Episode 585: DNC 2016: Fall guy with a parachute

Zain 0:03

This is The Strategist, episode 585. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, happy

Zain 0:10

happy DNC convention Tuesday, Zain. That was a very interesting arm movement by both

Carter 0:15

both of you. We're doing pretend running.

Carter 0:18

Because this is how we get ready for the podcast. We're

Corey 0:24

You've got to be limber.

Zain 0:25

You've got to be giving them the pregame special. The appearance

Corey 0:27

appearance of motion with no actual motion is also kind of a convention special.

Corey 0:34

It's all a rich tapestry.

Zain 0:37

I don't even know what's going on. This is a very poor start to this podcast. Hey, that's okay.

Zain 0:40

with it. You let me know when we've had a good

Zain 0:42

good one. You're in

Corey 0:43

great mood for some reason. Why? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I don't have to see you guys in about an hour and a half for a while. That's a good start to it. No,

Carter 0:50

we see tomorrow. Tomorrow we have to do the

Corey 0:52

the TV. Oh, we're on CBC, yeah. Okay,

Zain 0:54

Okay, do we want to talk about the DNC? Should we do this?

Carter 0:57

I think we should. What

Carter 0:58

heck? I mean, it seems like people are interested.

Zain 1:00

Let's do it. Our first segment, Wassergate is a new Watergate. You like that? I liked

Carter 1:04

liked it. Come on. I came

Zain 1:06

up with it in the car.

Corey 1:06

car. It was great.

Corey 1:08

Was your car in your garage with the garage door closed?

Corey 1:12

Carbon monoxide was slowly overtaking your senses?

Zain 1:16

I will not confirm or

Zain 1:18

I will not confirm or deny that.

Zain 1:20

Corey Hogan, tee us off before we get into the convention, because I know that's what what we want to talk about. But there's a huge story, or at least a big story, leading into this convention with, let's just say, WikiLeaks, some emails, and the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Tee us up with just the broad context. Sure.

Corey 1:35

Sure. So when we last talked, it was just after Trump's convention speech. And we said, hey, the Democrats are going to try to change the channel. Unfortunately, there was the Munich shootings at a McDonald's, which changed the channel, you know, for them. But then they did bring out their vice presidential pick later that day. and it you know they had about uh you know 12 hours of peace and peace being they were just thinking about donald trump in the end of his convention but unfortunately then

Corey 2:02

then uh these emails that it's been reported that the dnc was hacked in the past and then some emails were taken well these emails then found their way to wiki leaks uh and those emails showed

Corey 2:15

showed some pretty frank conversations and i would say there were three buckets of concern uh that resulted from these his emails the first was the one everyone's been talking about where it was very clear that the people who work for the dnc the democratic national committee now we use dnc to say both democratic national committee and democratic national convention but the committee uh didn't like bernie sanders and there was some suggestion that uh that he should go die in a gutter somewhere you know loosely speaking loosely

Zain 2:48

loosely and some suggestions

Corey 2:50

yeah and some suggestions as to how they could make his road a bit rockier questions about his religion right etc etc the second big bucket of concern it raises is the about donors they they talked about donors in very negative and crass fashion you know they're going to be seated as far back as possible fuck that guy he's you know not giving enough money whatever yeah and then the third bucket is one that i think people should keep half an eye on is a bit of concerning and it's spreadsheets effectively if this person gave x here's what they're getting y and that starts to look very uh you know graft like a transaction i gave a donation and i've got this government appointment or whatnot i think that's a bit of a sleeper issue here people should be aware of but ultimately all of these emails happened underneath the tenure of debbie wasserman schultz who herself sent emails talking about not particularly being fond of bernie sanders seeming really out of touch, asking how she could get tickets to Hamilton, etc. And frankly, this is not just Bernie who's been calling for her head. She's well known not to be particularly well liked by the president, Barack Obama. The Clinton camp didn't have a lot of love for her.

Corey 4:03

They didn't necessarily want the fight of replacing a DNC chair, but they weren't big enthusiasts when it came to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. So this was kind of the final straw. and she

Corey 4:14

she announced she would be resigning after the powers that be applied pressure telling her she must resign and

Corey 4:20

we're going to have a new DNC chair after the convention. That's

Zain 4:24

That's your tea. That's where it leaves us right now.

Zain 4:27

Stephen Carter, you're working for the DNC in this case, the C-meaning committee and you learn about the situation. Does Debbie Wasserman Schultz have to resign as she did?

Carter 4:39

Yes. No question. Okay.

Carter 4:41

She said things, I mean, a whole bunch of issues around this. Number one, could you imagine if our texts between the three of us ever got hacked and released to the general population? Is that

Zain 4:52

that an invitation for people?

Carter 4:53

people? Thank you. Thanks, Carter. Dear Russian agents listening, there's some really great shit in there. But we all use emails, sometimes inappropriately. And casually. Yeah, and casually. And there's lots of comments made back and forth.

Carter 5:10

That's what happened here. This, to me, is what happens when someone's emails get hacked. But this is a political organization. Right.

Carter 5:17

And guess what? They were behaving politically.

Carter 5:19

politically. When someone comes in and tries to take over your party, you're not necessarily going to respond positively. Let's not forget, Bernie Sanders is an outsider to the Democratic Party, not just an outsider to politics. You know, like, he doesn't fit in either of these parties. He came and chose to run as a Democrat. Correct, correct. And there is going to be hostility. The same way that there was hostility to Trump.

Carter 5:44

We just didn't have anybody hack into the

Carter 5:50

to see what they were saying about Trump. I guarantee that they were saying things about Trump that

Carter 5:56

that echo. I'm sure that right now there's some intern in the RNC hastily

Carter 6:01

hastily deleting everything off of their survey. So this

Carter 6:06

this is what happens. But there's a consequence in politics that is beyond sometimes

Carter 6:12

sometimes what we would do in real life.

Carter 6:15

And that meant that Debbie had to step down. Right.

Zain 6:19

Corey, we've done an entire episode on the strategy of resigning and moving on on this podcast. Do the same political rules apply to

Zain 6:29

to politicians as they do to, let's say, someone like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of a political party? Or is there a different sort of nuance to be mindful of? of well

Corey 6:39

she the democrats for the a while have had you know dnc chairs who are also members of congress or whatnot in her case like she is yeah and there is a challenge there because you are wearing two hats because generally speaking political staff and even political party presidents they're like sports coaches they exist to be fired yeah right if you've got to take the pressure off you can't fire the candidate so you fire the staff yeah and

Corey 7:04

that that ultimately is is what did her in this is right before this was right before the start of the convention this was a convention that was supposed to be about hillary clinton and all of a sudden it was about leaked emails and debbie wasser and schultz she had no choice but to fall on her sword frankly this is the biggest stage anything that was a distraction like this had to go away and they had to move quickly on this and they did uh

Corey 7:28

relative to the emails being posted but they did not relative to frustrations that were growing with her for you this is

Zain 7:33

is what i want to talk about steven do you feel like let's talk about some of the metrics we did in the past or we have in the past about resignation in terms of tone tenor and and timing i guess what did you feel in terms of how uh the dnc let go of schultz and how it moved the cycle away she did not lead or open the convention and which is generally traditional for a chair to do what did you make of of how it played out after the dnc made their move with her i

Carter 7:59

i thought there were there were two things that kind of struck me I mean, I didn't think it was fast enough or strict enough, right? Like, I will resign after.

Carter 8:08

Well, why? Go now. Get your ass out the door. And the second thing was that this kind of made-up position within the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yeah, we'll talk about that,

Zain 8:17

that, the honorary chair stuff,

Carter 8:18

Why? You know, right now, if you're the one taking the blame, whether

Carter 8:25

whether she's responsible or not, let's deal with that as a second issue. She's the one taking the blame. blame

Carter 8:30

take the blame take the hit get the hell out and so your

Zain 8:34

your your concern was both timing and how aggressively she took the blame

Carter 8:37

don't show up at the at the florida delegation and get booed off the stage and she didn't get booed off the stage she got some people booing her but

Zain 8:47

out be gone cory what do you make of that both on timing and and and the i guess what do you say the distance of it or how hard it was do you feel like those were actually issues if

Corey 8:57

you're gonna going to make somebody the fall guy don't give them a parachute i mean steven's absolutely right the entire purpose of it is you're able to take all of the bad news and send it out the door with them and

Corey 9:07

and they go out the door

Corey 9:07

door literally that does not work if you then say we're going to give them an honorary position you know what in the word honorary is the word honor and there is some implication that you actually think highly of this individual that's kind of counter to the very message that you're trying to create in that particular set of circumstances i mean we always always thought she was going to be booed we talked months

Corey 9:28

ago about this going to be a problem she was going to be booed at this convention and i'm sure we'll get into generally the reaction from the crowd and whatnot there but oh yeah but

Corey 9:38

but this this just set it up to like okay

Corey 9:41

okay if you're not going to share it because you're worried about the reaction people are going to have you don't then still inject yourself at certain points in the convention you're just done you're out it's over that would have been the reason so

Zain 9:52

corey is it fair to say then the strategy should have been just to let Let her go and never have her appear at the convention. Is that fair? Like in terms of saying that's what the strategy should have been?

Corey 10:01

I mean, it's very easy for us to say from here. There's always other variables that need to be considered, not least of which is she's got a primary challenge where she has people choosing the Democratic candidate for her district late August. And that would have absolutely destroyed any chances she had, I think. So they wanted to give her an opportunity to leave on terms that were more

Corey 10:24

more favorable. The other thing is to keep in mind that this

Corey 10:27

this is, to an extent, a negotiation. She could have dug her heels in and said, I'm absolutely not leaving. And I'm sure there's mechanisms to kick her out.

Corey 10:34

But that gets even uglier. And if your entire purpose is to avoid that ugliness, you don't want to trigger those. So you need to work with her and find a way that she can leave in a way that saves face for her. Because, again, she

Corey 10:46

she is not just the chair of the Democrats. She's also a politician in her own right.

Corey 10:50

Well, keep in mind

Carter 10:50

mind that a lot of times when we're talking about someone voluntarily resigning,

Carter 10:56

but it's usually because someone has walked into their office and said, it is time for you to resign now.

Carter 11:00

And I think that this is certainly what happened in this particular case. I don't think that

Carter 11:04

that she was sitting around going, you know what? I think I will resign. I should be the one who takes it. She

Zain 11:09

She got resigned. She thought she could probably most likely weather the storm and someone let

Corey 11:15

way it happens, right?

Carter 11:17

stage. The difference is that she's also an elected official. Yes. It changes the metric. And we

Carter 11:22

want to have certain fall guys. I've been the fall guy. People have to be the fall guy sometimes, and you need to be that, and

Carter 11:30

and that means you need to have no encumbrances if you're going to be an effective fall guy.

Zain 11:34

Corey, got to start on this. I'll go to you, Carter. The position that Hillary Clinton's campaign gave to Debbie Wasserman, she also acknowledged that she was part of the 08 run, and they said, we'll give her this honorary chair position from here on in. She'll be a spokesperson for us in Florida, and she'll be part of our 50-state strategy. Strategic error by Hillary Clinton? I

Carter 11:53

I think so. I think so. First of all, you can give it to her next week.

Carter 11:56

You don't have to do it right on top of your existing. I mean, there was a story. Remember the last episode we were talking about how they had to tell their story properly? Yes.

Carter 12:05

This didn't tell their story properly. This became the definition of what is going on. Now, we expected that there would be problems on the first day of the convention. What

Zain 12:13

What do you mean? Like the definition of what people thought Hillary Clinton was or is? The

Carter 12:16

The story that's coming out of the Democratic

Zain 12:19

You mean the headline that you want. You

Carter 12:20

engineer from that, right? The four-day, we are the pros. We are the ones who are going to run our campaign, our convention perfectly. That's the story you wanted to tell, and instead you got hacked. You literally got hacked. Someone got into your emails and has spread them out, and your whole story is now screwed for the beginning. And giving

Carter 12:44

giving her an honorary title didn't help on that. It's not helping you tell your story. Strategic

Zain 12:50

Strategic error, Corey? I

Corey 12:51

I think you've already

Corey 12:53

I think if I were her, I would have said, clearly this is a distraction. Next week is supposed to be all about Hillary. I'm stepping down. I need to focus on my constituents and go back to Florida. Anyhow, I obviously still support this campaign. I look forward to finding other ways that I can funnel my efforts into this campaign. It's a very important fight.

Corey 13:10

And then to Stephen's point, you find something on the back end well before her primary where, frankly, those

Corey 13:15

those kind of positions will be much closer to the primary and would probably do her more good anyways. right now it's all one story of negativity nobody sees this as in any way shape or form a promotion or a good thing but you

Corey 13:27

could have created an arc where you're down of your own volition but you're too important so Hillary Clinton invites you back in I just think that that's

Corey 13:36

that's easy to say there were probably other things going on around there ego obviously is a big thing you know you don't want to you if you're Debbie Wasserman Schultz have actively worked towards this moment for so long and then to step away it's like being Moses and not getting to go into the promised land it must be very tough for her but the other thing is a question of loyalty and certainly one thing that Clinton campaign is going to be mindful of is it can't look like it's willing to throw its supporters under the bus right there's some currency in that too so I think that there's a lot of things playing in here I would love to have been part of those discussions I'm sure they were very interesting okay

Zain 14:12

okay I want to I want to talk about Bernie's response to this in a second but But before I do that, Corey, take me back to your days as ED of the Alberta Liberal Party and chairing and effectively running a party. You as a DNC, and you brought this up,

Zain 14:25

had known, the DNC to some extent had known they had been hacked. Right.

Zain 14:30

Is there an element of anticipatory, you know… There should be. Yeah, okay, so exactly. I want to talk about it. Put yourself in those shoes because you've been in those shoes of running a political

Zain 14:39

political party. If you had known, let's just say, your party had gotten hacked with all of your internal emails, you would have been kind of prepared for this,

Corey 14:46

right? You would go through all of them. You would get out ahead of it. I mean I don't understand why they waited for it to happen right before their convention. They could have released more damaging emails or softened the ground. Themselves,

Corey 14:56

you say. Well, frankly, they should have resigned Debbie Wasserman Schultz a month ago once they started reading those emails and said, shit, we're going to have a bit of a problem here.

Carter 15:05

a scapegoat, ready to be scapegoated.

Corey 15:07

scapegoated. As soon as those emails are dropped, you're like, yeah, and we got rid of the problem. And it's

Zain 15:10

it's already taken care of. It's already taken care

Corey 15:12

care of. It would have been a much, much better approach. Although I'll tell you, Zane, my

Corey 15:17

my experience at – well, okay. So when I worked at a political party, to Stephen's opening point, I was very mindful of every single email I put in.

Corey 15:28

When I was sending emails to people, they were always businesslike. They certainly didn't have language like that because I wasn't so much worried about being hacked. But political parties have factions, and one faction comes in after another faction and blames the other guy. And you know that somebody after you is always going to be reading your emails and looking for a bit of a scapegoat or has that ability to do so. So I was always very careful about what was in my emails. I can't believe that the Democrats wouldn't have taken a similar approach there. I thought they were surprisingly lax. Especially

Carter 15:56

Especially in a world where we all have second and third emails. Oh, and especially in a world where we're all texting and we're all DMing and we're all, you know, personal messages on Facebook and personal, you

Corey 16:05

you know, like you throw that shit into your like your iMessage or your WhatsApp. Don't don't have that in your DNC email. But

Corey 16:12

But the thing that I probably would

Corey 16:14

would lean on more as an experience as to how to, you know, you ask, what would happen? You hear this and you anticipate is in business life. Whenever you do work with a government, there's a risk that your files will be foiled. Right. FOIPed in Alberta, FOIA and a lot of other jurisdictions. Basically, Freedom of Information Act requests to see all of your interactions with the government. And that's happened, I think, to all of us in different cases. Just, you know, they want to see that information and you work with the privacy commissioner or whatnot. not and basically as soon as you get word of that even before the scope has been defined by the privacy commissioner you go back and you say okay is there anything that either in or out of context could potentially get us in trouble do we need to contextualize something but you have this conversation you have this conversation you sit down you review all of your communication and the challenge you have by the way in a lot of cases when you do work with the government as a bit of an aside is that almost no professional is ever going to comment on client work right And so you're not able to defend yourself in this situation. It's up to the government to frame it however they want, and they can easily throw you under the bus if they want, if there's anything that's challenging. You're not able to contextualize things. So you need to go through and you need to understand exactly what your exposure is. And I can't understand that the Democrats didn't have a better setup for that and a better understanding of what might be coming. me. Carter,

Zain 17:36

Carter, anything to add on what Corey just mentioned here, the whole concept of measuring and testing your exposure or anticipating it? You nodded your head when you said the right strategy, we agreed with Corey, would have been to have the problem taken care of even before the emails dropped.

Carter 17:50

There's not one of us that hasn't been in this situation with, you know, certainly not every email you've written in the last little while. But, you

Carter 17:57

you know, freedom of information is probably the best example where we've all had this happen.

Carter 18:03

We've all had information that's going to go out that we don't want to go out and

Carter 18:07

and how you manage it first of all i mean uh

Carter 18:11

we would put things out before it was required to go out so you'd actually have the information out and say well yeah that was our planned release date anyways you know i'm a big fan of getting everything out now

Carter 18:22

now in this particular case i

Carter 18:24

i don't know how you release these emails in advance but you certainly create a fall guy now i i mean there's a there's a reason it's called a whipping boy right someone

Carter 18:31

someone If someone else takes your punishment for you, that's what you need to create. Now, there's a danger that if you had Debbie Wasserman-Smith step down early, you

Carter 18:42

you wouldn't have had that person to whip, right? So someone else would have had to step down. But

Carter 18:48

But in a perfect world, you

Carter 18:50

you should set up your exact strategy, right?

Carter 18:53

right? She's going to step down early. We're going to have this person ready to step down second. We are ready to go the second that this thing happens, and we are going to nip it in the bud. There was

Carter 19:01

was no nipping in the bud at all in this process.

Zain 19:06

Quite anything to add? No. No. Okay. Let's talk about the Republicans for a second as it relates to this email scandal. So Donald Trump goes out and says this scandal exposes how Bernie Sanders was treated unfairly and then makes what now seems to be standard appeal to Bernie Sanders voters to come on side with him. Is

Zain 19:23

Is that, in fact, the scope, Corey, in your mind? Or do you feel like there's a broader case that the Republicans could make with this particular story?

Corey 19:31

Well, I think that the Republicans are certainly helped along by this story, but it's

Corey 19:37

it's easy to overstate exactly how advantageous it is to them because at the end of the day, they're still going after the most left-wing Democrats with a right-wing party. So I

Corey 19:47

got to tell you, though, there was a line that struck me in Donald Trump's speech on Thursday night about Bernie Sanders, which I believe was a drop in because I read the speech and then I read it and listened to him after where he's like talking

Corey 20:00

talking about Bernie Sanders. Well, believe me, they really screwed him. They he really never had a fair chance in the Democrats. They always had their thumb on the scale. And then, of course, the next day this happens. That's very fortunate. and i i

Corey 20:14

i can't help but think about in uh the godfather right when uh

Corey 20:18

uh vito corleone is talking to all of these people and he's saying i'm a suspicious man and if an

Corey 20:22

an accident shall befall my son you know if he is struck by lightning then somebody in this room yeah well

Corey 20:28

i'm a suspicious man and when you have a drop-in like that and then the very next day all of these emails come out i

Corey 20:34

i start to think that's incredibly convenient and not just in the sense that somebody wanted wanted to hurt the democrats but i feel feel feel strong feel strong to have known this was coming and that may sound tinfoil hat and conspiracy but this is just wild to me the way they managed to set everything up so perfectly for exactly what was released on from carter

Zain 20:52

carter you seem confident or you're or at least you've been on the other side of a strategy to know when you know yeah

Carter 20:58

yeah i mean you when you're setting someone up you know you know exactly what's going to happen i mean someone hacked these emails uh this idea that these things happen just

Carter 21:07

just by some random person acting randomly sure

Carter 21:11

sure we'd like to believe that but that's not how these things happen um

Carter 21:16

someone knew this was happening someone

Zain 21:17

someone knew when they wanted to

Carter 21:19

wiki leaks has has allowed themselves to be uh willing patsies in this um and that's the way i look at them They're patsies.

Carter 21:29

This is, to me, this kind of crazy playing

Carter 21:34

playing around in an election. And it's funny to me that Republicans think that this is OK. Right.

Carter 21:41

Right. Like this is not OK. And I wouldn't I can't imagine that this is the type of warfare that we want to start seeing in elections. OK,

Zain 21:49

OK, hold on for one second. Define to me what their strategy should be around these emails. else what should they be doing they're they're currently going after bernie supporters is there something else that that these could be a gateway to

Corey 22:00

to well in my opinion the the other two things i talked about are probably more likely avenues for you to get support right one of the other two buckets you depress the donors by pointing out how badly they've abused the donors and you really try to make a clear case that the democrats are just a crass political organization and the other is it just has another avenue in to say the democrats are corrupt the system is corrupt all of that when you start looking at some of these more transactional

Corey 22:28

exchanges that appear to be happening it's there it feeds into a narrative that is more helpful to you frankly than that bernie sanders got a raw deal in the uh in the nomination yeah

Carter 22:38

yeah those voters aren't available i just do not believe that they're available i mean um those voters hate big big business. They hate the idea that an election can be bought. And this is a guy who's literally buying his own election. Well,

Corey 22:55

Well, here's my thinking. I mean, you've got a Sanders coalition that includes young, right? And some very angry Midwesterners who have lost their jobs. Let's call it young and trade as the two pieces. Well, the group that are most offended by the emails are the young group, not the trade guys, right? So if you're really going after Sanders voters, voters you're picking an issue that's going after the wrong Sanders voters in my opinion and so I think that I would rather take the overall DNC leaks and make it a concern about ethics and really try to suppress their fundraising as well which is one of the major advantages Clinton Carter what

Zain 23:29

what do you think of Corey's take I'd like to get your response to that do you think that extends the timeline of these attacks beyond this week do you feel like that has legs yeah

Carter 23:38

yeah and I I think it's actually effective. I mean, it's

Carter 23:43

it's hard because it's not like you're standing on a moral high ground on ethics when you're with Donald Trump. But

Carter 23:51

think it is a longer play. I

Carter 23:53

I just hate this thing from the beginning. If I was the RNC or

Carter 23:57

or running Trump's campaign, I

Carter 24:00

would have just left it. This

Carter 24:01

This is going to happen.

Carter 24:03

It's going to be a thing. I don't need to amp it. It's already amped. So you go back

Zain 24:09

back to the political rule that if your opponents

Carter 24:11

opponents – If your opponents in the midst of destroying themselves don't get in the way.

Corey 24:15

Yeah, it's good advice. I think as much as we've talked about the tactics specifically around cleanup, the bigger issues are foundational, what these DNC leaks do in my opinion. Okay,

Zain 24:25

Okay, so on that, let's close this segment off with Bernie Sanders' reaction. So as soon as this happened, he calls for Debbie Wasserman Schultz's head. Corey, what did you make of his quick and – this very seems to be aggressive politics is Bernie Sanders. It seems to be very much in line with him wanting the head of the DNC chair, as he has for a while now.

Zain 24:43

Any special comments on Bernie Sanders as it relates to this issue?

Corey 24:47

I think we need to back it up, and I think that we need to talk about this more broadly. We can move on, but we can't move on before we note that fundamentally this could create a schism down the road that could cause some serious problems for the Democrats. And here's what I mean.

Corey 25:04

Bernie Sanders was not given a totally neutral hearing by the campaign.

Corey 25:10

campaign. You can look back to December when his access was cut off to the software voter activation network, it's called, where he could get his voter file and his donors and all that. That cost him a lot. I'm not saying it cost him the election. there's

Corey 25:23

there's been the debate schedule that cost him because he went up when there was debates but you know these things happen and they happen subtly and in ways that are not reflected entirely by the email i'm sure most of the most egregious thumb on the scale things would never have been put in email the fact that those things were put in email shows to me that there was an incredible amount of comfort with

Corey 25:43

with putting your thumb on the scale in general around the dnc around the issue of bernie sanders okay two things though that i think are really important here one bernie sanders was asked by the Democrats if he was going to run for president to do it within the confines of the Democratic Party so that there would not be a third-party candidate that could potentially splinter. Now, if the next time there's a very progressive candidate comes along and is asked the same thing by Democrats, I think they're going to look at that a bit differently based on Bernie Sanders' experience. So I think there's a certain trust thing there that you have to consider. The other thing is that they were so on the record with no, we are neutral, no, we are neutral, And then some of these are blatantly contradicted by the emails, some of the reactions they've had, which is just going to create an institutional distrust between the progressive and establishment wings of the party. That, to me, is a bigger problem than this week. This week will be papered over. You're going to look at Sanders supporters, and Sanders supporters are going to be mad, but they were always going to be sad and mad. And you're always going to have that visual of some woman crying as Sanders says, I'm not going to be the nominee. Dominique.

Corey 26:47

down the road, what this means is that nobody is going to trust the party from the progressive wing. Carter,

Zain 26:52

Carter, I'll give I'll give Corey that that little, you know, monologue for a second, because I think that's interesting. Because do you feel like Corey that there is a long term impact with the two buckets that he mentioned right now?

Carter 27:04

Yeah, I mean, I think you see, you're seeing a fracturing of both parties, right? The Tea Party, Republican Party party split has been there for quite some time. It doesn't know where Trump fits, right? Trump's kind of this anomaly even within that break. And now you've got this progressive wing, democratic wing schism

Carter 27:26

schism that's also happening.

Carter 27:30

how do you deal with that? So if you're in politics, one of the very first things is you have to recognize that no one party represents The majority of people. Right. This isn't how we are. We're not saying, oh,

Carter 27:42

oh, you know, well, I represent the conservative party and everybody agrees with every plank of our platform. Right.

Carter 27:48

Right. You have to find ways of bringing people in. What

Carter 27:51

What I'm seeing is a hardening in

Carter 27:53

in the United States where we're saying, you know what, I'm not coming in.

Carter 27:57

I'm not going to come in. I'm not going to compromise my principles for Hillary Clinton. I'm not going to compromise my principles for Ted Cruz. I'm not going to compromise my principles for Paul Ryan. I'm not going to compromise my principles. And this is creating fractures amongst these traditional two party state.

Carter 28:17

know, will there be another third party candidate that's not a joke like Perot? Probably. Probably

Carter 28:22

Probably there'll be a third party candidate in the next couple of elections. And that's going to start to create real havoc as we move forward. And I

Carter 28:33

don't know that that's necessarily bad, but

Carter 28:35

but I do know that it will be different. Corey,

Zain 28:37

Corey, do you want to close us off on this segment with any final thoughts?

Corey 28:39

Well, here's a little life lesson for everybody out there and probably a good transition into – Corey's life lessons. I like it. Bernie Sanders' supporters at the convention on the Monday, right?

Corey 28:49

Political parties don't exist because we all agree. The purpose of a political party is not to reflect your opinions 100%. Political parties were created and exist so that people with different opinions can find a way to funnel them into common action. And the suggestion otherwise that you need to agree 100% with these people or that if your party supports something, you must support it as a supporter of the party is so base and offensive that it boggles my mind. Like the entire – if we would not need political parties at all, if

Corey 29:17

if all we needed to do was get 100% lockstep behind the opinions of the leader. Political parties are for the funneling of opinions. opinions they are not for the echoing of opinions we'll

Zain 29:26

we'll leave it there let's move it on to our next segment our next segment stephen carter it's our sponsor campaign tech chicago oh

Carter 29:32

oh we're getting close aren't we he just

Zain 29:34

just brings the energy for the sponsor

Carter 29:35

sponsor i love it so excited i mean now we're getting close i um we're

Carter 29:39

we're getting painfully close oh i mean if you haven't booked yet i don't know what's wrong with you we get in there book your ticket the

Carter 29:47

point of this exercise isn't to to just go and interact with the the democrats and the republicans the point of this exercise is to grow as a as a political professional whether you're a pro and get paid to do this as we like to think of ourselves or if you wait you guys get paid to

Carter 30:03

this we do that's

Carter 30:05

that's why you're hosting um but hurtful you'll get through it this is our

Carter 30:12

this this is how you get better this is how you become a person who who gets politics and if your Your life is, even in marketing, I

Carter 30:20

I find that when I go to one of these seminars, I do better marketing afterwards because politics is about selling of ideas. And selling of ideas is, in many regards, in my mind anyways, more challenging than selling a specific product.

Carter 30:35

I've gone to the marketing conferences. I've been a speaker of marketing conferences. And

Carter 30:40

And for me, I

Carter 30:41

I get more bang for the buck going to this type of conference than I do for the marketing conferences. Cool.

Zain 30:45

Cool. CampaignTechChicago.com. We are painfully close Use the offer code Strategists August 4th In Chicago We'll see you there It'll be a good time Meet us It'll be awesome Oh yeah

Zain 30:57

CampaignTechChicago.com Okay Let's move it on To our next segment Our next segment Conventional Wisdom Corey

Zain 31:02

Corey Hogan We want to talk about The DNC convention But before we do that Before we do that We need to talk about The Donald Trump Post convention Poll bump Oh Yeah we do Yeah we do You had a

Corey 31:15

blank look On your

Zain 31:15

your face said that this massive smile just for the record popular

Carter 31:19

popular vote the uh 538 it still has a well 1.3 difference okay

Zain 31:25

okay do you want to quickly take us through this cory we've got a four percent bump for donald trump what was the number that you said that you said oh

Corey 31:33

three or four percent i said a very

Corey 31:34

very common convention bump this was pretty much spot on but listen zane i mean we could spend every minute of every episode me reminding people when i was was right and Stephen Carter was wrong. Actually, you know what? I should mention, do you recall when we were talking last August about who we thought Hillary Clinton's vice presidential pick might be? You listed four people and one of them turned out to be the guy? No, I said Tim Kaine was the top of my list, and here we are. Tim Kaine. This is just the kind of wisdom and prognostication I bring to the show here. But the bump, I think it's important for people out there to keep in mind, like the don't panic thing that we were saying to people earlier remains. You always get a convention bump. he got a very traditional convention bump three to four points right yeah we'll see if it holds i do think he put on the table some narratives that could carry him through november if the democrats don't get their act together but generally speaking this is this is not a shocking shocking amount of movement for a candidate coming out of a major convention carter yeah add to that

Carter 32:31

please i don't think it hurts hillary clinton in the long run you don't i don't i think that that a narrative that donald trump can win um may just be the type of narrative that you need in order to get your vote out for a particularly unpopular candidate.

Carter 32:45

So when you have an unpopular candidate,

Carter 32:47

I think the best example for us is the Alberta election of 2008.

Carter 32:52

Two very unpopular leaders, Ed Stelmack and Kevin Taft.

Carter 32:58

People don't want to vote for either.

Carter 33:00

You know what happens? They don't vote.

Carter 33:01

They don't vote. It's the lowest turnout in provincial election history in Alberta. I think it was 42%, something like that. Personality

Corey 33:08

Personality Bowl 08. Yeah, I mean,

Carter 33:10

mean, it was it was no

Carter 33:12

no one captured anybody's attention. And as a result, the

Carter 33:15

the votes weren't there.

Carter 33:16

Hillary does not want that to happen because Trump

Carter 33:19

Trump could win a convention, a low voter turnout. So

Carter 33:22

So when people are convinced that Trump could win, her

Carter 33:25

her turnout will go up. Corey,

Zain 33:27

Corey, let's turn to the convention and what led off the convention afternoon yesterday was the Bernie or bust movement. The group of folks, both in the evening, but more specifically, let's start off with the afternoon and on the streets, I should mention, that were chanting that it has to be Bernie or else they're going home. They're not doing this for Hillary. They're not putting the X beside Hillary Clinton. A real issue or a media overreaction? Let's start there. Well, let me put two counterarguments on

Corey 33:56

on the table and then let's discuss which one is potentially more valid.

Corey 34:01

Now, the Democrats, you know, we talked a couple of episodes ago about the Republicans being the law and order party. The Democrats are not the law and order party. They're the party of nobody can agree on a lunch menu party, right? The indecisive party? Yeah, I mean, Will Rogers, there's that famous quote where he's like, I'm not a member of an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.

Corey 34:22

there's some truth to that and they bring all sorts of opinions and they voice them in very aggressive ways a lot of the time they're they're rock and roll they're not country they're i'm mad as hell not be happy with what you got and that

Corey 34:33

that is inevitably going to lead to a fair bit more conflict than a party of the republicans party you know i mean a conference of the republican party but

Corey 34:42

but that's one okay

Corey 34:44

okay that's the argument where like calm down guys this is just them there's going to be chants of black lives matter and we trusted you and bernie bernie that's just that's the nature of the democrats and they are not this monolithic organization the way the republicans are and they're damn proud of it right right that's one argument the other argument is sure

Corey 35:03

sure ted cruz was booed there were boos at the republican convention but that was boos from the floor of booing somebody not supporting their nominee this was quite the opposite this was boos from from the floor for people supporting the nominee and that definitely takes on a different flavor and it was very difficult to watch that convention in general um i found last night because you know my anxiety would so my anxiety would spike every time i'd start hearing chants in the background because i'd be like what am i missing what's going on how big is this right now because you just really didn't get a sense of it and even a couple of voices can sound like a lot on television so So from a theater standpoint, I think yesterday

Corey 35:46

as embarrassing as anything that happened to Trump.

Corey 35:48

Really? You do think so? I do.

Zain 35:50

what do you make of the magnitude of this situation, right? You've got Bernie Sanders speaking in the afternoon to his supporters. They outright boo the fact that he says we need to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. And then it happens again on the floor last night where certain speakers have to make ad hoc lines on the spot being like, hey, come on, guys, seriously.

Carter 36:09

What do you make? It's like never Trump never happened. Right. Never Trump was the Monday of the convention. There were people standing up and screaming. There were people

Carter 36:18

people yelling that we will not support Trump. We will not support Trump. This is the exact same thing.

Carter 36:24

We forgot about it on the Thursday because by the time we got to the end of the convention, there

Carter 36:30

there was a great speech. And I would argue that

Carter 36:32

that the biggest piece that happened yesterday wasn't a

Carter 36:34

a group of people yelling that they would never support Hillary, but

Carter 36:37

but Michelle Obama's speech where she got up there and frankly set a brand new bar on what we're going to be expecting for a speech

Carter 36:45

speech from a nominee. Because I'll tell you, her speech was better than anything we saw on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Oh,

Corey 36:53

no question. Although I often have trouble handicapping speeches because ultimately I just I like the content of the Democrat speeches so much more. Right. It's you know, it's hard to put aside your own biases. But Obama knocked it out of the park. She did phenomenal. And, you know, the way she even framed some of her arguments in a way that was pointed but not aggressive. Like, hey, Hillary Clinton lost in 08. She didn't give up. She came back. She didn't get angry. And here she is now. And look at that. She's our nominee.

Corey 37:21

Okay. I mean, the subtle argument there, I know we're, I'm sure we're going to get into speeches. No, no, no. It's fine. Go ahead. That's fine. But the subtle argument there, of course, is like, look, Bernie

Carter 37:28

Bernie can come back.

Corey 37:28

back. You didn't lose forever. There's

Carter 37:29

There's another candidate. I'm sure. It's not about Bernie.

Zain 37:33

It's a movement. Here's

Zain 37:35

This is it. So this is exactly the question I want to get into as it relates to Bernie Sanders for a second before we get into Michelle Obama.

Zain 37:41

Because Bernie Sanders' movement is that, it's a movement, it's bigger than him, right? By definition, the

Zain 37:47

the fact that he tries to go out there and calm the crowd inherently,

Zain 37:51

inherently, just by definition, doesn't work because the whole concept is bigger than that. Is that a liability heading into day two, three, and four of the convention, Corey? It's

Zain 37:59

It's a reality. So

Corey 38:00

So this happened in Alberta when Danielle Smith tried to cross to the PCs and bring her entire party with her. She brought most of her caucus with her but not her party. And the lesson there is that you cannot negotiate away a movement. There are leaders of movements, but not owners of movements. So even when Bernie Sanders himself is up there saying, I'm over there now, the

Corey 38:21

movement has its own motion and inertia, and it's just going to go in the direction it was set in. I will also say it turns out that non-political people are maybe not the most awesome people to have involved in politics. They just do not understand how politics works, and they don't understand that ultimately, to my earlier point, those differences have to be settled. Somebody, quote-unquote, wins. We move on, and we can change things in the future, but this is where we are now. Parties do not mean you get your way all the time. Parties mean you have agreed to a general concept of governance. Yeah. So,

Zain 38:53

So, Carter, was there something that the Hillary Clinton camp could have done or should have done to to anticipate this or strategically get ahead of it? Or was this a lost cause that Corey just calls a reality and they just need to face it?

Carter 39:06

think they took everything they could do. I mean, they gave them

Carter 39:09

them a valuable speaking slot. They have adopted a I think a very liberal, small, liberal platform. I think the

Carter 39:18

the you know, this is everything they could do except change the nominee. nominee what and they're not changing that nominee what

Zain 39:24

did you this is to both of you cory i'll go i'll go with you first on this what did you make of the clinton campaign's official response to the booze on the floor where they said listen they're allowed to do that this is their moment of catharsis did you feel like that was a good line did that come off as a little bit patronizing what did

Corey 39:39

did you i don't think of it i didn't think it was patronizing per se although i'm sure many bernie sanders supporters felt it was patronizing i think really Really, there's

Corey 39:50

there's some truth to it, but there's also some spin to it, right? Again, this is the Democrats. Sometimes they're going to disagree. We are so used to, over the past couple of decades, going into a convention where a delegate has 80% of the votes, 90% of the votes. Yes.

Corey 40:03

It is almost, you know, I mean, 08 was the exception, right? But 08

Corey 40:08

08 had the establishment on the losing side, and the establishment knows how to lose. exactly

Carter 40:13

exactly oh wait you have a person who lost who was prepared to lose properly and was was saying there's a greater good here that's

Carter 40:22

and and in in this particular election you're

Carter 40:25

you're not going to see that imagine what would happen if if trump had lost 54 to 46 imagine the

Carter 40:30

the shit show that would have been oh

Carter 40:33

yeah right and and essentially that's what we're talking about here i mean even on my facebook page i'm getting bernie sanders supporters continuing to say that super delegates if super superdelegates didn't exist they would have won the election yes yes

Zain 40:44

yes yes i saw that too right bullshit

Carter 40:46

there is no means by which this makes any sense but they are convinced that this was stolen from them the emails you

Carter 40:54

you know each one of those people only represents you know a

Carter 40:58

a single vote but it's all framed in such a way that because

Carter 41:01

because they're not of the party to cory's point they're not of politics they don't understand how these

Carter 41:07

things work you are

Corey 41:08

are and they don't know how to

Corey 41:10

yeah and i'd stand by that but i will say the grievances in the emails about the emails and the content of them are legitimate i fundamentally not to go back to our last segment but i just that's fine i reject this notion that oh yeah well what a surprise they we all knew that they were sort of doing this therefore it's fine listen john gotti was arrested finally but

Corey 41:30

but we knew he was a mobster well before that didn't make his arrest any more of an indictable offense the fact of the the matter is it's not okay for somebody to claim they're a neutral arbiter and act in a non-neutral fashion that is a legitimate beef have you been in politics

Corey 41:45

this your first time working in politics and that's a bullshit argument because just because i've had to deal with it doesn't mean i've ever thought it's right steven and the reason

Carter 41:52

reason why leadership when you were an executive director yes

Corey 41:55

yes i did and it was a pain in the ass but i stayed as neutral as humanly possible

Carter 41:59

sherman won that right i'll

Corey 42:00

i'll tell you something how

Carter 42:01

how How would your emails look if I'd been able to pull up all your emails that Raj Sherman was winning? They

Corey 42:07

They would have been absolutely fine. I had a day of that leadership contest where in the span of 12 hours, I had Raj Sherman's campaign and Hugh McDonald's campaign both send formal complaints about me being not neutral. These were the two main competitors against each other over the exact same fucking action, okay? OK, sometimes you are going to be accused of being unneutral, but that doesn't mean you're being unneutral. However, the amount of the amount of contortion and cynicism it takes to say these are fine because that's politics.

Corey 42:40

Are we not in politics because we want things to be better, like a better world? The ends do not justify the means. They do not. But let's move on because we're never going to do this. No wonder you were a Bernie

Carter 42:51

you were a Bernie supporter. So

Zain 42:52

So there are very few times where the show doesn't need me. I think that was one of those times.

Zain 42:57

we okay we're gonna be fine what are we talking about i don't

Zain 43:00

okay here's let's let's get into some positivity or i hope it is michelle obama michelle obama's speech before we talk about how good it was whatever which we've already teased in cardinal start with you what was the goal of the speech for michelle obama heading into monday night like if you are preparing her for and

Carter 43:19

and i'm michelle obama's correct

Zain 43:20

correct correct and you have the conversation and hillary clinton's people say okay

Zain 43:24

okay first lady obama this is what we need from you this This is the goal or the end result of, you know, when you talk about headlines, this is the headline we'd want from your speech.

Carter 43:32

You know, it's interesting because I think it's two different answers. If I'm Hillary's person or if I'm Obama's person. I'm glad you answered it that

Carter 43:40

Sometimes these things are used as the jumping off point from four years from now. Right. If Hillary Clinton loses, is

Carter 43:48

Michelle Obama a legitimate candidate or am I just wishing that she was? You like many people might be. Because she stood up there. So if I'm her staffer, right, and I wrote that speech, am I writing that speech just for her political legacy and the Obama's political legacy? Or am I writing that speech, you

Carter 44:07

know, like for a future?

Carter 44:09

And they may be the same speech in this particular case because. So this

Zain 44:13

this one has a. Yeah, it was

Carter 44:15

was so good. It

Carter 44:16

It was such a good. Now, I will tell you, I watched the speech and everybody had been. I didn't watch it live. I watched it afterwards. where everybody had been raving

Carter 44:22

raving about it on Facebook and raving about it on Twitter and all the media. So

Carter 44:27

So I kind of went in and I thought that the first half was a little flat.

Carter 44:30

But that second half, like, there

Carter 44:32

there is a theme there that

Carter 44:36

almost set an impossible standard for Hillary. Why? In what sense? Do you think Hillary Clinton is going to be able to move us in the same fashion that Michelle Obama moves us? I don't think so. I think the Obamas, you know, I think Barack's speaking speaking tonight

Carter 44:52

tonight i think is it tonight

Carter 44:53

tonight or tomorrow night i think

Zain 44:54

think maybe i think he's

Carter 44:56

he's tomorrow um but

Carter 45:00

you're hillary clinton you're going to be following michelle obama on monday bill clinton on tuesday barack obama on wednesday arguably those are the three best speakers in american politics and therefore the

Carter 45:17

and you're going to get up there and from what i've have seen hillary clinton that's

Carter 45:21

that's an impossible your

Corey 45:22

level of hyperbole there is three

Corey 45:24

three best people it is the most hyperbolic anybody has ever been in the world

Corey 45:29

like exactly very medical

Zain 45:29

medical listen i'm gonna ask you the same question the goal oh

Carter 45:32

oh here we go what it's

Zain 45:34

it's that's a good question the goal the goal for the speech though what do you what do you think it was from michelle obama standpoint and from the clinton camp standpoint what

Zain 45:40

what do they want from her you

Corey 45:42

you know you go to a comedy show and there's a totally brutal act but they never send on the next guy there's always the guy who does the crowd and brings everyone up to a baseline right it's also you sort of your job as an mc at the wedding after a brutal speech you sort of bring things up um

Corey 45:57

she was that before the big acts of that night so that

Corey 46:01

that was the first speech you know i you know i was saying i was like anxious during it because i kept hearing these things being like what's going on yeah

Corey 46:07

everybody loves michelle obama she's a fairly neutral character in the democratic party

Corey 46:11

The Obamas in general are beloved, which

Corey 46:15

which meant you didn't get those kind of catcalls as you got in the earlier speeches. It was the first speech you could sort of enjoy. So, Stephen, to your point about the first seemed flat to you, the first half was a fucking relief to everybody else watching at home who was having to deal with these chants all the time and trying to figure out. Because you can't crane your neck and see what's going on in the convention hall, right? That's true. So that was very good. Good. And I think when you think about the Obamas, we sometimes start to think about them purely in terms of like, what's their next move? Yeah.

Corey 46:47

But that would be unfortunate. I truly believe that there

Corey 46:50

there were some important things to them. Barack Obama, for all of the progressive talk, has been a fairly moderate president as things go through. Michelle

Corey 47:00

and Barack Obama clearly wanted to support Hillary Clinton long before they could. So this was helping set a baseline. And I will also say, like

Corey 47:07

like the tears that were in her eyes during those parts of the speech talking about her children, that's

Corey 47:11

that's not the kind of thing you fake. No, they weren't crocodile tears. What a powerful message. It was a message that was only

Corey 47:19

only half stated but fully heard, right? You had her

Corey 47:23

her talking about being in the White House, a building built by slaves, and

Corey 47:28

and seeing her daughters growing up on the White House lawn. Right. Right. But

Corey 47:33

But there's more than that.

Corey 47:35

Because 12 years ago, guys, the notion that a black woman could be president of the United States was a bit far-fetched. It had only been white male presidential candidates since times immemorial. They'd had a vice presidential candidate who was a woman, certainly not a black woman.

Corey 47:53

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, you

Corey 47:57

you can now legitimately say a black woman could be president of the United States. Carter,

Carter 48:02

Carter, go ahead. So you crap down my throat and say that I'm basically wrong. And then you agree with my points and you make my points for me.

Carter 48:09

This is how is Hillary Clinton supposed to reach that level? And this is the first night speaker. Okay, so this is what I find interesting. I disagree. Okay, go ahead. You want to disagree? Okay, go ahead. What Michelle

Corey 48:22

Michelle Obama did very artfully is put that argument on the table that we've kind of forgotten about. Just how historic the Hillary Clinton candidacy is and just what it could mean to literally half the population growing up in the United States right now. Corey,

Zain 48:35

Corey, how do you, you know, when we talked about the Republican convention, we said, OK, listen, Trump's had a shitty Monday, a shitty Wednesday. But if he has a great Thursday, it's

Corey 48:42

it's all gone. I mean, I disagreed with you guys. Yeah,

Zain 48:45

Yeah, right. OK. But even if that's conventional wisdom said that was what had happened in the convention, if he had a crappy three days, right, you can wipe it all away with Thursday. If we are still focused on Thursday on the Democrats' side, how do the Democrats leverage this great, amazing Monday night speech beyond Thursday?

Corey 49:03

Oh, I think it's pretty clear they're going to ask her to be a surrogate as much as possible, give as many speeches as possible on the campaign trail. It could be a very powerful surrogate in a lot of swing states. I

Corey 49:13

I think Michelle Obama is going to be more politically active perhaps any time other than Barack Obama's campaigns. pains you know she'll be out there really taking center stage in quite a literal sense in a lot of situations carter

Zain 49:25

carter is that the strategy use her as a surrogate going forward i

Carter 49:27

i would i mean they're just she's absolutely amazingly powerful and unlike hillary she's less polarizing with women let's

Zain 49:33

let's talk about one other surrogate that the clinton camp has used quite effectively so far that also spoke last night elizabeth warren now she was set up by michelle obama to ultimately come on stage and unfortunately seemed like she was not as you know i'm not sure charismatic's the right word but just didn't deliver into the same level but what do you feel like the value of elizabeth warren was for the clinton camp heading into convention last night what was her broad goal that she was looking at tackling well

Corey 50:00

well if you look at the

Corey 50:02

the sanders supporters and the progressive wing of the party and you look at hillary clinton elizabeth warren's the bridge between those two organizations it's like you take the sanders you know if you had like you remember in that michael jackson music video where the faces were morphing like that would be the face in between right because you have somebody who is

Corey 50:22

is very establishment very stayed in their presentation and appearance and frankly not being a great speaker almost builds to that point sure but carries a lot of those same economic values as bernie sanders and acts as a natural kind of bridge to the arguments in favor of hillary clinton and it was all stagecraft about the progressive way i mean I mean, you do not necessarily want to go facing the U.S. electorate entirely on the messages that were provided on Monday night. I'm

Corey 50:47

I'm sure there was somebody in the Clinton campaign who winced a bit when Bernie Sanders talked about it being the most progressive Democratic platform ever.

Corey 50:55

Because I'm not really sure that's going to be a great general election message. Was she effective stagecraft for the progressive wing? She was what she needed to be. I don't necessarily think every speaker needs to be the greatest speaker ever. And she provided messages and she bundled them in a package

Corey 51:14

package that was very, very non-threatening to the progressive wing and sort of gave a sense that the establishment and progressive wing can work together.

Zain 51:22

Carter, do you agree with Corey's definition of what the goal for Elizabeth Warren was, the bridge between Clinton and Sanders?

Carter 51:28

Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely what it

Zain 51:29

it is. And did she deliver on that goal in terms of what she did last

Carter 51:31

last night? Yeah, and more importantly, she feels good about her role. She got the speaking spots that she wants and she's going to be on side as she becomes your attack dog. for the next three months. I mean, it's

Carter 51:41

it's a bigger play than just did you speak at the convention. You only have X number of slots at a convention. The reason you give one to Elizabeth Warren is not to nail the convention. It's to get her buy-in for the next three months. Right.

Zain 51:55

Right. Let's talk about Bernie Sanders and him speaking last night, Corey. What did you make of, and what do you broadly think his goal was? Was his just to ensure that he could make the best case possible for his folks, or was he looking to do something else he

Corey 52:10

was writing a new final chapter to his stump speech i mean almost literally that the language was the same all the way through it was it was this moment where i just had like my head in my hands because like optically it was so painful the intro video which was literally a bernie sanders campaign video yes all you know the the paul simon looks like he was still running like

Corey 52:30

well and then it just it just ends with like footage that looks shot entirely different of him up on stage with hillary clinton and different font being like they're together i mean it was just tacked on in just the tackiest way possible but then the speech was exactly like that too he talked all the same things about the movement and went on but he made hillary clinton the vessel instead of him and i think that was exactly what he needed to do as well and i'm quite sure after being

Corey 52:55

booed earlier in the day by his supporters uh

Corey 52:58

uh for saying that they had to support hillary clinton he uh he was probably very nervous about that happening again on on primetime stage because as much as bernie sanders says it's all about a movement it's

Corey 53:10

it's got to be a bit demoralizing

Corey 53:12

demoralizing when you realize that these people don't listen to you right and he wanted to bring them back into the tent and show he had value within establishment politics not just movement politics well

Carter 53:22

well this is a delegated convention and that's something that uh it it matters when you're looking at you know know the progressive conservative party of alberta moving back to a delegated system and one of those things is leakage right so let's say you have x number like bernie sanders says x number of delegates and he goes and supports the winner you know hillary clinton you want to know exactly how many of those delegates will move with him because

Carter 53:47

if it if it was a contested nomination with let's say four or five ballots if people leak off of that ballot like if they if bernie sanders people won't move with him then you have a

Carter 53:58

a chaotic process your

Carter 54:00

your value as a candidate is

Carter 54:03

is directly measured by how low your leakage value is i

Corey 54:07

i totally agree yeah and ultimately in the future if it shows that those left-wing movement politicians can't manage their teams their ability to negotiate things like the platform as bernie sanders did are zero yeah they're just not you kick them

Carter 54:21

them out you say okay you can't do anything for me so i'm going to to ignore you i

Corey 54:26

i mean ultimately that is the thing and

Corey 54:28

and i'll say i thought bernie sanders got pretty good billing for the amount of things he managed to get done we've talked about them in the past interesting i was watching on cnn and and he was you know they do the little tags at the bottom of who's speaking and yeah it showed bernie sanders democrat and is he now a democrat is he no i don't know if he is in fact

Carter 54:46

fact a democrat so

Corey 54:46

so he's no longer like he always caucused with

Zain 54:48

with the democrats yes

Zain 54:49

yeah okay interesting okay final question on this segment carter i'll go to you first you are You are part of the DNC establishment for tonight, and you've been given the task to frame the arc for

Zain 54:59

for the explainer-in-chief, Bill Clinton, speaking tonight. What are you broadly setting as Bill Clinton's objective tonight

Zain 55:07

tonight for his primetime hour?

Carter 55:09

I'm going to want him to remind people of all of the good Democratic presidents. You know, like he's the Democratic president of the 1990s when everything was good. Barack Obama is the Democratic president of the 2000s when everything is good. We are the party that recovers from the Republicans. And you've got to remind people of the bigger vision, which is we create the recovery. Why would we give this back to the Republicans to lead us down the path we should not follow?

Zain 55:39

What do you set as the objective for Bill Clinton tonight, Corey? I like the recover from Republicans. That's a nice line.

Corey 55:45

Well, it's going to be a bit of a nostalgia tour. tour. It's interesting because we have a speech where he is both doing the traditional spouse speech, but also a past president speech. It'll be interesting to see the Tony strikes. Basically, his experience has never been... He gave a good speech in 2012, but it was a long speech. Expect a long speech. It'll be interesting to see what notes he hits, if he keeps it focused sufficiently on Hillary, or if he starts going down memory lane a little too much. I

Corey 56:16

guess we'll see. My

Corey 56:17

My expectations aren't significant for this speech, to be honest. They aren't. I think Bill Clinton has become considered a bit of a mixed bag with the benefit of hindsight. He

Corey 56:25

He was that kind of new left Democrat who moved them towards the middle.

Corey 56:29

He's the guy who abolished Glass-Steagall. That's true. Beyond that, there were a number of workfare and other innovations. I'm air-quoting innovations after the Republicans took back the majority. majority and

Corey 56:42

they just they they're when you look

Carter 56:43

look back at bill clinton you

Carter 56:45

you look and you're a progressive you're

Carter 56:47

you're not looking back at bill clinton saying he

Carter 56:49

he was a progressive like i want he

Carter 56:51

he had don't ask don't tell right

Carter 56:53

right like he he create he did not move forward the gay rights agenda he did not move forward women's rights in the way that the people i mean now we're here right

Carter 57:02

right race relations didn't improve the same way barack

Carter 57:07

and this is why i think that you're going to see him talk Talk about not just, you know, him being Bill Clinton to talk about Obama. Yeah.

Carter 57:15

And he's going to talk. He's going to be the historian in chief. Democrats good. Republicans bad. Tell

Zain 57:21

Tell me, Carter, on that note, tell me what the strategy or the objective for Barack Obama has to be. There's probably a few of them knowing that this might be his last large speech in this in this, you know, sort of venue. What are you framing the Barack Obama speech as?

Carter 57:37

Well, it's been interesting because I have watched him do things that I didn't expect him to do. But

Carter 57:43

But he has become the fact checker extraordinaire.

Carter 57:46

And I wonder if he's not going to come in. And as Michelle Obama did yesterday, alluding to some of the Trumpian pieces, I wouldn't be surprised if he tries

Carter 57:57

tries to obliterate all of the factual misstatements

Carter 58:01

misstatements of the Trump campaign without mentioning Trump. He has done that quite a bit, and he's been, I think, remarkably effective at it. So I'd like to say, I think that might be what he does. Corey,

Zain 58:15

Corey, what do you think the Obama objective is when he speaks at this convention?

Corey 58:19

I think we'll just have to find out. They're rolling out their schedule

Corey 58:22

schedule as they go. Chicken shit. I'll tell you. If you were to phrase it, it's pretty much what I'm asking.

Corey 58:27

No, I get it. But prognosticating

Corey 58:29

prognosticating what the speeches are going to be is a bit of a sucker's bet when we don't know the other speeches. You

Carter 58:34

made me do it. You sat there when I did it. Listen, I'm not trying to ask you

Corey 58:38

prognosticate. I'm asking if you're trying

Corey 58:39

trying to set up this arc,

Corey 58:40

arc, where do you use

Corey 58:41

use and how do you use Barack Obama? That's the question.

Corey 58:44

I don't even know that – you know, he's one of these solid pieces you can't move around. When you think about who has to speak, regardless of what arc you're trying to create is, the sitting president is there. And because he's sitting president, yeah,

Corey 58:56

yeah, you could talk to him, but he's going to say what the hell he's going to say. Now, if I were him, I would probably be focusing on the Supreme Court about how he's tried to get things through, the continuation of his legacy. Okay, that's interesting.

Carter 59:07

You're much more interesting when you're not hedging.

Corey 59:11

he's still got six months of governing left. He does. And he still wants to push some of that agenda forward, and he wants to talk about it being a continuation of his fight as much as anything.

Zain 59:23

move on to our final segment, guys. Guys, it's back.

Zain 59:26

Bold, brilliant, or boneheaded? And the over, under, and the lightning round. Are you guys ready for it? Corey likes this. He's just in a good mood. He's rarely in such a good mood. Okay, Corey, choosing Tim Kaine as vice president. Hillary Clinton's move, bold, brilliant, boneheaded?

Corey 59:44

of the above. I mean, it's not bold. It's not bold. Right? It's about the most milquetoast suggestion you can present as a vice presidential pick. I was patting myself on the back pretty hard, but honestly, if you were like, who would be the most traditional vice presidential pick, he would have been the top of that list, right? It's not brilliant because Virginia is a swing state, but

Corey 1:00:06

but it's not a tipping point state. You know, if you're winning Virginia or if Virginia is in contention, you're probably not winning the other states you need to win. But it's not boneheaded. It solves the problem of vice presidential picks, which is do no harm. it matches up nicely against the other bland white guy on the other side they can have the most boring debate in the history of the democrat republican vice presidential debates i don't know i i guess it it exists and it barely exists it's

Zain 1:00:34

it's interesting because you know he had a pretty decent launch in miami he's bilingual carter what do you give him bold brilliant bold-headed what do you what do you give hillary clinton for this pick i'm

Carter 1:00:43

gonna go with bold oh

Zain 1:00:46

okay You going to justify it by any way?

Carter 1:00:48

No, I think that Corey took all the justification time. So I'm just going to...

Zain 1:00:53

Okay, I'm going back to you then. So you can have more justification time. Trump doubling down on his comments about the NATO allies.

Carter 1:01:05

What really bugs me is when people use our

Carter 1:01:12

We talk about doubling down. When you're already in trouble, double down. down this guy is the epitome of what we've spoken about so

Carter 1:01:19

so i think given that cory and i've spoken so eloquently about uh doubling down on a mistake um i'm gonna have to go with brilliant

Corey 1:01:29

cory uh i i'm gonna go with bold yeah with flavors of brilliant neither of

Zain 1:01:34

of you going boneheaded

Corey 1:01:34

boneheaded on well look i mean it

Corey 1:01:36

it would be boneheaded to reverse it yeah and so i think when you look at the universe of possibilities this is by far his best one after he's already already made the decision it was

Carter 1:01:45

already headed to say it was boneheaded in the beginning yeah

Carter 1:01:47

doubling down is brilliant cory

Zain 1:01:48

cory back at you trump's saying that he would run a super pack against casick and cruz if they were to run again in the future for president

Zain 1:01:56

bold brilliant or boneheaded boneheaded

Corey 1:02:00

like this is such a distraction i

Carter 1:02:01

i mean you need ohio he's tripping himself texas what the fuck is he doing well

Corey 1:02:06

well he's gonna get texas ohio is very much up in the air and the fact

Zain 1:02:11

case you do not show to

Corey 1:02:12

to yeah you're running to be fucking president of the united states not not revenger in chief like we in chief what are you doing here and this just plays into that narrative of donald trump just just being like too scattered and too too

Corey 1:02:26

too much of a thug to be president of the united states carter

Zain 1:02:30

boneheaded on this oh

Zain 1:02:31

okay final one on this uh bold brilliant or boneheaded here we go negotiations underway to have Bernie officially nominate Hillary Clinton tonight as the votes come in and they go through the states. What do you think of that? Bold, brilliant, boneheaded, Corey? For whom?

Carter 1:02:48

Well, it's got to be for

Carter 1:02:49

for the Democrats. It's got to be for Hillary Clinton herself. It's

Corey 1:02:52

It's bold because you are giving another opportunity for the Bernie or bust folk to vent and lose their goddamn minds.

Corey 1:03:03

It could very well be a disaster. Really? Well, you know, it really depends on how, you

Corey 1:03:10

you know, whether the California delegation got their naps or not. Answer

Zain 1:03:13

Answer me this. From Bernie Sanders' standpoint, what do you make of his – is it just another opportunity he gets? What do you think? Bonehead. For

Corey 1:03:20

For Bernie. Yeah, leave on a high. You did fine last night. You're just introducing another opportunity. You're introducing another opportunity for things to go wrong. Nothing went wrong last night. Carter,

Zain 1:03:29

Carter, what do you think?

Carter 1:03:30

Things went wrong last night, and they're going to go wrong again tonight. And they're going to go wrong every

Corey 1:03:34

his speech, I mean. Yeah,

Carter 1:03:35

Yeah, but every time he puts his face forward, he's representing a failed initiative, and that failure is – a lot of people are still feeling that – they're still crying in the arena when he takes that spot. Corey, you want to say something? That's

Corey 1:03:51

That's just it. They're crying in the arena. They don't know. This is one of the most traditional political niceties. You lose a nomination. You go up, and you're like, I want to make this unanimous. Yeah,

Corey 1:04:01

Yeah, everybody together. But that's the kind of like the platitudes and the pleasantries that the Bernie Sanders clearly don't get. They are political outsiders. They're not used to these trappings. And frankly, these trappings have always been stupid. It just takes somebody new to sort of make you realize how stupid they are again.

Zain 1:04:19

again. Okay, a few more questions. Carter, on a scale of 1 to 10, how did you rank night one of the DNC convention? Or DNC, I should say. Oh,

Carter 1:04:25

Oh, yeah. It's like the NDP party.

Zain 1:04:27

party. I was just about to say it. What are the scores?

Carter 1:04:29

I'd give it about a 6. Six

Zain 1:04:31

Six on night one, Corey.

Zain 1:04:33

Four. Stephen Carter, over, under, on six, Bernie Sanders sign-off in this year's race. This was the sign-off. This was his closing chapter,

Zain 1:04:42

like Corey said, under

Carter 1:04:42

under on six. Because if he'd done this three months ago, we're not in this situation we are in today. Corey,

Zain 1:04:48

Corey, over, under, on six.

Corey 1:04:51

Well, that's a good question because he certainly got as much out of it as I thought he would. We've already talked about that. We don't need to rehash it. But yesterday was a serious black eye to him. It shows him not really controlling his movement. And in that sense, I think I've got to say under.

Zain 1:05:08

All right. Last question. Stephen Carter, yes or no? Will Michelle Obama be the non-Hillary Clinton star of this convention? Yes or no?

Zain 1:05:20

Who's going to be bigger?

Corey 1:05:21

bigger? Who's going to be bigger?

Corey 1:05:22

Is it going to be Barack? It's night one. We'll see. It's night

Zain 1:05:24

night one. We'll see. That's a wrap on episode 585 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji With me as always Corey Hogan Stephen Carter And we'll see you next time

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