for, you know, $1,000 of spending on physical education. Well, yeah, up to $1,000 gets you $150 in tax credit in a year, right? So those kind of numbers. is and
Corey
41:48
they're gonna they're gonna do that they're gonna try to make it seem like it's not a tax cut but the fact of the matter is they've
Corey
41:54
they've actually replaced it with a much simpler tax credit which most canadians will be able to plug in their situation and be like all right yeah no i'm actually making like an extra grand in a year off that so i
Corey
42:05
i don't know i think they're fine i do think they're fine i think the
Corey
42:09
the question becomes there
Carter
42:11
there there is a narrative of higher taxes is
Zain
42:14
is Is that the landmine for you, if there was one? Yeah, the
Carter
42:16
the landmine is there's a narrative of higher taxes. And maybe I'm more attuned to that because we're out here in Alberta. And you're crazy,
Corey
42:25
could be so lucky because Canadians want higher taxes. Well, they do
Carter
42:28
do until it's their taxes that are going up.
Carter
42:31
Right? As long as it's your taxes, Corey, that go up, I'm quite fine with it. But if it's my taxes that go up, suddenly I need to move to London, England.
Zain
42:39
Last question in this segment. I'm going to throw this to you. I just cut you off there. That's totally fine.
Carter
42:43
It was a pretty good inside joke, though. It
Zain
42:45
It was good. I
Zain
42:46
I just powered right through it. I don't think I got it. I was excited to ask my next question. Corey Hogan, Justin Trudeau pushing for new membership rules within the federal liberals. Now, I saw you getting some credit.
Carter
42:56
This is the Corey Hogan rule. Yeah,
Zain
42:57
Yeah, yeah. The Corey Hogan rule.
Zain
43:00
Give me – I don't even know what my question is. I kind of wanted to say – well, I guess – Let's just all blow up Corey
Carter
43:05
Corey and make him all happy. A little background.
Zain
43:07
background. He was just blinking and smiling and shaking his head. the
Corey
43:12
federally went to what was termed the supporter system where they allowed canadians just to register the most recent leadership to the liberals and be able to vote in the leadership contest that system actually originated in alberta and that system was with the alberta liberals and it was something i pushed when i was their executive director and
Corey
43:30
and and it was the system wholesale taken to the federal side so i do feel a bit of like pride and ownership and that and i I basically think, you
Corey
43:37
you know, Canadians' habits towards political parties have shifted over time. Many, many more people used to be members of political parties. It used to be close to 4% or 5%. It's not even a tenth of that anymore. And the fact is Canadians, they
Corey
43:49
they want to date. They don't want to marry, right? Like buying a political membership is something weird people do. And so this idea of registering to be a member of a party but not actually having a membership in a party is something that is, I think, ultimately a good way to bring people in the door. And probably just as importantly, build your list. So I like that the liberals are doing that. And that's basically something that I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I didn't like them doing. So good on them. It's a good system. They took some good advice from a really smart political organizer out in Elbert. Steven Carter, I
Zain
44:20
I wanted to talk to Corey about, you know, effectively self-aggrandizing. That is the Corey Hogan show to our left. I don't have to
Carter
44:25
to blow up Corey because Corey just blew up Corey. 30
Zain
44:28
30 seconds. I want to be very quick on this one. The political and the political strategy upside here also exists. Corey teased it with some of the data. But effectively, if you have an open membership or if you have this concept of an open membership, there is political and party benefits. Is there not, Carter?
Carter
44:43
Well, I think so. I mean, I think that anytime you have an email address. You
Zain
44:46
You seem lukewarm, though. You don't seem as enthusiastic as I did. I thought that was a slam dunk. Is it not?
Carter
44:51
So there's two sides to this particular coin, okay? One is that you want people to put some money on the barrel to show that they're actually engaged and a part of this process. Right. And believe it or not, $5 or $10 is a large enough threshold that it puts people in that are actually interested in the process. Which,
Corey
45:12
by the way, is also why they're getting rid of it because it excludes people who might feel that threshold is too high. Well, I
Carter
45:18
I think that there's also a second. So in today's era, right? So that was an interesting era of some time ago. In today's era, the thing that might be a threshold too high to pay is putting your email address on your telephone number, right?
Carter
45:33
right? Sharing your own individual data with a political party, which is for all intents and purposes, simply a fundraising machine, right?
Carter
45:40
right it's the equivalent of signing up for a free membership at world's gym right
Carter
45:43
right you know all you're going to be doing is getting a phone call or an email every
Corey
45:48
every day scratch them off the list of potential sponsors god they
Corey
45:52
they were right at the top they were right at the
Carter
45:54
world gym no longer a sponsor of the strategist podcast they were gonna say membership
Zain
45:58
membership model as well but that
Carter
45:59
that membership model um when
Carter
46:02
when you giving it away like that when you when you sign up you know what what you're going to be in for right and i suspect that uh
Carter
46:09
uh that price to pay is about the equivalent of five bucks you
Carter
46:14
you know what i mean so i think that that i think that there is still a a natural chill on people like i'm not going to see that's a fascinating point
Carter
46:22
that's an interest since
Corey
46:22
since you got to give that information when you pay your five bucks anyhow it's like they cut the price in half then i suppose i suppose
Carter
46:29
suppose they did cory
Zain
46:30
okay let's move it on to our next segment our next segment cleared of the beard tom mulcair's leadership review is coming up cory
Zain
46:38
cory hogan yeah you are tom mulcair you are fighting we've talked about tom mulcair on this podcast trying to get a job that job was prime minister now we talk today about tom mulcair trying to save his job as leader of the third party if you are tom mulcair what are you number one trying to do heading in to edmonton for your leadership review you
Corey
47:00
know i think tom mulcair is actually in a pretty good position and and it's not just because all those union leaders endorsed him in the last week but that certainly is a positive effect right it's the steady hand at the keel and and uh you
Corey
47:13
you know party leaders supporting the leader of the party is always a good thing when you're going into a leadership review but there's
Corey
47:20
there's a couple of other things and one of them is that there's just simply no obvious heir apparent there are people that people think about as potential leaders in the wing Nicky Ashton, of course, comes to mind. Nathan Cullen comes to
Corey
47:33
Brian Topp comes less to mind simply because he's got a very good job right now. But my point is, who,
Corey
47:41
right? And maybe you want one of these people, but you're not sure if it's the right time. Say you're a Brian Topp supporter. Maybe you'd like Tom Mulcair to be leader for two years while Brian Topp finishes out a stint here in Alberta. Just to use a hypothetical. Yeah,
Carter
47:53
Yeah, but there's no methodology to remove Brian Mulcair
Corey
47:56
Mulcair in two years. When has that ever stopped anybody going into these things? Because frankly, that was the thinking that a lot of people carried into leadership reviews for Ed Stelmack, for Alison Redford. It's don't love this guy, but now is not a great time, right?
Corey
48:09
right? Right. And they both ended up in that scenario, both Albertans to our non-Alberta listeners who are really under a rock if you don't know the names of two Alberta premiers. But they got 78 percent in
Corey
48:23
in large part because the
Corey
48:26
the alternative is, oh, they get less and it looks bad for our party. So if you don't feel strongly about it and you're sitting there and you're not really sure where to land, you bias towards the status quo. quo. That
Corey
48:37
That does not mean Tom Mulcair is safe, but
Corey
48:40
but it does mean that there's a bias towards the status quo. Stephen
Zain
48:42
Stephen Carter, there's only one other person in this class, so I am going with you as you put your hand up. Corey has mentioned
Zain
48:48
the number 78. I want to get to that in a second, just for our Alberta context. But react to what Corey has just said, because you've clearly got a point without me even prompting you with the question. This is the
Carter
48:58
the beautiful thing about leadership reviews, right? Leadership reviews in virtually every constitution, it's 50% plus one, right?
Carter
49:04
right? That's It's all you need to do to hold on to their leadership.
Carter
49:07
Technically. 66% became the margin when Joe Clark said no in 1983, was it not? Oh, Joe, you
Carter
49:17
You idiot. So Joe steps down. Hey, easy there. One of my mentors, my friend. One of my mentors.
Zain
49:22
mentors. You did echo him as calling him an idiot right now. Yeah, I know. Okay.
Carter
49:25
Okay. He was in that particular moment. That and the
Carter
49:28
1979 budget. But we move forward.
Zain
49:35
His government did not move forward.
Zain
49:37
What's that, Corey? Joe Clark, you idiot, is the title of the podcast? Weird. Okay.
Carter
49:46
I thought we were going to go with Saskatchewan election special.
Carter
49:49
I'm a little bit taken aback.
Carter
49:53
Point almost lost. 66% was the line in 1983. In 2000 and whatever, when Ed Stalmack got 78%, it wasn't enough. he was gone within a year uh allison redford got 78 and her leadership review didn't matter gone within the year what's the number for thomas mulcair i propose to you if he does not get 80
Carter
50:18
may not be done tomorrow right
Zain
50:20
right not done on the spot but he'll be done within a year cory what do you what do you what do you think of that do you do i mean you've said the alternatives don't exist which i think is a fair point and a debatable point but a fair point for this the circumstance do you do you agree with carter
Corey
50:33
carter and what he's saying i i do but i also want to kind of almost make an appeal to people not to be idiots who are going to that convention and by that i don't mean think of the party support tom mulcair and i don't mean think of the party dump tom mulcair i mean at
Corey
50:46
at the end of the day vote for what you want not for what you think has the best optics because there are no worse optics than somebody winning a leadership review and then being deposed undemocratic undemocratically by the caucus right
Corey
50:58
right and you're just setting yourself up for a future problem so go with your heart you want tom mulcair vote for tom mulcair you don't want tom mulcair don't vote for him just so the ndp get to sing solidarity forever with a little bit more of a smile okay they just get rid of the guy if you're gonna get rid of the guy or vote to get rid of the guy and let the chips fall where they may because this is not healthy when parties pretend you know when you do that like iraq election style oh i got 80% of the vote, but I really have support of less than 50% of the party.
Corey
51:30
That does not help anybody. And frankly, we've seen what it did to the PC party here in Alberta. Don't emulate that.
Corey
51:38
Just go with what you want to go with.
Zain
51:41
Stephen Carter, I'm going to give you a third strategy job on this episode. And another bag of money. This one is a lot significantly smaller because we're back in Canada here. Okay, we're back in Canada. So it's pretty much just breadcrumbs and a couple of pizza slices that I'm giving you. Oh, good, good. You're the anti-mulcare movement movement heading into this weekend, what's the first thing or how do you organize a movement against a leadership review? That's ultimately my question. We're going to frame it and couch it in this one. But what does a movement against a leader at a leadership review traditionally look like?
Carter
52:10
I remember going to the one where Ralph Klein was deposed, right? And so he got, I think something like, was it 55 or 59? It was low. It was really bad. He was with a five. It It was definitely under the Joe Clark threshold. Yeah.
Corey
52:22
Yeah. And it was. I remember I was in Edmonton that weekend and I walked by a newspaper box and I did this whole like, can somebody give me change? I had to read it right away.
Carter
52:31
Yeah, it was. I was there. And I remember people walking around almost
Carter
52:38
almost being like, well, I
Carter
52:41
felt I had to vote against him, but I'm pretty sure he'll get he'll get he'll
Carter
52:46
survive. He'll get the number. I just wanted him to know.
Carter
52:50
A message. You wanted to send him a message that this is probably time for him to start to think. And the thing with that particular movement is that it
Carter
52:59
it was unled. I mean, it was led to a degree by Dennings folks who wanted that leadership, who thought, you know, Klein had definitely overstayed
Carter
53:07
overstayed his welcome. I don't think anyone thought they were going to. But it wasn't led to the extent that they were going to take the fucker out. No,
Corey
53:13
No, they wanted a shot across the bow to make him think of the retirement. Absolutely. So this is
Carter
53:16
is the problem with the situation and with this thing, right? There is no, these things aren't, they're
Carter
53:23
they're not tunable. You can't tune them to get the number that you want. I would like 74%, right? And
Corey
53:30
And yet in Alberta, we always give them 78. Yeah,
Carter
53:32
Yeah, I know. It almost makes it sound a little bit fixed. But
Carter
53:36
we have no evidence of that. Alberta fixed what?
Corey
53:38
what? We have no evidence.
Carter
53:39
So what do you do? But I think that I
Carter
53:42
think that the best way to run this thing, if you were running the anti Mulcair group right now, is to say to people, listen, you've
Carter
53:49
you've got to what Corey said. You've got you've got to vote your confidence because chances are most people aren't. Most people are going to vote for Mulcair and again and against the leadership because they're going to be afraid to take that punch. And you've got to take that punch if you're someone who thinks that it's time for renewal.
Zain
54:07
There we are. Let's move it on to our final segment. Our final segment, guys, the lightning round over, under, in, and out. Are we ready? So
Zain
54:14
So ready. Let's do it. Oh, man, so pumped, like we are every single time we do it. Corey Hogan, does Tom Mulcair survive his leadership review? I think so.
Carter
54:23
Corey, once again, has never been more wrong.
Zain
54:27
Let's go deeper into the question. Over, under on 78, Stephen Carter, for Tom Mulcair. Under. You're going under. You said he needs 80. You think he's going under 78. well
Carter
54:37
course he's gonna i think he's gonna
Zain
54:39
get 68 cory hogan i think he's gonna get between 70
Corey
54:42
70 and 75 oh
Zain
54:43
oh interesting under as well over under on the number seven seven out of ten over under on the justin trudeau liberal budget carter uh
Carter
54:52
uh an eight and a half oh
Zain
54:54
oh he's going over he doesn't even give me the answer he just he wants to get well you know we don't really listen to the questions that's fine it's clearly yeah
Corey
55:01
i don't know cory do you want to moderate the rest of the
Corey
55:04
or eight. I don't care. If you're going just on the merits of the budget, it's fine. If you're actually looking at it as we live in a democracy and government should not lie to their populace, it's
Carter
55:16
Oh, my God. You're
Carter
55:18
You're so bitter. You're so orange
Zain
55:23
Carter, I give you $100. What odds do you need to put that $100 on Bernie Sanders to win the DNC nomination?
Carter
55:29
I'm going to go with 42
Zain
55:33
to 1. 42 to 1. Okay, I was expecting quadruple digits. Wow.
Zain
55:37
I give you $100. I'll
Corey
55:39
I'll take that 42 to 1. No, I think...
Corey
55:43
I don't know. I would say 30 to 1. It's still a long shot, but it's not impossible.
Zain
55:48
Scale of 1 to 10, how important was it for the PC party here in Alberta to win the Calgary Greenway by-election? Scale of 1 to 10, Corey?
Corey
55:58
know this reminded me of a topic i wanted to talk about so let's derail the lightning round for 30 we can do it that was kind of the plan yeah the the uh the private members bill that rick mciver has brought in with language about supporting private schools oh
Zain
56:11
oh god yes yeah
Corey
56:13
yes if i'm the ndp i take my bat to that pinata and i beat the shit out of it this is the perfect fight in my opinion private school yeah like who people don't support private schools sorry they They don't and they shouldn't because we're the only province who does this and the reason we're the only province who does this is because it's insane. The amount of funding we give private schools is
Corey
56:33
is very weird. And frankly, the word private is in there and that should be your first indication public dollars shouldn't go. Stephen
Zain
56:40
Stephen Carter, do we need to get you a baseball bat as well for this pinata? I
Carter
56:43
I was exactly where Corey was probably until about five years ago and then I started hearing an argument that turned me around on it. And the argument is that we're currently – if we didn't put 50% into those private schools, many of those students would flood back into the public system and it would cost us 100% of the dollars. We're actually saving money by funding private schools.
Corey
57:04
Yeah, that's a pretty weak argument for me.
Carter
57:06
me. It's an excellent argument and it's a winner. It
Corey
57:09
It also would mean those students would be part of a public system, which I think there's some value to in both the societal and educational sense. And this
Corey
57:18
this is just nuts. And if the PCs, if Rick McIver wants to make his hill to die on private schools, oh, man, I mean.
Corey
57:26
I'm with you on this one. And
Zain
57:28
And I think it merits another conversation in about seven weeks when we do record our next podcast on
Zain
57:32
education in the province. Let's get back to the question at hand, though. The Manmeet Bular seat that after Manmeet passed away, Calvert Greenway. You just skipped that question. How important was that for the PCs to win it or to reclaim it?
Corey
57:44
I think it was important.
Corey
57:47
I think it would have been a disaster if they lost it. Let's put it this way. This is not much better than a disaster because they barely held on to that seat.
Corey
57:54
And frankly, they should have won that seat by a lot.
Carter
57:57
They should have won that seat by a lot, but they had a very popular liberal campaign who was being helped by the federal liberal MP who is an excellent campaigner and has some serious skills up in Calgary Northeast, Darshan Kang. He is outstanding, and he was helping the liberal quite a bit.
Carter
58:14
So having the PCs hold the seat was absolutely essential. Sure, they came down, but you can't call a win a loss, and you can't call a loss a win. So the only people who won were the PCs, and the others are dead. Okay,
Zain
58:28
Okay, so speaking of the PCs winning, I'm going back to you on this one, Carter, because a known quantity in Alberta conservative circles, Craig Chandler, just secured a position on the PC Alberta directorship.
Zain
58:42
guess I'm breaking rule with the lightning round again. Any value or impact we should place to that?
Carter
58:48
So he ran for one of 50 board positions, and someone didn't put their name against his, so he was acclaimed. That's not winning a board position. That's kind of how Corey gets onto panels. No one else wants it, right?
Zain
59:03
right? Well, Corey gets on because of
Zain
59:05
of that. I get on because of the diversity angle. It works great. Yeah, and I have
Zain
59:08
have to be paid,
Carter
59:08
paid, which just changes the whole money thing. And shout out again to Ontario Parks and Recreation. I'll see you guys on Friday. Thanks for the gig.
Carter
59:20
What's your thesis? Just get rid of parks? No, no. I've got an excellent thesis. I'm not going to tell you now because it's going to cost you a lot of money to hear it. But the bottom line is that – what
Carter
59:30
what the hell was I? We
Zain
59:31
We closed strong. Just to let you know, we closed really strong. I don't even know where I was. It's a strong close, yeah. Over to you, Corey.
Zain
59:38
What was the question? Craig Chandler. How important? So effectively, do you want me to put it together? The Unite the Right movement, and
Corey
59:43
and this is a guy who represents the far right. every party has their craig chandler's right uh even
Carter
59:49
even the liberals even the new democrats have
Corey
59:50
have people you point these positions open up and then all of a sudden they win or they're just there long enough or somebody forgets to turn the lights out and and all of a sudden you know it's technically still quorums rung in and they're the it just happens right and you can't read too much into craig chandler being involved in a political organization that would be like reading uh you know something into sunlight being there during the day i mean he's just he wanders about out uh i
Corey
1:00:16
i do think he would not have gotten this position a year ago two years ago right because the pc party was stronger and all of those positions were contested carter
Zain
1:00:26
carter at one point we were having a judgment on the justin trudeau pr machine i'd like to get back to that over the course of the last month from everything you've seen that trudeau has done in the u.s domestically over
Zain
1:00:35
over under on six what do you rank the justin trudeau pr machine it's
Carter
1:00:39
it's got to be be an eight although i wasn't i was not amused when he went to uh dc for the third time in a month yeah
Corey
1:00:46
was it was uh it's like he's got a new boyfriend
Carter
1:00:49
boyfriend and it seemed
Carter
1:00:49
seemed a little bit over the top yeah
Corey
1:00:51
yeah no cory what do you give it at over under on that six on that yoga pose alone you got to give it a nine are you kidding that was impressive if
Corey
1:00:58
if i could do that i would do that all the time no flat
Zain
1:01:02
you're just constantly doing
Zain
1:01:02
doing that final question you're okay actually no second to final Final question. Wisconsin, name the two candidates that are going to win tomorrow night.
Zain
1:01:11
Sanders and Cruz. Sanders, Cruz, you got?
Carter
1:01:14
Cruz, and I'm going to go with Clinton just because I like to be a little bit... Alliteration,
Zain
1:01:20
Alliteration, Cruz and Clinton. Final question. Carter, I'm going back to you on this one. The one thing you're reading, looking at as an indicator or otherwise going into this week?
Carter
1:01:30
For the federal? Anything. Any
Zain
1:01:31
Any of the things we've talked about, anything outside of what we've talked about. We talked about Mulcair, Trudeau. We talked to U.S. provincially. What is your thing?
Carter
1:01:39
I guess I'll be keeping my eye on the Republicans polling in New York. If we start to see a slip out of Trump, it will be over.
Zain
1:01:50
Republican polling in New York. Corey
Corey
1:01:52
Corey Hogan, what's your thing? For me, it's all about whether Bernie Sanders can outperform in Wisconsin relative to the polls and whether there is a backlash by Hillary Clinton supporters who show up in droves as they have in times past when Sanders has had a good couple of weeks. If that is not there, I think we start talking about I'm taking 1 to 20 odds on Bernie Sanders.
Zain
1:02:12
Fascinating time. That's a wrap. You're so wrong. That's a wrap on episode 569 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.