Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is a Strategist, episode 574. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? It
Carter
0:10
It is a beautiful day, but we are inside recording a podcast. Yeah, it's like 30 degrees outside. We should be outside suntanning. It
Zain
0:18
It is unnaturally warm. Global warming. It is real.
Zain
0:23
Corey Hogan. You heard it here first, yeah. You heard it here first, indeed.
Zain
0:26
What else is on the docket? Guys, our review contest is still up. Corey
Corey
0:29
Hogan. It's going well. We've gotten a lot of reviews. You guys are some pretty funny people out there. So
Zain
0:34
So in case you have missed it, we have a review contest on for iTunes. Okay. You review our podcast. You give us, is it five stars? I don't know. Do you think it's five stars? Is it worthy to be five stars? It's five stars. Would
Corey
0:46
Would you like to win the contest?
Zain
0:47
Would you like to win the contest? It's five stars. You give us five stars. And then in that part where you can write something, here's how it works. You write something negative about Steven, or you say the podcast is great and you say but stephen carter and you explain why you get cory hogan's prize that's right a tambourine
Corey
1:01
tambourine gerard kennedy's leadership bid 2006 i gotta keep the people out there informed gerard kennedy is the guy the prime minister wishes was prime minister
Corey
1:12
justin trudeau supported gerard kennedy's bid then uh he had longer
Corey
1:16
longer hair he had a bit of that pirate beard thing going on this was peak justin peak justin
Corey
1:21
wanted this may have actually been and the tambourine that Justin Trudeau played in Hospitality Suites to try to charm 20-year-old female delegates. I don't know. I can't say that it is. I can't say that it isn't.
Zain
1:32
Can't say definitively. There is no evidence either
Zain
1:35
way. Wow, way to upsell that prize. Okay. It's a pretty good prize. Now, if you want to win the contest and get Stephen's prize, you write a review. You give us five stars, of course. I mean, that's just a given. Give us five stars. You say the podcast is great, but Corey Hogan. And what do people win, Stephen Carter? They can win an Al Nurkis Sam dog tag. Now, if you want the fulsome explanation of what Elmer Kassam is, last
Zain
1:59
go to last episode because I don't want to see you go down that road again. And finally, you give us the five stars, of course, and you say the podcast is great, but me, and why would you say that? Well, then winner, winner, you could potentially get both prizes. That's
Corey
2:13
That's unbelievable. Despite that being the case, it blows my mind, but I don't believe Zane is currently, quote, unquote, winning this contest right now. I think there's a contest between you
Carter
2:21
you and I. Yeah, more people are picking
Zain
2:23
Consciousness is coming through. I like it. I
Corey
2:25
that. It's real tough. Anything
Zain
2:27
Anything else to add on that contest? It's still ongoing. Oh, yes. It's ongoing until this Saturday. So end of day this Saturday, whichever time zone you're in, we'll
Corey
2:34
we'll accept it. Oh, end of day this Saturday, Mountain Time Zones. Welcome to Alberta. Yeah,
Carter
2:37
this is Alberta-centric. Can
Carter
2:39
open with them now? No, but let me just tell you something. Our listeners are blowing me away. It's true. The reviews are pretty good. The reviews are pretty good.
Carter
2:47
Those of you who haven't yet reviewed us and who want to participate in this, don't suck. That is our words
Zain
2:54
words to you. Here's a tip. Read the other reviews and try to be better than them. I think that's pretty much the only tip. That is a pro tip.
Zain
3:01
Yeah, that is a pro
Zain
3:02
Okay, let's move it on to our first segment, quitting while you're definitely not ahead. Stephen and Corey. PKP. We are going to talk PKP. So we are talking about Pierre Carpelladeau quitting as a leader of the Parti Quebecois. And actually, before we get into the specifics, I want to talk broadly about the strategy of residing while in office. And I think there's a conversation here to be had around the concept of the excuses or the rationales given. In his case, this is a guy who was a star candidate recruited by Pauline Marois to run. He effectively, their party loses, and then he becomes leader of the party, and he gives the excuse, ultimately, Stephen Carter, the classic one. He wants to spend time with his family.
Zain
3:46
Tell me more, and we'll talk about the legitimacy of that, but tell me more about the rationales that politicians use to get out of office and ultimately what goes on behind the scenes when you are constructing the rationale because this one seems so tired that can we actually believe it? Okay. But before
Corey
4:02
before we even get there, I think that we have to acknowledge it is a pretty grueling job. It is not just nine to five. It's not even nine to nine. It is a 24 seven job in the realist sense. And you are away from your family a long time. It's difficult when you see them and they think you're a stranger or they're more familiar with your, your wife's quote unquote uncle. And you're pretty sure you don't have a brother. Those are probably difficult times. yeah look
Corey
4:25
look i gotta i gotta tell you the
Corey
4:29
the excuse feels tired because it is such an obvious reason to do it but that that reason to not be in politics existed prior to the date they retired so the excuse i think i get it yeah yeah i
Carter
4:41
i mean the excuse it
Corey
4:42
it feels like an excuse because that was true yesterday that was true last week that was true last month that was probably the day they took office sure it's always been true um and it probably wasn't more true today than it was was yesterday right so i think that's why people look at it and say like yeah is that is really why you want to retire uh
Corey
5:00
sometimes it is i'll just throw that out there sometimes they're just thinking it's not worth the abuse anymore i've got better things in my life i've got bigger priorities yeah
Carter
5:09
yeah but let's look at why we actually wind up in this spot where we have to analyze it right it's the it's the excuse that we go to cried wolf
Carter
5:17
so we what do we do when we have a politician that we need to resign right
Carter
5:20
right and when we say we need to resign them it's usually fired right so if we're firing someone or if we want to find them an easy way out the first thing we do is we say to them i think it's i think it's time that you resign now your family wants to spend more time with you so
Zain
5:34
so let's let's stop it there for one
Carter
5:36
conversation with people yeah
Zain
5:38
yeah so give me one one second there so let's let's go down that rabbit hole for a second talk to me about what that conversation looks like where you ultimately go down the resignation path when someone needs to be fired tell me tell me about what that looks like carter well
Carter
5:49
well what it looks It looks like as you go, you know, you have to have a chat with them and you go to them and you say, this is, you know, we
Carter
5:55
we want you to move on. Right. And we have a couple of choices on how we can do that. And
Zain
5:59
And who is we in this case? Give me an example. Who is we? The membership, the party.
Carter
6:03
party. Maybe it's a prayer. And he's there with Brutus
Carter
6:08
Usually it's whoever the senior leader is of the party. OK. OK. But so let's let's go back to perhaps Don Getty.
Carter
6:16
Sure. Sure. So going way back to to someone that none of us had any involvement with. Right.
Carter
6:22
Don Getty is he's
Carter
6:24
he's the premier at almost a very similar time to what Rachel Notley is facing. Unbelievably low oil and gas prices, deficits being stockpiled in Alberta. The PC party brand is going down, down, down. and
Carter
6:39
someone walks in to
Carter
6:40
to don getty's office after he's introduced family day uh
Carter
6:43
uh as some sort of a penance for his son's cocaine yeah arrest great story by the way yeah we'll get into that later at some other point but or
Carter
6:52
maybe go back to the back catalog i don't
Corey
6:55
one that was in but it was definitely in one of our earlier episodes 17
Carter
6:58
117 ish uh anyways
Carter
7:02
he introduces that but these the pcs are languishing and they're going to lose there's a there's a new sheriff in town and the new sheriff is lawrence decor and he's with the liberals and and
Carter
7:13
and there's going to be trouble right the liberals are starting to bounce so someone
Carter
7:17
someone goes into him and says it's time for you to go spend more time with your family i don't know who that is right
Carter
7:22
right but they walk in
Carter
7:23
in and usually so
Carter
7:24
so it is a cliche in
Zain
7:24
in its own right is
Carter
7:26
this more than that
Carter
7:27
that well cliche has this kind of sense that it doesn't happen but it's maybe it's a false story right Right. This is this is real life. Right. Someone walks into the office. Stelmack goes down this way. Klein didn't because he didn't listen to the people who were walking into his office. Right. It's time for you to spend more time with your family. But we have seen time and time again where politicians are told by
Carter
7:48
by either donors or by their leader or by people that are close to them. This
Carter
7:55
This is time for you to now spend more time with your family.
Corey
8:00
yeah let me say one thing about this phenomenon this is not the excuse they give after they lose an election right this is when they're ousted prior to an election right this is in
Carter
8:08
terms ultimately the electorate has the ultimate say and you don't when you lose you don't say well i'm going to go spend time with my family no do you know what stefan dion
Corey
8:15
dion said why he stepped down after the 2006 election no we're not in 2006 i don't remember it
Zain
8:20
it no uh the
Corey
8:21
the 2008 election uh he's stepping down because he failed. That's an exact quote. Like that's what you get to say when you've actually lost. Right,
Corey
8:30
Right, right. If you're going in the lead up, and a good example, I think, from my personal experience is David Swan, the first time he was leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, before they decided to replay that greatest hit, lost control of his party and his caucus. He'd lost an MLA. A second one was sort of threatening to leave. Things were not looking great for him. and and he ultimately decided to step down almost out of exhaustion with fighting with these guys and the only reason he was holding on prior to that was um he just didn't think that the liberals would be in fighting shape to find a new leader but as soon as ed stellmach stepped down from the pcs he decided it was a good excuse to step down from the liberals carter
Zain
9:08
carter i'm interested in this in this rationale let's call it excused rationale whatever we want to call it i don't want to get down that road but why is it this one that ultimately seems to work people know there's a code to it we talk about it potentially being cliche but why is it this one that ultimately seems to why
Zain
9:26
why does it's not you
Corey
9:28
it's me work when you
Carter
9:29
you wake up or something yeah so so what a nicety
Corey
9:31
nicety we tell each other what
Carter
9:32
what are the people who actually run for office what are they looking for they tend to be looking for power right right so so and we're not supposed to talk like this right we're not supposed to say they're looking for power they're actually there to serve their community sure okay so but they're looking for power um when they leave they're often looking to make money right
Carter
9:49
right so we're not going to say pierre carl pelleo is not going to say pelleo pelleo pelleo pkp
Corey
9:56
pkp you stick can i
Carter
9:56
i can i do that as the most anglo person in the world can we recognize that i'm the most anglo person in the world at
Carter
10:02
at least at this table yes isn't going to say you know what i'm going to go back to quebec or and i'm now going to make more money than of course not of
Zain
10:08
of course not but as a strategy this one ultimately seems to be the one that that is turned up
Carter
10:13
up every single time what are you going to say you're going to say the truth i'm being being forced out by by donors are you going to say um some sort of version of of the okay
Zain
10:21
okay so i think i'm trying to get to the heart of my question what else can you do is there nothing else can you do if if you have the situation where you want this person to resign or where they know they need to go is family ultimately the only one that you can go off of with cory well it's the only one
Corey
10:35
one you can go off of without looking like an asshole and it's funny okay like an asshole for saying the truth but if you stand up there and say like i'm quitting because laurie blakeman and kent hair hair knifed me in the back or the donors have pulled all the money and these assholes are undemocratic all of these things may or may not be true given the situation that you're in right may be true you look small and this is your last moment on the public stage and you need to look big you need to take it on the chin and just sort of walk away with your head held high yeah
Carter
11:03
yeah i mean there's an unbelievable book by steve pake and called the dark side right that kind of looks at what happens to politicians when they leave office right and this is kind of part of it right like Like what happens even
Carter
11:15
even when they're – so before you've even left office, you are expendable. You are going to be gone because
Carter
11:21
because of the – because of an incredibly undemocratic process. Every four years, we get a democratic process. PKP could
Carter
11:29
could have waited for that fourth year, lost
Carter
11:31
lost and then stepped aside. Right.
Carter
11:33
But it's kind of arbitrary and especially now, right?
Carter
11:36
right? It used to be you get a couple of kicks at the cack. Yeah.
Carter
11:39
Right? Right. Like you'd at least get a chance to to win twice,
Carter
11:42
twice, maybe three times before you were done today.
Carter
11:46
today. It's one and done for our leaders. And oftentimes,
Carter
11:52
you know, the candidates that if you don't want to be a perennial loser candidate, which is probably a topic we should do at some point. Sure.
Carter
11:58
All right. The perennial loser candidate that just stands up holding the banner for whatever party they're holding the banner for. If you don't want to be that candidate, you can't lose twice. Right.
Carter
12:08
Right. You don't have that
Carter
12:09
You got to win. Yeah.
Carter
12:11
Right? We have no tolerance for losers in today's society. PKP did not take the BQ anywhere.
Carter
12:20
PQ, I'm sorry. PQ. Well, look. Okay.
Zain
12:23
Okay. Did you want to get into specifics? Because that's where I was going to get into right now. Or do you have one more point to add before I go there? I would just say,
Corey
12:28
I don't know if there wasn't truth to PKP's statement. I think maybe.
Corey
12:33
maybe. This is what I think
Carter
12:33
think is weird. I think it fundamentally
Corey
12:35
fundamentally is more true than not. Yeah, I think that he actually, you don't normally see, if it's just words like that, people getting so emotional as he did up there. And certainly it followed on comments that his estranged wife had said the day before, and there's this sense they're maybe trying to reconcile. And this job that had torn them apart after, you know, not
Corey
12:54
not so long in that job, maybe he just needed to step away from it. Maybe he was much more concerned about his family.
Corey
13:01
But he had some serious problems. It's not like, and
Corey
13:04
and it's tough to separate them. Maybe if the job had been going better, maybe he would have carried it better home. Maybe he wouldn't be so stressed at home. You just don't know what's going on behind the scenes there. But it's clear that there were a couple of variables that were playing on each other there. It's not like the PQ was going gangbusters under his leadership. There was a very strange winter
Corey
13:23
winter where the liberals could do no right and yet he could only do wrong, right? He could not manage to get the party going anywhere there.
Corey
13:33
There was a weird disconnect from the start. I mean, he's very right-wing for the PQ, which is traditionally seen as more of a leftist party in Quebec, right? But he was this union-busting owner of a large media conglomerate, right? And there were staff changes, and there were tensions, and there were all sorts of things that were making people around him uncomfortable, including his steadfast
Corey
13:53
steadfast commitment to the sovereignist ideal, or separatist if you prefer. I don't really care. I know people get worked up about that.
Corey
14:01
he really wanted to push for quebec as a nation and quebecers as a whole are a bit exhausted with the issue uh
Corey
14:08
uh 40 support and i would say support for a referendum there's probably polling that someone could point me to but it's lower still you
Corey
14:15
know nobody wants to call another referendum that the sovereignists lose this
Corey
14:19
this all played into it and it was a very weird out of nowhere like normally there are whispers yeah for weeks right before something like this laying the groundwork ultimately i don't think there were any whispers i was sitting at lunch talking to somebody and then all of a sudden on the tv at noon our time which was 2 p.m in quebec it's
Corey
14:37
it's just showing that pkp resigns and you're like well what is going on like yeah
Zain
14:40
did i miss something yeah yeah where
Corey
14:42
where was this talk right there was no talk i mean he had just shuffled out last week his
Corey
14:49
his chief of staff right right or demoted i guess that's
Corey
14:53
that's not really what you do like the day before you quit stephen
Zain
14:56
stephen Stephen Carter, I want to talk to you about implications. You mentioned it here where we have this one and done mentality. We've seen it with Tom Mulcair. You couldn't make it happen. Are we actually, and I don't want to overreach here, so tell me if I am, but are we potentially entering an era where it's not even one and done? You don't even get to complete your term if you don't finish the shit you need to get done within the first year or two years. Are we entering into that phase potentially or am I just overreaching there?
Carter
15:23
I think that we are so poll dependent. independent, right? We look at polls and we say, what is this poll telling us now? Where are we in the polls? What am I in the polls? And we are so reluctant to change our minds, right? We develop an opinion very, very early.
Carter
15:39
people don't even get to face an election, right? They don't even, I mean, in David Swan's first go
Carter
15:45
go round, correct me if I'm wrong, he
Carter
15:47
he didn't face an election. No, he did not.
Carter
15:50
Now I'm trying to think of other examples. I can't come up with one off off the top most most of our leaders do get to face an election um
Carter
15:57
pkp now fits into the same category as david swan a
Carter
16:00
a leader who never led into an election yeah
Carter
16:05
maybe we're moving in that direction i don't think it's a trend yet because i think that most leaders will have
Carter
16:13
fortitude to hang on what's
Carter
16:15
what's staggering about this pkp i mean this
Carter
16:19
this isn't a new situation for him right
Carter
16:21
right i mean this is tumultuous from the beginning from the get-go uh i don't obviously have first-hand knowledge of this relationship i'm going only on media accounts but
Carter
16:30
but the media accounts are fairly detailed because both of these players are public profile yeah this is one of the things that is so different than than traditional blow
Carter
16:39
blow-ups with family right right normally when
Carter
16:42
when we say that when we come in and say you're going to go spend more time with your family your family is a completely unknown entity right
Carter
16:49
right your family may have been two kids and a woman or two kids and a man and a dog and no one would really know there are two lines on your
Corey
16:57
your bio and they're the people up on stage with you election night and
Carter
17:00
and no one has a clue right so no one no you know we're gonna go you're gonna go spend more time with your family no one knows the details of that no one knows the history of that in this particular case we do know the details of that she was on television the night night before yeah
Carter
17:13
right talking about by herself ultimately yeah by herself right
Carter
17:17
on the rival television station which kind of brings this whole other worldly thing to it right like yeah you know it's not on his television station so there's speaking the truth yeah and there is more going on so i
Carter
17:31
i don't want to yeah to me this is less about pkp and more about the story that we often wind up telling right when people are going to go spend more time with their families that's
Zain
17:40
that's That's why I started it that way. Corey, you wanted to add something before I get to my next question there.
Corey
17:46
problem and why you're seeing this, we don't even get to one and done anymore, in my opinion, is that we've changed the rules of the game. We've created these systems. You think we have? Yeah, I mean, we've created these systems rife with tension. We elect leaders broadly and more broadly all the time. The liberals have the most open system of them all.
Corey
18:03
they have to lead a bunch of people who may or may not have had to support them. So I think about Alison Redford, perfect example.
Zain
18:09
I talk to you for one second? And when you say broadly, do you just mean open or you have another sort of definition for that?
Zain
18:15
You say broadly. We elect these leaders broadly. No,
Corey
18:17
broadly and broader still. So we used to have delegates, which was, of course, broader than caucus, which was the original way we chose leaders, right? So we went from caucus to delegates, delegates to members, and now members to the public at large is the way our system is going. and you're seeing this problem kind of grow as it moves further out because ultimately even
Corey
18:38
with delegates electing for the caucus you had a bit of a challenge there but at least those people were generally in the mix and had a
Corey
18:45
of these things allison redford had the support of how many caucus members two at the end of the contest well two counting herself there you go two counting herself and then she was expected to lead these people right right people who were not with her right i most of the leaders you look at who have these kind of tensions you sort of see it on day one you're like ah oh man their caucus is not behind them they've lined up behind somebody else and that's even when i think about um christy
Corey
19:09
christy clark winning in bc she
Corey
19:12
she didn't manage to put that stuff to bed until she won an election right and get that caucus they get a new caucus that would stand behind her because the problem is the caucus
Corey
19:21
acts almost as though they have this power right and they don't anymore and it's um but
Corey
19:28
but it does Let's create an untenable situation. Is
Corey
19:31
you wanted to jump
Zain
19:32
jump in there. I think that's a good jumping off point to talk about caucus power for a second.
Carter
19:36
Corey stated it as a black and white, right? The caucus don't have this power anymore. Right.
Carter
19:40
And on many levels, he's correct.
Carter
19:44
But there are these kind of cases
Carter
19:47
cases where donors and caucus will and can and do force leaders to step aside. But it's not written in any constitution. Of course it's not in a constitution. But you don't like Alison Redford ultimately stepped aside because
Carter
20:01
because of her caucus and her donors. Yeah. Stelmac. Same thing. I don't think PKP did.
Zain
20:08
And I think that's what's interesting. I wanted to kind of draw on that comparison between what happened with Redford, which was, of course, she did not have the support of the majority of her caucus. But day to day, there was a media hit on her every single day for the three weeks leading up to it. Right. That did not seem to be the case here.
Zain
20:25
We did not actually expect this. When you talk about that softening their ground or those breadcrumbs, we didn't see any of that here. Admittedly, we're a country away, right?
Corey
20:39
death of conclusion that feeds into it too that I think needs to be discussed, which is the leadership ends. And I'm not going to make the mistake of believing there were ever nobler times where everybody got right behind the leader and that was that. Their word was their bond and they swore their fealty and moved on. but like
Corey
20:54
like it doesn't end right the minute the leadership is over the losing side it's not just that the loser needs to get on board but the losers team has to decide whether or not to get on board too yeah they can just throw rocks from the side they can be angry they can start snipping they can do whatever the hell they want in a way that they couldn't previously because those platforms did not exist for them so
Corey
21:14
it will be an interesting adjustment as we go forward that i'm not sure we fully made yet which is the public needs to just sort of accept a certain amount of dissension as the new rules of the game right like you can be a popular leader 70 support yeah
Corey
21:28
yeah that 30 can be very loud and we haven't gotten very good at tuning them out yet you know that that is just a reality that needs to be contended with but the other problem is the one that i was talking about earlier about like who's supporting the leader the caucus needs to either fundamentally we need to put a check in there where the caucus needs to consent to the leader as well or
Corey
21:47
the caucus needs to realize they're in the backseat and it's the party
Zain
21:50
party calling the shots. Stephen Carter, I think I'm going to end on this topic where we started, which is ultimately what you mentioned, the story that's told, the story after the resignation that's told. Is there another way to tell this story outside
Zain
22:04
outside of the family issue, outside of, and I don't want to belabor this point because we've discussed it on the front end, but if you were effectively devising this story to be told for him personally, was there another suggestion you could have posed to him saying this was a better route or this was an alternative route you could have taken because i don't think we've seen many i'm curious about that
Carter
22:22
no i to be honest i think the reason that we're so suspect of this particular story is it's the best story right i do not know of another story where we come in and we say
Carter
22:34
blank right right i'm i'm leaving because uh
Carter
22:38
uh health issues is the only
Corey
22:40
only other one right
Carter
22:40
right But health issues usually tend to be legit because
Carter
22:44
you need to actually be able to point to health issues.
Carter
22:48
And I find that health issues tend to be legit.
Zain
22:56
Family is a euphemism. Good episode title. Corey Hogan, anything to add to that final question in terms of the story to be told when the strategy of resignation? I
Corey
23:03
I would say that we've used PKP as a launching point, but I actually believe family played a huge part in it. now for other politicians that's certainly not been the case there are not many ways that you can look good when you quit i
Corey
23:16
i i think that's fundamentally the problem uh
Corey
23:19
uh you either have to admit you failed which nobody loves doing or you have to admit that you were knifed which makes you look petty so this is this this is the safe option this is that line and dodgeball and you can't be out as long as you're behind the line right uh
Zain
23:34
it's well said there
Corey
23:34
there are very few other places that you can go at health if you had a health problem that you could claim was escalating that would be the only other option in my opinion otherwise
Corey
23:42
otherwise what do you do yeah i mean the other ones just don't look so good can
Carter
23:45
can you imagine standing up there in your pkp right and and uh
Carter
23:51
you're asked why are you quitting and here's his answer frankly
Carter
23:54
frankly i'm really good at business this politics shit is beyond me all
Carter
24:00
i some people might still understand that
Carter
24:02
i'm used to achieving success very very quickly and
Carter
24:05
and i've been a year in this and frankly the The people that I'm playing with are morons. I'd like to go back to my executive vice presidents that all know what I want, that stand with my vision and actually do what I asked them to do and aren't ultimately trying to knife me in the back. So I'm going to go do that.
Carter
24:21
And I miss my family. Mic
Zain
24:24
There you are. That's interesting. Let's move it on to our next segment. I positively hate your guts. Guys, let's talk about the U.S. election. Stephen Carter, aren't you? Aren't you revved up? And I want to start this discussion. discussion ultimately with an assumption that we are heading into the general is that fair for you steven i know when did we call this two weeks ago okay two
Carter
24:45
weeks ago we've called it it's trump versus clinton trump
Zain
24:49
clinton let's get on board but i want to start with this as as our anchor question ultimately we have now if we are trump versus clinton entering into a potential general election with candidates with the highest historical negatives that we're ever going to see on record um a recent poll came out two hours ago hillary clinton positive 32 negative 56 donald trump positive of 24 and a negative of 65 these are historic highs in terms of negative negatives for these candidates so maybe let me start with a question on does
Zain
25:20
does this say anything about a time that we're in about the negativity of candidates or is this a isolated case in your mind steven carter i
Carter
25:27
i don't think this is isolated at all i think that this is where we're moving to You think so? It is easier and easier and easier when you move politics to celebrity, right?
Carter
25:36
right? And that's what we're doing here, okay?
Carter
25:37
okay? We've done it in Canadian politics. What about is
Zain
25:39
is a celebrity? Yeah,
Zain
25:41
these guys are celebrities, and
Carter
25:43
and they're now celebrities first and politicians second. They used to be politicians first who tried to be celebrities. And the problem with the celebrity profile or the celebrity arc is that you don't
Carter
25:54
don't care if they hate you or if they love you, you as long as they're talking about you if you're a celebrity and
Carter
26:00
that's where we find um
Carter
26:03
um these politicians at this particular moment they
Carter
26:07
hated by many many people and it's easy to hate them right we used to have respect for politicians right politicians used to be a a pro a job that was was revered when somebody went into politics they were going to be a community leader and they were actually doing it for good works and they were doing it for the the right reasons and now Now we've got this thing where they're not. All of a sudden they are, they're celebrity, they're publicity whores, they're trying to get all these things
Carter
26:34
things from us, they're taking advantage of us, and we are angry. And the anger in the United States is even higher than
Carter
26:40
than it is up here. And the
Carter
26:42
the anger being directed at these particular candidates, I think is, I
Carter
26:49
don't know that this is the end. I just think that this particular set of candidates, you
Carter
26:53
you know, when you've got someone who's been in politics for nationwide
Carter
26:56
nationwide politics for 25 years in Hillary Clinton, 25 years in front of everybody, you are going to have an opinion. Who the hell even knows who these other politicians are? How would I even know to be angry with John Kasich? I
Carter
27:11
I wouldn't. So my anger level doesn't exist.
Zain
27:15
Corey, Stephen thinks this might be entrenched in a larger movement with politics and celebrity. Robert, any opinion on what these negatives mean on a broader spectrum?
Corey
27:24
Look, I think that
Corey
27:25
that there is a trend that
Corey
27:27
that you can't ignore. People are, and it's driven by a few things. It's just a slow degrading of opinion of politicians, though I don't think we ever looked at politicians as this noble animal that Stephen's implying.
Carter
27:37
I think we did.
Corey
27:38
I think there's a diversion of views that you can't discount entirely when you start looking at where the median opinion is between Democrats and Republicans. It used to be much closer than it is today. and
Corey
27:46
and let's face it there's now more people on the sidelines throwing more negativity again you don't have the ability to just be that statesman because you can't turn off your supporters who you've riled up into this angry state i think all of that is playing towards you're going to see higher disapprovals and approvals for a while i don't necessarily think it's a problem forever things change but this particular badge is particularly bad and it's easy enough to point to things that show that to be the case not least of which is bernie sanders had higher approval than disapproval there are candidates that were in this race that had higher approval than disapproval sure but the more polarizing candidates seem to do better this time around and
Corey
28:27
and and maybe that's a function of the system maybe not but at the end of the day we do really have the most extreme examples of the bunch carter
Zain
28:34
let me take a detour for a second is this possible in canada that
Zain
28:38
that we could see this level of polarization within our candidates or does our party apparatus or the parties prevent that from happening or do you still see this as possible here so
Carter
28:49
so the two examples that pop immediately in the mind for me are nenshi and trudeau
Carter
28:54
celebrity and uh when
Carter
28:57
when you talk to people who dislike nenshi
Carter
29:00
they hate nenshi right
Carter
29:01
right you talk to people who dislike trudeau they hate trudeau with kind of a passion that um
Carter
29:07
you don't see with traditional i mean people hated harper too but i think it was people hated trudeau's dad i mean i i think that this is a celebrity thing i think that
Carter
29:17
the love hate relationships that we have it used to be we're
Carter
29:20
we're not putting them through a filter of are they doing a good job we're putting them through the filter of do i like them or do i not like them and i don't know if it's new i don't know i think it's i think it's exacerbated right now but yeah um i
Zain
29:35
okay so cory i'll go to you i think carter makes my next point is looking at a factor such as the positive approvals and the disapprovals of your candidate a red herring if you were advising on strategy going forward in the general election is it a red herring to go down that hole and try to say okay we need to make you more positive or do you think this is ultimately or this particular stat could ultimately be more reflective of a candidacy
Corey
29:57
Well, it's a chicken and egg thing, right? And I think that we can't ignore that polarization trend. And I think the strategy has to reflect where it's going next. Look,
Corey
30:07
I think that we cynically assume this level of polarization among our politicians before it's real. Right. People were saying things like, oh, he's so far left wing. Oh, he's so far right wing before politicians became really far left wing and right wing.
Corey
30:19
And that sort of led to that problem. And then it sort of fed a cycle.
Corey
30:23
By that, I mean, if you're going to get no points for moderation, you're never going going to get the other side you have no advantage of sticking to the middle so you start to see politicians cleave but the language about them cleaves so much faster and and yeah it could happen here to your first question i i saw on facebook the other day i posted some snarky comment about uh tony clement's sideburns and how it looked like he was going to challenge john a mcdonald for the leadership ron ambrose right he just looked like he was from a different era and it started some people throwing comments back and forth but one of the comments was like Like, these
Corey
30:55
these guys are as terrible as they are in the States. They're so extreme in their views. And no, they're not.
Corey
31:00
They're not even close to as extreme as the American candidates are in the view. But language like that will lead to more extreme candidates. Make no mistake. Because if the Clements of the world, who kind of cleave more towards the middle on many issues. I'm sorry, they do. I know people are going to be like, oh, he's a right-wing limited state. He's not. He's
Corey
31:16
not, guys. I'm sorry. Especially when you look at what's happening in the States right now.
Corey
31:20
but when you look at that and you start not getting any credit for being a moderate like that the moderates are going to die right meanwhile these people on the extremes are going to gain more and more power so
Corey
31:31
fascinating question back to your original one about what do i do if i'm talking about the candidates true versus disapprove when
Corey
31:38
when you hit a certain point in that cycle you
Corey
31:40
you can't worry about the disapproves anymore because those people will never be with you they're not willing to be reasonable we've kind of hit a more extreme version of this if
Corey
31:48
if you're hillary clinton with 32 approval 56 disapproval that's a huge problem unless your opponent is donald trump with 24 approval 65 disapproval we're going to be going into a bunch of cycles i'd imagine that are the lesser of two weeks so
Corey
32:04
so go ahead i just
Carter
32:05
just want to say that to me this is what we this is the the
Carter
32:10
issue is what do you do when no one wants to vote for either of the two candidates dates and to me this is yes so so cory and i were around when in the 2008 uh provincial election in alberta i don't know how involved you were i was um uh
Carter
32:25
uh i was just on the sidelines i was some guy i was
Carter
32:28
and and to me you know no one wanted to vote for ed stalmack right no one wanted to vote for ed stalmack right but they
Carter
32:37
couldn't vote for kevin taft kevin
Carter
32:39
kevin taft was like Like the uncle that you were just a little bit unsure of. What
Corey
32:43
What is you and Kevin
Corey
32:44
uncle metaphors? I just love
Carter
32:45
love that uncle metaphor. That's probably the fourth
Zain
32:47
fourth time on the show that
Carter
32:48
that we've called him. You know, he couldn't get anybody to vote for him.
Carter
32:51
Fine. Doesn't matter. Stalmack winds up winning the massive landslide because it doesn't matter here. Yeah,
Carter
32:58
what brand of drywall
Corey
32:58
drywall do you like? Here's
Carter
32:59
Here's where it matters. Here's where it matters. It matters more in the U.S. because let's say that 65 percent of trump's you know of republicans or or let's say that 30 percent of republicans don't like trump and they will not vote for trump but they're certainly not going to jump over to vote for hillary clinton so they stay home they
Carter
33:20
they just stay home big
Carter
33:23
big deal you say until
Carter
33:24
until you're actually the republican congressman running for re-election on the down
Carter
33:29
right And they can't get their vote out. You can't get the vote out because the top of the ticket draws the voter turnout. And
Carter
33:35
And now we can't get our vote out, our ground game, if you will.
Carter
33:40
So the top of the ticket is the air war that brings all the voters out. The ground game of the congressman
Carter
33:44
congressman running for re-election pulls the vote out with all their GOTV model.
Carter
33:51
But they can't get them out because now they're not just fighting against the Democrats. They're fighting against their own candidate. a date and that's this is why i'm convinced that this election is not about uh
Carter
34:02
uh hillary versus don but donald to
Carter
34:05
to me this is about the senate and
Carter
34:07
and and the down ticket the house of representatives and even the governors let
Zain
34:12
let me get to that in one second i just want to pose the same question i did to cory to you carter if you are looking at this and cory makes an interesting point about moderation not necessarily being a virtue if you look at the state of affairs right now is trying to improve your negative numbers right now for either of these candidates a red herring? Or do you try to make a valiant effort to do that? Knowing that moderation in this case may not be a virtue.
Carter
34:39
if someone doesn't like you,
Carter
34:41
don't worry about them anymore. Yeah, look. You stop. You don't ever try to convince someone who likes you. Never try to convince someone who likes you not to like you. Okay. And never try to convince someone who hates you to like you. Yeah,
Corey
34:53
Yeah, ultimately, it's about accessible voters. And if you refuse to be accessible, nobody is going to moderate towards you. So I'd also caution those voters who take such extreme positions. You are making yourself irrelevant outside of your own party. Yeah,
Carter
35:05
Yeah, but this is a fascinating thing that's happening in the United States, right? In
Carter
35:10
we're seeing voters shift all over the place. Blue-orange shift, red-orange shift, red-blue shift. It's all over. They'll go any direction. They're bi-directional voters or something like that. that
Carter
35:21
that um let's sure yeah by voters let's call them by voters let's do it um in but in the united states they're polarizing right
Carter
35:29
right so you're not seeing the shifting anymore the now
Carter
35:31
now having said that there are fewer and fewer republicans and fewer and fewer democrats uh the independent the number of independent voters is truly growing right
Carter
35:40
but there is polarization the polarization within those parties to cory's point if you start to lose that middle where people don't think that they can vote for you anymore yeah
Carter
35:52
this is this is bad news for both the parties i
Carter
35:55
i think it's worse news for the republicans the
Zain
35:57
the tea party is winning
Zain
35:58
cory let's get into the specifics a little bit okay you have donald trump who who has indiana polls close in in a little bit here they closed in the eastern time zone
Corey
36:07
zone part of indiana 11 minutes ago as we're recording and they'll close in central and in 49 awesome specifics
Zain
36:15
specifics by cory hogan okay so you've got totally irrelevant yeah you got donald trump he's ultimately poised to become the gop candidate he has now taken a some may say a more measured stance in how he's presenting himself how he's acting presidential and then he tries to he reverts the next day he's got this very strange sort of um finding of himself as he heads into the general election if you are advising donald trump what are like the top two things you advise him as he heads into the general election now Now competing for everyone's vote, ultimately.
Corey
36:48
he's got such negatives. We've talked about how high Hillary Clinton's negatives are, too. I think you pull her into the mud. I think you make this the ugliest, nastiest campaign ever. You make this campaign the knife fight of all knife
Corey
37:01
eh? If I'm advising Donald Trump, which I wouldn't do in a thousand years. But that,
Corey
37:04
that, to me, is his path to victory. his his ceiling is probably um
Corey
37:11
his ceiling's not so high but hillary clinton's floor might be lower and i think maybe if you start to really connect some of these punches and you do it in the very the donald way right maybe you do maybe you catch some luck and uh and you manage to make this thing a bit of a contest there's gonna be a tightening up anyhow there always is because as crazy people
Corey
37:29
people are amazing to me in that no
Corey
37:31
no matter how extreme or outrageous an event is if it happens enough And given enough time or given enough frequency, it starts to feel normal and not crazy or extreme at all. And by the time we hit November, Donald Trump's outrages are going to seem very moderate relative to how we feel about them today. And even today, they feel very moderate relative to how we felt about them yesterday. Can we take a minute and just remember this guy wants to ban Muslims from the United States and build a wall that Mexico pays for? Those are insane positions. Yeah,
Carter
38:00
Yeah, but those were yesterday's positions. But
Corey
38:02
But now we're sort of getting used to them. but
Carter
38:04
but and so he sort
Carter
38:06
sort of getting that's fascinating here here's where i think what is fascinating um
Carter
38:12
trump is going to go negative cory strategy is the only one that's available to him tear everything down destroy as much as you can uh that's where he's going to go he's going to absolutely tear down everything uh even today you know he released he's going to beat cruz in today's uh primaries um but he's still not done with lion ted right he is going to bring that fucker down baby and he's he doesn't care what it costs him as a person he he doesn't normally
Carter
38:42
normally we have decency to stand on he
Carter
38:45
he doesn't he's going to rip the the shit out of these people so he
Zain
38:48
he doesn't care is that not a strategic advantage for trump heading into this he is the ultimately the better knife fighter than clinton he will go low earlier is
Carter
38:57
is that not you don't forget gender politics in this though gender
Carter
39:01
gender politics he's going after hillary clinton um
Carter
39:08
so so question is would you advise cory's strategy
Corey
39:10
strategy ultimately the knife
Zain
39:11
knife fight of the floor what
Corey
39:13
what other strategies exists you're not going to make donald trump the nice presidential guy presidential guy, it's going to be one that's based on anger, frustration, entirely, entirely,
Corey
39:23
entirely, you think that's where nothing's entirely don't make it black and white like that. But that's going to be 80% of it. I mean, if you're looking at your stew, that's
Corey
39:32
that's your stock, right? That's that's what you're going to have, that's ultimately going to make up the bulk of what you're doing.
Zain
39:38
Carter, what do you think of Clinton strategy so far as she turns her mind to the general election, She still has to deal with the Sanders issue and corralling his delegates and his, you know, enthusiastic supporters. But as she turns her attention to Trump, how do you make of what she's done so far?
Carter
39:56
I think she's doing pretty good. I think that her challenge is this bringing together the two coalitions, the Hillary supporters and the Bernie supporters. Bernie supporters are for some all over the place. and a number of them seem to be prepared to vote for Trump as an outsider versus Hillary as an insider right
Corey
40:15
right well technically true a number but it's not a high percent no
Carter
40:18
no but still I don't think that with the percent with with her high negatives I don't think she can afford to lose too many well
Corey
40:23
well I agree and I'd also say there
Corey
40:26
there is an interesting then between Bernie voters and Trump voters on the issues of manufacturing jobs overseas things
Corey
40:33
like that that should probably give Hillary a bit of pause. But when you start thinking about the youth vote, which was the other major block of Bernie Sanders, I don't
Corey
40:41
don't think she's got a ton to worry about there. Problem
Corey
40:44
Problem is those guys don't show up and those angry manufacturing Rust Belt voters of Bernie's,
Corey
40:48
they will show up. And if they show up for the other guy, you could be in a lot of trouble.
Corey
40:53
Let's not overstate it. The Democrats have this massive baked in advantage in the electoral college. I was reading something the other day, I think it was in the Washington Post, of states that have voted six of the last Last six elections Democrat versus states that have voted six of the last six Republican. It's not even close. The Democrats have
Corey
41:09
have very little ground to make up. They could lose almost everything but just pick up a few pieces that they don't always win. I'm not saying – Yeah,
Corey
41:17
usually win and they're going to win. I mean that was probably true regardless of who the Republicans nominated. Carter,
Zain
41:22
Carter, is that the biggest threat, ultimately the youth vote staying at home to Hillary Clinton going forward? What do you think is the biggest threat that she faces in this next, let's say, two months or this next quarter until convention?
Carter
41:35
The thing with the youth vote, and this is ultimately why Bernie Sanders hasn't done better, is that they never vote. So them staying home is not a threat to Hillary Clinton. Air
Corey
41:45
Air quote vote, right?
Carter
41:47
Instead, they participate in different fashions. They tweet. They Facebook. Right, right, right. They express
Corey
41:55
They Netflix and chill. they're different
Carter
41:57
different than than regular human beings but um
Carter
42:02
so so her greatest threat frankly i think
Carter
42:06
is to get drawn into the knife fight right
Carter
42:09
right so her her we
Carter
42:11
we know the donald's strategy the donald's strategy has to be a knife fight right
Zain
42:14
right uh expose her explodes her flora to the lowest
Carter
42:17
lowest point that it is you know it's not available to him to trump to be presidential it is available to her right
Carter
42:24
right Right. Donald Trump took four years of his life calling for Barack Obama's birth certificate and Barack Obama barely
Carter
42:31
barely listened to him. That is what Hillary Clinton needs to do. Oh, there's this crazy lunatic calling for me to do what? Anyways, health care, education, you know, our military. What do Americans care about? That's what I'm talking about. Can she win at a knife fight, Corey,
Zain
42:49
Corey, by talking presidential, by talking issues? choose is that possible for her to do in this election knife
Corey
42:55
knife fight you bring a gun and and don't fight with this guy in the trenches like that i agree with steven 100 people are going to want her to get into the knife fight too i think that's what she's going to have to resist there will be a poll that comes out at some point either an outlier
Zain
43:08
outlier or just part of
Zain
43:08
of that natural tightening where
Corey
43:09
where people are going to say i can see this happening oh it's going to happen where they're going to be like this strategy is not working staying above the phrase not working you got to get in there and you've got to explain why trump is the worst guy ever well
Corey
43:20
well somebody needs to be be out there explaining why trump's the worst guy ever but that's why you have surrogates that's why you have proxies that's why you're gonna have republicans do that for you frankly you're gonna find republicans for hillary and they are going to beat the shit out of donald trump but if you are hillary clinton you
Corey
43:34
you just stay away you keep your distance and you take your shots because there is no way you're gonna out trump trump i
Corey
43:41
i don't know why she would even want to consider that as a strategy and you're just gonna have to stifle the voices that are full of doubt about who donald trump is and what he might be able to accomplish unless you get into the muck with him because
Zain
43:53
because you'll lose if you do that let's move it on our next segment our one minute detour on the senate cory hogan i actually don't even know what to say you you want to talk about this give us do do you have the context to give us a little bit as well um no i mean they they're
Corey
44:06
they're starting to appoint the government leadership exactly senate right which is kind of fun yeah
Zain
44:12
yeah the the government leadership in the independent senate in the independent senate
Corey
44:18
the independent Senate, ultimately. Right, right. Well, I mean, that's what everybody's been joking about, that they're creating
Corey
44:24
creating a whip in
Corey
44:25
in the independent Senate. They're going to whip independents. Does
Zain
44:28
Does this cause concern for Trudeau? Is this an issue for
Corey
44:32
I think that there is a certain easy,
Corey
44:36
what can you say?
Corey
44:38
It's kind of like an easy joke, right? Like, oh, you've got a whip for independents? How
Corey
44:43
independent could they be? Right. Right. And it kind of plays in with the independent liberals was the name of this caucus that is, you know, they're just the liberals. Right. And then you have Grant Mitchell, whom I know well and who I like, but
Corey
44:55
but he's a very partisan liberal who's now an independent liberal
Zain
44:59
liberal for the government.
Corey
45:00
government. I mean, it's so confusing. Right. Like, I actually don't know why he had to stop being. He's one of three people who I think could have safely been a liberal in the Senate since he was the government's whip. Right. But the whole term whip implies some sort of force and effect over these members that they're going to have to vote your way.
Corey
45:17
I think it'll be a very different kind of whip. He's kind of chief tally keeper. Votes won't come unless they have the votes, but he doesn't have real whip authority.
Zain
45:24
Stephen Carter, could this become a bigger issue than a soft joke or kind of a ha ha, look at that, that's funny for Trudeau? Is there some real political leverage that the other parties could try to use against the government on this? For me, this is the law of unintended consequences.
Carter
45:39
consequences. Right. We have to eliminate our partisanship because everybody's going, you know, because this is the Senate. No one knows what to do with the Senate.
Carter
45:46
Here's our reality. No one knows what to do with the Senate. Either we use the Senate the way it was designed and it
Carter
45:53
it is populated by appointment or populated by election or whatever system we want to put in place or
Carter
46:00
or we don't. this kind of half-assed thing
Carter
46:03
thing that trudeau is doing where he's you know they're not really my caucus they're not part of who i am they're not part of my government why
Zain
46:11
why i mean why in his defense do they not
Carter
46:14
believe in what you believe in right
Carter
46:16
are they you know if this is important to you it's one thing to do this in opposition you're the government now right you're the government you're in charge then legislation that you pass in the house of commons needs to go Go through the Senate in order to get passed into law. Do you want these people to vote with you or against you? This is the fundamental. If you want them to vote with you, then you put them in a caucus and you put a whip on them.
Corey
46:40
Look, I'm in a funny position on this podcast. I love the Senate move. I thought Justin Trudeau did something that was very smart when he— But
Zain
46:48
But do you agree with Carter that the onus now changes or the background changes now that he is government and he didn't do this as opposition? I think if that had been the case, he would have looked pretty
Corey
46:57
pretty poor today and I'd be railing about it. Yeah.
Corey
47:00
The reality of the situation is they
Corey
47:04
they found themselves in a difficult situation the minute they became government, right? What do you do? And
Corey
47:10
And in my opinion, their error was not continuing
Corey
47:13
continuing forward with it. It's that they tried to change the Senate as little as possible with
Corey
47:19
with this idea in mind. Right. I mean, ultimately, let's talk about this. they pretty much fundamentally bought in to kind of these institutional arguments that they had no reason to do it like the government representative in the senate oh we need to have one why because the senate rules of procedure say you change the fucking rules of procedure oh how would we introduce the government bill
Carter
47:41
oh no change it then if you don't want it to be the way it is change it don't do these little half-ass dicking around i mean these these
Corey
47:47
these are just very confused moves because now you're going to you have this way to introduce legislation because the guy i do not want to get super technical on this i think we would lose half our audience like that but the
Corey
47:58
the notion that you need a human being to stand up and introduce a government bill is
Corey
48:02
is not constitutional in nature it is in the rules of procedure of the senate it could literally be like it is automatic on the order papers once the house has passed a bill
Corey
48:11
it's in front of the senate and at a certain point like on tuesday government bills come up to start the reading and they're just ushered through the normal process because once a bill is in front of the chamber it's not owned by the government or anybody it's a bill open for debate and things proceed on on their own course yes what normally happens in the house of commons is that they debate amongst the house leaders when things are going to come up in what order but that doesn't need to be the case i think the senate has grown up enough to know if they just stop taking up government bills they
Corey
48:42
they will be run out of town what
Corey
48:44
what the government did was weird to me like why recreate all of these positions that are essentially partisan in nature in your new non-partisan senate there was no reason for this they
Carter
48:53
they should have changed the rules well they should have just fundamentally
Corey
48:56
fundamentally changed the rules on a more base level than they did not not these things to keep the senators happy just because the senators are like i don't know how to act in a universe without a government whip that's dumb
Zain
49:07
dumb let's move it on our final segment are over under our lightning guys round guys are you ready so steven carter's absolutely ready in terms of authenticity steven carter on a scale of one to ten how did pkp's resignation go in your mind well
Carter
49:21
well i actually put him pretty high i thought he was about an eight or nine yeah
Corey
49:24
cory what do you think nine or ten it was pretty clear he was torn up about it and i think if it's phony it doesn't come off the way it came yeah
Carter
49:30
yeah i've seen many many phony ones it didn't look like rachel
Zain
49:33
rachel notley was in D.C. talking up Alberta on a scale or actually, no, in or out. Are you in or out on Rachel Notley this week based on her moves of traveling to the United States? Corey, I'll go with you first. In. That's it. You like it. There was no agenda. She was just going out talking.
Carter
49:51
talking. What a shock. The orange deep olive just is in.
Carter
49:56
No, what did she get us? Nothing. I'm out.
Corey
50:00
Come on, that's ridiculous. There was actually a fair bit that was got there. there uh you have to start out no
Corey
50:06
no no no i'll let him explain it do you have anything
Corey
50:09
anything to say yeah out there
Corey
50:11
there are two audiences for this kind of move one of them is the audience of international finance let him finish this
Zain
50:16
this is interesting go
Corey
50:18
go ahead and you have to talk about how washington dc and new york where joe cc was right the
Corey
50:23
minister finance centers in different senses of the western world outside of london and europe europe doesn't count right north american centric here. And they were starting to undo some of the animosity and damage and grief that exists simply because our last premier was a banker tied to those banking centers of power, right? Prentice was the vice chair of CIBC. The people immediately around Prentice in his last role and the people around them really
Corey
50:52
really bought into this notion that Prentice was the only person who was competent to run the economy. And you just have to start breaking some of those things down. The second Second thing is an internal audience question, which
Corey
51:01
which is you have very methodically for the past couple of weeks as the premier built up this notion you're going to defend Alberta's industries.
Corey
51:10
Now you have one more thing you can say you did. You went to Washington to fight for that pipeline because you have now got some pretty clear indicators. You fought east. You've talked to Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard. You fought west. You've come to an accord with the premier of BC. And you fought south. You went to Washington to start laying that groundwork.
Corey
51:27
Stephen Carter, are you still out?
Carter
51:28
Oh, still out. And that was so not lightning round. I'm just saying.
Carter
51:32
I let him go.
Carter
51:33
Hold on. I got halfway through speed dialing Chester.
Carter
51:40
I can't believe you still have a stepper.
Zain
51:42
Scale of 1. Seems like Canadians were very eager to check their mailboxes because a census website crashed. On a scale of 1 to 10, Stephen Carter, how nerdy are our fellow Canadians?
Carter
51:52
Oh, we are 11. We are 11. And you know what, though? I got so excited. I checked to see if I could. Oh, I got to get on this, too. Yeah, I'm a nerd. We're all nerds. This was crazy. Was that weird, Corey? Are we super nerdy?
Corey
52:04
nerdy? What's going on there? Look, I don't know. We're sort of just taking it at face value that it crashed because there was so much great interest in it. I think that's a pretty convenient excuse for the government and for Stats Canada. And it's really funny that because it's this government and because it's the long form census back, that's the narrative they managed to spin. I feel like if the census had crashed under Harper, we would be acting very differently today. day
Zain
52:31
for sure yeah for sure carter
Zain
52:32
carter over under on six trudeau's move on the senate or the appointment of the whips and the process going forward over under under
Zain
52:38
under on six it's like a token i'm
Corey
52:41
i'm gonna hold the line i like the people he appointed i like that he picked a former conservative and a former liberal um
Corey
52:47
but the the basic process like i said is why like why are you
Zain
52:51
you doing this stephen
Zain
52:52
stephen carter on a scale of one to ten how much credit do you give the the Conservative Party of Canada, for out-raising, in combination, both the Liberals and the NDP in the first quarter. They out-fundraised the Liberals and the NDP in this first quarter. How much credit do you give them on a scale of 1 to 10? Four.
Carter
53:09
Four. Really? You don't give them more than that? Well, no, because they have such a connection with their people. When they lose, they win, right? They have this ability to fundraise. um you
Carter
53:21
you know i mean ezra levin you ezra levin funds this whole rebel media empire based on this they're coming to get me mantra and this was our first kind of opportunity for the conservatives to do that one
Corey
53:35
one to ten cory what do you give them carter gives them a four i mean you got to give them a 10 because they've set the foundation for such such madness but absolutely they're going to raise more money in opposition than they did in government you give them a bit of time once that that leader-selected and whatnot?
Zain
53:50
It's an anger-fueled machine. $20 a month. Final question. Mike Duffy returns to the Senate this week. If you were to give him an alternative job, Stephen Carter, other than becoming a senator, what would you have given him post-trial?
Carter
54:03
Well, I mean, I understand that the doorman at the strip club is available.
Zain
54:10
That's good. Patrick Brazzo joke. Okay. Corey Hogan. Alternative job for Mike Duffy. Do you have anything for him? Yeah. Undertaker. or the way he buried the Harper government.
Zain
54:19
That's a wrap. We'll leave it there. Episode 574 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.
Zain
54:33
Listeners of The Strategist podcast, remember, you can follow us on Twitter at strategistpod and individually at Carter underscore AB, at Corey Hogan, and at Zane Velji. And remember, our iTunes review contest is ongoing. going. It ends this Saturday, May 7th. Give us a good review and write us something negative and you'll get some awesome political paraphernalia.