Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is The Strategist, episode 590. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? We are in a strange and foul-smelling land, Zain. We have found a park bench to record in between leaving the premium luxury studio and whatever's next. Yeah,
Carter
0:21
Yeah, I don't think it'll be quite as nice as
Carter
0:23
as the last studio. By
Zain
0:24
By the way, does this count as a live show, Carter? This? Yeah. I don't know. Park bench? No? Well, I
Carter
0:29
I mean, if someone stops and puts money in the hat. Now,
Zain
0:32
almost as many people as it was in our first live show.
Corey
0:36
That was a long time ago, Zane. You
Corey
0:38
You were in the audience in that first live show. I was the one person. Well, we all recall the incident which led to you having to save the day, which and the rest is history. We don't need to
Zain
0:48
to dwell. We don't need to dwell, indeed. Speaking of incidents, Stephen Carter catching a little bit of fire last episode. Did you like that? People love me. People love you. I'm adored. Here's the obligation I have as host. Feel free to decline. Any clarifying words on what you said last week?
Zain
1:09
Are we going to explain
Zain
1:09
explain what this is? No, no, no. Let Carter explain it. No, that's fine. That's fine. Here's the thing.
Zain
1:16
Okay. See, non-contextual rants is what we do. Welcome to the show.
Carter
1:21
I want more women in politics.
Carter
1:24
I want more women to run in politics. I want more women to win in politics. I think that that would be good for politics. What I don't want is superficial bullshit campaigns where people try and ask her to run because that's the only thing that's missing.
Carter
1:40
This is not going to work. Now, I took a little bit of shit for that last week,
Carter
1:44
to which I say, eh,
Zain
1:47
So doubling down. Doubling down. Very nice. You are following your own advice. You would give that advice, wouldn't you? I'd
Carter
1:53
I'd say double down, because I'm right and they're wrong. Okay,
Corey
1:56
Okay, so hold on. Before we go on any further,
Corey
1:59
further, and there's no follow-ups. Don't think I'm setting you up for anything. Do you know absolutely anything about Ask Her besides that they want to ask her? I do. I
Carter
2:06
I actually sat through a meeting and had to listen to some of this stuff.
Zain
2:12
Okay, we're going to move on, aren't we? We're going to move on. And this is now going to be you and I, Corey. Any basketball talk we want to give? Ten seconds on this. Yes. because of
Corey
2:18
of North Carolina's really regressive laws about transgendered bathrooms they moved the All-Star game they've picked the new host city and it's New Orleans anything goes New Orleans and that's going to be an awful lot of fun I think I might try to go I
Carter
2:32
I was going to ask should we record a podcast down there I'll just go down for the New Orleans and you guys can go down for the All-Star game Carter
Zain
2:38
Carter do you have any facts about New Orleans and or basketball I'm
Carter
2:41
I'm told to do something special with beads but because of the previous conversation I'm not going to talk about it
Zain
2:48
Is that all you wanted to say? Okay, I just wanted to tell people where the All-Star Game was.
Corey
2:51
was. It's really, that really took the wind out of my sails there from Carter.
Zain
2:57
just going to get us in trouble again. Okay, on to our first segment, our first segment, the ruling class. Stephen Carter, the PC party of Alberta has officially laid out in at least the public component of it, the rules, some of the rules, for this
Zain
3:13
this upcoming PC leadership race. and the two of you yesterday when when the rules came out were kind of could i say you had a mild freak out one of you did i
Carter
3:23
had a huge freak out i don't know how mild cory's was but uh well
Carter
3:27
i would i was apoplectic this
Corey
3:29
this isn't my party i just saw them and i thought wow there's a party on the decline okay
Zain
3:34
okay so stephen carter how about this you explain to us what the current rules that the pc party has come out at least in part and then we'll talk about why you had said freak out sure
Carter
3:44
um so So they're going back to a delegated convention, which I should start off by saying I love delegated conventions. I
Carter
3:51
I hate one member, one vote. One member, one vote feels like it's more democratic, but it's just really a race of trying to get more people to vote. So you increase the voter pool and that in turn changes the electoral math. And the problem with one member, one vote is that everybody goes
Carter
4:08
goes and tries to find what we call out here is two minute Tories. So I've seen liberals, New Democrats, Wild Rosers All in line to buy memberships to the PC party Because at the time they were in power And
Zain
4:21
And frankly you have maybe sold memberships
Carter
4:23
memberships I might have, there's
Carter
4:24
there's no evidence of such a thing But I might have pulled in a couple of two-minute tours So
Carter
4:29
they moved to a delegated system Which I love because you take 15 delegates out of every riding And these are usually key members of the riding association And to clarify
Zain
4:39
clarify to people, we have 87 ridings here in Alberta 87
Carter
4:41
87 ridings times 15 sets of delegates. You wind up with just over 1,300 delegates. They all go, and they meet at a convention, and
Carter
4:48
and they select the leader. Now, they're bound delegates. It's not unlike a primary system in the U.S. where you are a delegate, but you are bound to the person that you said you would support. So you're going to support Richard Starkey, or you're going to support Sandra Janssen, or you're going to support Rick McIver, whoever's running. And you run, and you declare that, and you're part of their slate, and you win or lose in the riding according to proportional representation. You get 30% of the vote, you get 30% of the delegates. You get 20% of the votes, 20% of the delegates.
Carter
5:19
It's really an excellent
Carter
5:21
excellent way of running a political party if you wish to build the worker class, the group of people.
Carter
5:29
So if you have 1,300 delegates in Calgary in 2017 voting, you have probably 50 of your 87 candidates are there, probably 70 of your 87 campaign managers are there you've got your finance chairs there you've got like everybody who will matter is the
Zain
5:45
the building of an infrastructure as well and
Carter
5:47
and we're connecting we're going for drinks we're having a great time everybody's patting everybody on the back even if your candidate doesn't win you feel like you were a part of that team because they're the other team comes over and consoles you and says you know what i'm sorry your guy didn't win but But I need you to be a part of our team moving forward. And instead of just being one candidate who wins, now the entire team is one.
Carter
6:11
Everybody's a part of it. And so on
Zain
6:12
on that part of the move, you applaud the PC party for
Carter
6:14
moving to the delegated side. I love going back to delegate convention.
Carter
6:17
What the PC party did yesterday is they constrained how you elect those delegates. Those
Carter
6:23
per right. Those 15 delegates. So constraining
Carter
6:25
constraining delegates is a bit of a problem, right? Right. So what I want to do is if I'm running a campaign, I'm going to put I treat this like 87 mini campaigns. And I find 30, you know, 15 people in this riding. I don't know which riding we're in. Are we in Mountain View? So it's no, no, we're not. We're in.
Zain
6:44
We're north of it. We're
Zain
6:45
We're inclined. That's right. Calgary
Zain
6:48
parks are everywhere. Yeah,
Carter
6:50
Yeah, parks everywhere. But I am.
Carter
6:52
I block out Calgary Klein, but we're inclined. Klein, so I put 15 people and 15 names forward. Those names will come from my own group of people. What the PCs have done is said, no, only
Carter
7:04
only 10 are going to come from the general population of members. You must choose five delegates from the
Carter
7:10
the board of directors of Calgary Klein.
Carter
7:13
Now, what's interesting is I don't know who's on the board of directors of Calgary Klein. I don't know, maybe they've got 22 board members, but they may have three board members in Calgary Klein.
Zain
7:20
Which if it's not an orphan writing, possible. Right.
Carter
7:23
Right. I mean, there's
Carter
7:26
there's no MLA from the PC party here.
Carter
7:28
So it very well could be an orphan riding. The former MLA may not have kept up the
Carter
7:33
the riding association. It may have fallen apart after the election.
Carter
7:36
One never knows how these things will go. I think there's somewhere over 20 orphan ridings in the PC party right now. Now, so not only do you have to be a member of the board to be part of that selection, you need to be a member of the board by October 1st of this year.
Carter
7:51
So the election is in 2017. Right.
Carter
7:54
So that's a little while away. March in 2017. Let's call it seven months.
Carter
7:59
You need to be a board member on October 1st of 2016 of 2016. So you have to be able to reach back and say the boards at this particular moment in time. Now, who's on the board? What if how are you dealing with the orphan ridings? If there's no AGMs, can the board still appoint members to the board? It's a constrained model. Now I have only X number of people to appoint. And if you imagine that in the worst case scenario, there's going to be 435 delegates from this system, and
Carter
8:29
and they all could
Carter
8:33
They all could be un-delegates. They're not going to be bound delegates. You have to choose them. so they may not say
Carter
8:42
say which candidate they're going to go for right so let's say they don't have to they're not
Zain
8:45
not bound to you there
Carter
8:45
there may be only eight people on the board right
Carter
8:48
they're not going to bind themselves to any particular candidate that wouldn't serve their own personal interest particularly well they
Carter
8:53
they would have to change
Carter
8:55
change they have to get themselves elected everybody
Carter
8:59
everybody else has to get themselves elected by saying i support that candidate vote for me these
Carter
9:04
these people can just simply say i'm on the board of directors you have to elect me and now those people are
Carter
9:10
are 435 essentially superdelegates keeping in mind that the pc party already has superdelegates riding presidents board of directors for the party and former mlas right and current mlas um
Zain
9:25
already get to do whatever they want and show up and support whoever 300
Carter
9:33
And there's only 1700 total delegates. So
Zain
9:35
So let's let's dig into this a little bit more, because I want to do a little bit of a deep dive Carter, or maybe Corey, explain to me from your understanding of what you have done on the liberal side, and what general rules look like for a delegated convention. How does this deviate from the norm in a sense, like what would the norm be Carter's talking about a very early deadline to become a member and be on this board. But what else and we'll talk about the implications that I don't want to forget that. But what else deviates from the norm in this sense just to give people a little bit of understanding well
Corey
10:04
well i have never i'm not saying this is unprecedented i don't know but i have never seen this sort of two-tier delegate system where you have to be a board member by a date that is like six months arbitrary well
Carter
10:18
well it's not arbitrary it's the beginning of the campaign yeah
Corey
10:20
yeah but you have to be a board member at that moment in order to be in this pool of voters to me that that was the craziest thing steven and and i were talking about this earlier today and i was saying how how ridiculous it was in my opinion that you had to be a member of the board and isn't that going to create a bunch of proxy fights it seems like no no they have to be a member of the board by october 1st i almost lost my mind that's the craziest damn thing i've ever okay
Zain
10:43
okay let's let's just get in this can i get into this one particular moment for a second yeah giving people an education on how a board works right like how do you how does one get on a board i think that people don't know and i think i would like to give them that education very quickly okay
Corey
10:58
okay well there's there's a couple of answers to that but generally speaking how you get on a board after your party has been wiped out in an election is you put which
Zain
11:05
which is the pc
Corey
11:06
you put your hand up right and uh and then you're put on the board because often in those cases there's not enough members to fill said board now i don't know the pc party specific rules but often the board of directors is a organ that is larger in theory than it is in practice and anybody who wants to be a member of the board can be a member of the board in more contested times when times are good when people are in government the
Corey
11:30
board positions can be a little bit tighter but certainly since you know 2015 that has probably not been the overriding concern of the pc
Corey
11:38
party our board of directors is too full i
Corey
11:42
i suspect strongly it's been quite the opposite now what this means of course is that if you had done this long ago you have now self-selected yourself into this aristocracy that has a much much higher chance of being a delegate to a convention. Now, let's just say, so
Corey
11:57
so this is by October 1. Now, say right now, for fun, you have a board of directors of five members in a random constituency. Sure. Why in God's green earth would you appoint any additional board members between now and October 1? You're guaranteed to be a delegate if you do not. Normally, what happens is the board can replenish itself. It can add other board members in between annual general meetings. There's also a freeze, I'm told, on annual general meetings. So it's not like the board's
Zain
12:24
board's going to turn over. Oh, so they can't just call one next week. No. Interesting.
Corey
12:28
But, you know, even if it is, say, a board of 20, a very healthy board, you've got a one in four chance of being elected. That's fantastic. You look at the rabble out there, you look at the rest of the people, and they've got to fight for the rest of the delegate positions. That's definitely creating a strange overclass in the PC party. And ultimately, I mean, that's what I can't believe. It seems like the PC insiders have decided their problem was they were too open and they've got to lock down. And I'll tell you, in my experience, when parties start fearing takeovers and locking the doors like that, parties die, right? I
Carter
13:03
I mean, it's over.
Carter
13:04
You only grow a party by bringing in more people. Yes.
Zain
13:07
Yes. Literally, that's the only way to grow. And this is exactly what I want to talk about as our next step here. So we've talked about, and we'll talk ramifications in a second. So we've talked about what the rules are. We've talked about the change from a system of one member, one vote to a delegate system. But Carter, to your point, and in extension of Corey's, what could the unintended consequences of a system that has superdelegates, what you'd call, and I'm going to use your label, quasi-superdelegates, what could the unintended consequences be of a system like this? Just in generalities first, and then we'll get into specific candidates per se.
Carter
13:41
Well, you create two-tiered memberships, right?
Carter
13:44
right? Right. So you're I'm sorry, Zane, I know you want to give me ten dollars and join the PC party, but you're
Carter
13:49
you're only going to be able to be in one one tier of this membership. Right. And the real the people who really have control, the insiders, the really the ones who've been around for a while, they're still going to have more control than you. But we want your ten dollars anyways. Yes.
Carter
14:04
Right. We want you to participate. But understand that you're not quite as important as the first set. And in a political party, that's the death of the party. because and i get into this fight all the time people say how can i get involved and actually make change right my answer is just simply volunteer show
Zain
14:20
show up and volunteer show
Carter
14:21
show up and volunteer how do you think that we became strategists right how did we get to you know cory and i got to this exalted position by one day deciding that we were exalted
Zain
14:30
exalted position of sitting at a park bench on a park bench
Carter
14:34
guy who's looking at us is freaking me out now but
Carter
14:36
here we are we became strategists not because cory and i uh you know we weren't born into a political class we didn't suddenly say you know go to mom and dad and say you know what mom and dad i'd like to be strategists for
Zain
14:49
for a party yeah we
Carter
14:49
we we worked our way up from whatever ground we started at and we were either good at something or bad at something and the things we were good at became strategists right like that's what we did we worked at it we volunteered uh at some point you get a a pittance of a pay. At some point, you get a little bit bigger pittance, but it's never particularly good. And
Carter
15:09
And you are a strategist now because you started volunteering. And you know what? As a strategist, you're dictating policy. All because we just simply decided to show up. We
Carter
15:19
We just decided to show up. So now we're saying,
Carter
15:23
just showing up is not good enough. You
Carter
15:25
You have to have shown up before a certain point in time and taken on a specific role for us to actually give a shit about your phone.
Carter
15:32
Now, I grant you, Only 45%, 45.9% of the delegates are super or
Carter
15:42
outrageous. So there's 53, no, 54.1% that
Carter
15:47
that are elected, right?
Carter
15:49
When you put it in those kind of stark terms, it is really quite spectacular, the number, the amount of control that's going to be controlled by the inside class. Corey,
Zain
15:59
Corey, talk to me about this concept of superdelegates broadly, oddly, because it's something we hear about in the United States quite often. Is the danger have greater ramifications within our system? Is the disparity that Carter talks about between members something that's overblown in your mind? Or do you also, as you've mentioned, feel like this could actually be, you know, the beginning of the end if they move through in this manner?
Corey
16:23
The system that is in the United States, why we all call them superdelegates, It came out of the Democratic Party's situation, which was created because they were worried they were electing too liberal of candidates. The masses, with their passions being inflamed, were getting these liberal lions into positions of power, and they wanted to introduce a check against this. So they authorized party officials, elected officials, to have a vote regardless. They didn't have to stand for election in the primary system, in the caucus system. And that became what we now know as superdelegates. Now, what
Corey
16:59
what I think you need to keep in mind with the American system is there has not been an election since where superdelegates have flipped the outcome in no small part because that would be considered incredibly undemocratic. and it's not like there wasn't an opportunity to do so and it's not like it was ancient history in 2008 with superdelegates hillary clinton was ahead of barack obama but superdelegates started looking at it and saying we're not going to override the delegates and stop the first black man who's a major party nominee that's outrageous and that thinking while very dramatic in the case of who he was and what he represented you
Corey
17:37
you can see that right you could can you imagine a situation now with the PCs where the quote-unquote superdelegates override the will of the regular delegates right
Corey
17:46
and what that's going to look like to the province as a whole and maybe it won't be very easy to separate that and see who who
Corey
17:52
actually is a superdelegate who's a quasi superdelegate who's just a delegate by the way Stephen I love quasi superdelegate and I really hope that catches on but
Corey
18:02
in the Canadian context I think it there was never like
Corey
18:07
like a big like reactionary move like like this the liberals when we had delegates when i was you know a member of the federal liberal party organizing for stefan dion and all that they
Corey
18:17
they were sort of a remnant of how delegates used to be selected right so you had the
Corey
18:23
president of the association and the past candidate and they weren't called super delegates we called them ex officio delegates and there were also ex officio delegates at other tiers but they were never this many that's for sure
Carter
18:35
sure that's the thing that makes makes this one so unique yeah it's not that there's super delegates of course there's going to be super delegates they're always a super delegates you want your senior people
Carter
18:45
people to have a vote but
Carter
18:47
but 300 out of 1600 is a reasonable number well to me
Corey
18:51
me it's the reaction right like when the democrats brought it in i believe it was maybe as high as 20 percent were super delegates they
Corey
18:57
didn't say hold on we're not so excited about you know jimmy carter anymore let's
Corey
19:02
let's make half of them superdelegates, that would be considered outrageously undemocratic. But the PC seemed to be doing this and thinking it's just fine. Now, I don't want to get ahead. And I know you got all sorts of things going on. But what I've seen from a lot of PCs is like, well, that's our right.
Corey
19:18
We can we can close it off. It's a private club.
Zain
19:20
right. And so I want to pick up on a word you mentioned, Corey, and I'm going to go back to you on this just to clarify your position on this. Do you feel the current rules of the PC party are undemocratic? undemocratic
Corey
19:31
yes i absolutely believe that now that's not to say that they're
Corey
19:34
they're illegal or even
Corey
19:36
wrong although i do personally believe them to be morally wrong but of course they're undemocratic when you have a situation where you put your thumb on the scale and yes the the majority are elected through traditional means okay but what if house of commons in canada was 55 we chose and 45 a senior class chose sure nobody would be happy with that so let's not pretend that it is democracy still because a bare majority belongs to the
Zain
20:02
the people stephen carter we've been really tiptoeing around maybe the reason that
Carter
20:07
that the elephant to
Zain
20:07
to the room so and i want to get into that right now so put put yourself in the shoes of the pc party that came up with these rules easy question or just frank question to you why did they do this well
Carter
20:26
think that they're afraid of a takeover right
Carter
20:28
right so the there is a candidate jason kenney some people may have heard of him not
Carter
20:32
not the cyclist with the great britain team i made that mistake
Carter
20:36
um the guy named jason kenney who is um former captain
Carter
20:40
captain mr in the harper government kind of a big deal out near in alberta and
Carter
20:44
and he's decided that he wants to unite the right and
Carter
20:47
and the first step of that is to take over the pc party okay
Carter
20:52
he stole this his game plan yeah
Carter
20:55
Yeah, he's very clear
Carter
20:56
Very clear. Peter McKay, less
Carter
20:58
less clear when he decided to merge the PC party with our good old Friends in the Crop party. Canadian Reform Alliance party. Okay, good. Oh,
Corey
21:11
We just didn't think
Carter
21:12
think it was relevant or
Zain
21:15
things. We were both moving on mentally and otherwise.
Carter
21:18
It's for the listeners. Every once in a while, we should think of the listeners.
Zain
21:22
That gets us nowhere. where he
Carter
21:23
he decides he's going to run for the pcs he states his goal straight up front he's going to try and merge these two parties and the pcs are like no we don't want that so
Carter
21:33
so instead of voting him out and and rejecting him through a uh a process that frankly is going to be very difficult for him to win anyways because it is a delegated selection process it's not one member one vote that change had already been made how many changes do you need to put in place to protect yourself sell from a hostile takeover i think you should be fine being
Carter
21:56
a delegate selection process if they you know they've gone so far now that
Carter
22:01
that it's like man why
Carter
22:02
why would you try and take over this party like there's no upside because if he loses it's really bad yeah
Carter
22:09
and the table is so stacked against him um
Carter
22:14
that he's probably gonna lose so
Carter
22:16
so you've now made a martyr right
Carter
22:19
right i've tried to unite the right but the pcs are so like the narrative rights itself right the pcs are easy out
Carter
22:26
they're so entitled that
Carter
22:28
that they stack their own race to stop the democratic will of the alberta people don't use that line jason kenney but that's his line well yeah
Corey
22:36
yeah of course it is you have this this absolutely surreal situation where from the outside to any kind of dispassionate observer it looks like the pcs have decided that the problem that they've had for the past few years is that That they've been too open and too democratic, and the rabble of the province has diluted their, not even like right-wing conservative values, but their elite conservative values, I suppose. And, of course, that's a bad look. I just don't understand why they didn't think more about the optics. And the funny thing is, you know, I mean, you've still only got one declared candidate. It's still just Jason Kay. Right.
Zain
23:13
Right. And the timeline hasn't even started. It hasn't even October. Nothing's official yet. But, Corey, would you agree with Carter in saying that this is punitive, like, towards Jason and Kenny specifically? Is there any other out that they have, like, in terms of both messaging and procedure to say, well, in fact, I hear some of the lines on Twitter these days, well, these rules were always in place. And as what you mentioned, we could do whatever we want. We're a party, blah, blah, blah. Sure. Yeah. What's messaging that would work if you're them right now? And secondly, do you see any other out for them other than they're stacking the deck against Kenny? Well,
Corey
23:46
Well, look, just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean something's right. I think we should just start there, okay? There's a lot of things you have the right to do, but, you know, frankly, you're an asshole if you do a large portion of them.
Corey
23:59
But there are basically two things you can say were your justification for taking these actions. And the Kenny hostile takeover one, let's just put a bookmark in that. Let's come back to that in a second. Sure.
Corey
24:10
The other alternative is we're doing this because the system was too open before, which is sort of my original message.
Corey
24:16
your two great justifications for this were either we were too open in the past. Try to find me an Albertan who thinks the PCs were too much of an open club, and that was their problem, right? Or your
Corey
24:28
your problem is that Jason Kenney was going to come in and against your values take over your party.
Corey
24:33
Now, that to me is almost the better of the two arguments, but it certainly doesn't make you look any more righteous, and it definitely makes you look weak. It makes you look incredibly weak. you're not just saying we need 20 of the delegates to stop them they're saying we need 45 of the delegates to stop them and yeah you can argue with me twitter and you can say no that's the right and hey why shouldn't they stop somebody who's so off value with the pcs but i'll remind you this one man's takeover is another man's democratic revitalization there is nothing that says you own what the pc brand is besides that you have declared it to be yours and you are just playing into this narrative of a closed-off elitist PC party that doesn't want to change. Steven
Zain
25:14
Steven Carter, does the PC party have any leg to stand on, whether that is a concept of shunning Jason Kenney out or the fact that we were too open, we had too many last-minute Tories question that you or a statement you brought up? Do they have any leg to stand on right now?
Carter
25:31
You know how sometimes we have to argue things and you make us say
Carter
25:34
say things that we don't want to talk about? Sure.
Carter
25:37
I don't want to argue that this is a good idea. Yeah, I
Carter
25:39
don't. There is no way. Clarify. What do you mean by that? Clarify. There's not a single fire. It's like trying to explain the Donald Trump. You know, every time you do a podcast, you say, hey, here you go. You're now the advisor for Donald Trump. And I
Zain
25:55
I sound great, by the way. Thank
Carter
25:57
now you have to. So what are you going to tell him to do? And I'm like, I have no fucking clue because I would never advise that clown. own. This is a this is a step that I cannot. I heard that it was going to happen.
Carter
26:09
And I could not fathom that anybody would be this insecure, this
Carter
26:18
misaligned with democratic values as to allow this to actually happen. Corey,
Zain
26:23
Corey, I feel like you may have more mental agility than Stephen. Do you have any comments on maybe taking yourself and empathizing with the situation and projecting a strategy towards it yeah
Carter
26:33
yeah he's a bigger whore is what i'm hearing okay let's get i'll
Corey
26:37
i'll just say right off the top that dave of the show is the strategist is that's right i i i take my role seriously unlike steven uh look
Corey
26:48
do want to say right off the bat when it comes to leadership races it's not a perfect corollary but you should probably ask yourself would you recommend this system for the province or the country as a whole and if the answer is no maybe take a step back and and think about it if you're doing it for the right reasons, particularly if you believe yourself to be a broad-based political party that represents a province rather than, say, an ideological political party that represents a point of view. Yeah.
Corey
27:10
Okay? That there. But can I make an argument that this should be the way the system is? Yeah, I would argue that it's just an extension of things we've always been comfortable with, membership cutoffs. We just don't want the party to be flooded with people who have no investment in the party. We want to reward people who were there through the tough times, not just the good times. And this is a system that is unique to this unique set of circumstances. And we're not committing that this is how we're going to do it going forward, but we've just come out of an election. We know we're particularly prone or vulnerable to a takeover, and we have to be sensible about these things. We're not saying necessarily that this is our ideal form of democracy. We're saying this is the form of democracy we need at this moment for the PC party. Key
Zain
27:54
Key messages by Corey Hogan. I'm not half bad, Carter. listen i'm going to give you a question carter tell
Zain
28:00
tell me this you know the whole concept of stacking the deck against candidates you do not want to run and or win is not new can we agree to that that whole concept in a delegated race is not new so what could have the pcs done as an alternative measure rather than these rules which whether they're punitive or not what else could they have done if they wanted to stack the deck against jason kenney easiest
Carter
28:21
easiest thing in the world is to run on regional candidates all
Zain
28:25
jason explain that for the audience yeah okay
Carter
28:26
okay so um you're never going to do this as a party the party never you know katherine o'neill who's the president of the pc party of alberta uh pre-ce it's actually not a party it's a pre-ce association um she's she's not going to pick up the phone and say hey blank i need you to run in edmonton because we need to solidify our base but there
Carter
28:47
there was already a a set
Carter
28:48
set of candidates running in different regions And those regional candidates were going to be stronger than Kenny in that region. So you'd have a central candidate who would be very strong. You'd have a Calgary candidate who'd be very strong. You'd have a southern Alberta candidate very strong. And each of these candidates on their own can't beat Jason Kenny.
Carter
29:10
Each of these candidates in a head-to-head race would fail. But the objective isn't to beat Jason Kenny one-on-one. It's to beat
Zain
29:20
beat them collectively, right?
Carter
29:21
right? It's to beat them collectively, the equivalent of the NBA's zone defense.
Carter
29:26
I made that part up. Good. I'm getting a lot of shaking of the head, so clearly not true. But you have – Try it. Well, I work hard.
Carter
29:34
So we have these zones, and then each of the people, as they fall off, support another candidate that's not named Jason Kenney. And it doesn't really matter who they support. It doesn't matter if they support this person or that person. And all that matters is at the end of the day, one person is going to have more votes than Jason Kenney. And that model was unfolding. That is a perfectly— And that's tried and tested in the past as well. It's absolutely tried and tested. I mean, Stéphane Dion comes from third place and winds up winning. Alison Redford in the— Fourth place.
Carter
30:04
place. My apologies, Corey. I thought you did better on the first ballot, but I guess you really did suck. Good to know,
Carter
30:11
There's a grand history. John Lassinger wrote a book, Leaders
Carter
30:15
Leaders and Lesser Mortals, and he goes through the history of delegated selection, leaderships. It's fantastic. The index or the back of the book is all the different leadership races, who got how many votes and how they all folded and where they went to on the next ballot and the next ballot and the next ballot. And you can see how leaderships work. leaderships often are we need to stop that prick so jock clark gets elected right and
Carter
30:45
and that you know sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad cory
Zain
30:48
cory to you in a second but carter was there anything and just to close the loop with you on this question was there anything that the party should have done within the confine of the rules not in terms of who it encourages to run where but in the confine of the rules that could have done the same work that what you feel the rules coming out yesterday did cory
Carter
31:05
cory alluded to it already i'll just pick up on where he was saying membership constraint.
Carter
31:09
Membership constraint is the number one thing that enables a party to control its electoral process.
Carter
31:18
Usually you put a cutoff, right?
Carter
31:20
right? The cutoff is going to be blank, right? So in this particular case, I believe it's 10 days before the delegate selection meeting.
Carter
31:28
That is fantastic. In 2011, Alison Redford won the leadership because people walked into the the polling stations on election day bought a membership and voted for her right
Carter
31:40
they were literally two minute tours they walked up yeah they bought their membership they voted uh we saw ed stelmach with the same type of thing you know the people just bought memberships on the day of and that's fine
Carter
31:55
fine to get kind of a sense of where the electorate is and and my contention is that the the party always felt that it was pulled to the left by these people who came in and my My answer is that's where the votes were. So as
Carter
32:07
as evidenced by the NDP's victory in 2015, more
Carter
32:10
more votes on the left. So you move to the left, damn it, and you pick up the votes that you can pick up because winning is more important than losing.
Carter
32:20
the challenge with the systems that we have is none of them are perfect. But the constraint through membership sales, there's other constraints. Bulk buying of memberships. Prentice bulk bought memberships, you know, $10,000 at a time and distributed them and gave them away like candy. You can force people to buy their own memberships by constraining their credit card. You have to buy it online. You can only buy X number of memberships per credit card. You can only have X number of memberships per email address. You can only have X number of memberships per address, physical
Carter
32:53
These are all methods of constraining the number of memberships that are given away for free. because it's really hard to do, you
Carter
33:01
you know, to do 10,000 memberships three at a time. Right.
Carter
33:05
Right. But to do 10,000 memberships by dropping off $100,000 in cash, actually
Carter
33:11
actually not that hard.
Zain
33:12
Corey, same question to you, both in terms of what the party could have done on the rules side with the delegated convention to stack the deck against Kenny if they wanted to and
Zain
33:23
what they should have done otherwise, like Carter alluded to, the regional zone candidates. So any thoughts that you have on that? Well,
Zain
33:28
Well, the regional zone
Corey
33:28
zone candidates I'll touch on first. He's right. Everybody's running against the front runner. It's kind of this funny phenomenon where you imagine they're your biggest opponent, even if there's people around you who maybe you could grab their votes more easily. Right. And so you see this roll up as everything sort of happens in real time, particularly among delegates who are in the trenches. And the enemy of the enemy is my friend mentality kicks in. Right. They're just dialed up to 11 all the time. they start to roll in against the front runner it's it's funny it just happens it's c'est la vie and that's why when you see a front runner come in at about 40 45 percent on the first ballot it becomes like oh are they going to find that last five to ten percent and they don't always even
Carter
34:12
even in one member one vote we see that like when i did my calculations for radford she had to be over 18 and a half percent on the first ballot and mar had to be under 42 or 43 percent otherwise Otherwise, there's leakage that can occur. So leakage is, so generally speaking, delegates follow their candidate, right? So if, when David Orchard endorsed Peter McKay in 2003 for the leadership or 2004?
Carter
34:38
Somewhere around there. Somewhere in there. Peter
Carter
34:43
got all of those votes, even though David Orchard had kind of campaigned against David or Peter McKay the whole way through. So people
Carter
34:50
people follow their candidates. so even in the one member one vote if you like especially
Carter
34:55
especially in the front runner case the front runner you
Carter
35:00
have to have a pretty good reason not to vote for the front runner if you're kind of leaning towards the front runner and already open to the front runner then you voted for him on the first ballot and
Carter
35:08
the second ballot you're
Carter
35:09
you're probably not going to go there the third ballot you're still going to have some bitter animosities the fourth ballot you might still be like why would i go now right i'm not going to give into my you know this goes against my principles i'm not going Nobody
Corey
35:21
Nobody is that excited about the guy who showed up on the fourth ballot. So
Carter
35:23
So this, you know, again, the delegated selection is such an interesting process because you can move people around and get these outstanding outcomes. And if you have deals between candidates, which is the fundamental building block of a delegated convention, these deals between candidates construct a model where you
Carter
35:47
you build alliances that strengthen and actually construct the overall party. You're all on the same team.
Zain
35:56
Corey, you were saying, I wanted to not lose your point there. You were talking about the regional zone candidates. Go ahead. idea yeah and
Corey
36:02
and that's how i would deal with it outside of the rules i guess if i was an organizer now you talk about a party wanting to deal with it yeah
Corey
36:09
institution yeah i mean this this was such an extreme example of it but everything they did could have been in lesser degrees um make
Corey
36:17
make them pay by check or credit card no cash that's easy enough if you want to do cash maybe make them show up with id in certain situations validate them against the voters list uh which they did last time and And they're probably going to do to an extent this time as well, right? And if they're not, you know, because many political parties allow non-citizens to vote if they're permanent residents, have a process to deal with that as well. But any check you make like that makes, like, you've increased the level of engagement required to get involved. Like, you've got an additional verification step, which means you're going to filter out the people who don't care very much. And that's inevitably going to get, you're not going to be able to do these floods of members like Stephen was talking about. and then you can just set cutoff dates that are wildly at back uh you can set the spending limits low so if for example you're worried about jason kenney having all the money cap it at 150 000 and then who cares he does he can't do anything with that extra money uh maybe make a requirement that you know what they could have done is make a requirement explicit that said you must be eligible to be an mla in
Corey
37:24
in order to run now interestingly enough under the constitution of this country not just alberta whatnot you cannot run to be for a provincial office if you are a member of federal office so that would be a way to force him to resign uh which he has to do anyways but you could have made it almost retroactive i mean i mean there's a lot of things you could have done around the edges to make it uncomfortable for him to make it more difficult uh that maybe would have gained you an extra 10 15 on an establishment candidate but this is this is so so out there i mean at this point it's almost like why bother guys why even have have the delegate vote why not just say the board picks the next leader i mean at this point you're not going to get that many points for your system anyhow being open yeah
Carter
38:03
yeah i mean this is one thing we haven't talked about i mean sure we've disadvantaged jason canning but did you disadvantage or advantage any of the other candidates i
Zain
38:09
i want to get to that next step yeah yeah
Carter
38:10
yeah i don't think you did advantage any of the other candidates i mean you've got a a board that uh will be looking for saviors right people always look for saviors jim prentice is the savior why did jim prentice win win by such a landslide because who would vote against him look what happened last time we voted against our main you know our number one guy gary marr lost to allison redford and where did that take us into oblivion except we won an election apprentice didn't um you know what what happened when stelmac beat dinning oh oblivion except stelmac won an election and dinning you know disappeared forever um
Carter
38:47
um except in airport lounges we all seem to run into him in airport lounges so it just
Carter
38:54
so this is there
Carter
38:57
is no perfect system and
Carter
38:59
and anytime you try and put controls over things to try and make things work the way that you want them to work often you get the
Carter
39:10
thinking is the delegate selection is already going to create enough perversity yeah
Carter
39:14
to let it go right don't worry about all
Carter
39:18
all you know controlling the outcome come who's
Carter
39:20
who's going to win who's more likely to win now if
Carter
39:25
if you've if you've decreased the probability of kenny winning who have you increased the probability for and the answer is no one it's
Corey
39:32
it's going to be a very unusual contest i mean i would still have to say just based on the fact no one else is in the field don't count jason kenny out but i mean if i were him i would be considering
Corey
39:43
nuclear options taking my cards and going home and
Corey
39:46
all that i mean this isn't so much a thumb on the scale is it's a fist in the face and i think the pc should expect a reaction that is commiserate with that level of aggression towards him carter
Zain
39:57
carter talk to me about kenny cory's brought it up and i want to go there right now if
Zain
40:01
if you are jason kenny right now how are you responding to this what is the most strategic way and you've teased it in it in the sense if he drops out you've given him some really solid key messages but how should jason kenny play it right now based based on the rules that he's seen?
Carter
40:15
I'd start by talking it up as a non-democratic process. I'd say, you know what? And you'd use that
Zain
40:21
that term undemocratic, hey?
Carter
40:22
hey? I would. I would say, listen, I've got people who are buying into this party
Carter
40:25
to make a difference in this province. And ultimately, that's what every political party is a vehicle for, making a difference in the province. Elevate it, right? Don't make it about the party. Make it about the province. Make it about the citizenry. Make it about the fact that the citizens deserve the outcome. come the citizens deserve the process anytime we can strain it's bad but i wouldn't drop out yet right
Carter
40:47
right i'd see how that works
Carter
40:50
works right is there uh sympathy from the media there will be sympathy from the media will the media start crapping on the executive yes they will will
Zain
40:59
will will the pc party and that's
Zain
41:01
helps you because you're the only guy in the race right
Carter
41:03
right yeah so i can continue to now i've got a dominant media theme for probably what four days right so my media week is is filled No one's going to announce now, right? At least not in
Zain
41:14
in this year. Right,
Carter
41:15
Right, so now you've got to wait. No one's going to announce the first week of September after Labor Day. So he's got a two-week run of freedom.
Carter
41:24
You know, this isn't necessarily bad for him. You think
Zain
41:27
leverages the sympathy for media and more, in a
Carter
41:29
a sense. Right, exactly. So how does it end? When does it end? And I think that Kenny has
Carter
41:36
has the opportunity to really play this out and see where he is in a way that we maybe wouldn't have initially thought.
Zain
41:47
Corey, you were given a position on Team Kenny. They wanted some orange perspective from Team Kenny. What are you telling him to do right now? Carter's thoughts, elevate it, use that media to leverage more. Anything to add from your angle? angle yeah
Corey
42:02
yeah this is not about jason kenny this is about uh about
Corey
42:07
about the pc party you just really flip the onus and you talk about them having learned the wrong lessons they think the reason they lost was that uh that they weren't too open right but in fact they chose prentice the establishment chose prentice uh it's time to let the grassroots have control of this party again and them closing in the door like this is exactly why a guy like jason kenney needs to come in and shake things up carter
Zain
42:32
carter question over to you if you are one of the other candidates considering right now to run what are you doing is there any opportunity to be seized for you on this particular uh rule release yesterday what can you do with this if you're just sitting on the sidelines thinking of making a go i'd
Carter
42:52
i'd come out against the rule changes you'd
Zain
42:53
you'd come out against them i'd
Carter
42:54
i'd come come out against because they don't help you either you said i would say yeah
Carter
42:58
yeah because you know just simply throwing everything up in the air and hope and trying to figure out where it lands is not a strategy right uh that's what we did when we were two-year-olds and we didn't like the way our blocks stacked uh so this
Carter
43:10
this is this is where we are right now everything's up in the air and i don't know how to land so i come out against the rule changes and i say i'm for democracy right
Carter
43:17
i'm the democratic candidate um
Carter
43:20
um i want to be able to beat jason kenney in the open you know in an open race and i'm strong enough to do it you
Corey
43:26
you don't want to be barry bonds right say you are one of these other guys and you win there is an asterisk next to your name forever as
Zain
43:34
pc party carter does that strategy only work if you are one of the few to kind of say i'm against rule changes and you come out as principled like does that strategy dilute itself if everyone comes out against it what are you actually who's everyone so i'm saying let's just say there's a half dozen more that are thinking of running we know that there's a big group of of people thinking you're running. There's
Carter
43:51
There's not going to be a half dozen in these articles. Right.
Carter
43:53
The articles are going to have So you need to be the first one.
Carter
43:55
Yeah. And be big. Be the first big name to come out and say I
Carter
44:00
want the most open most democratic process that I can have because I am strong enough we are strong enough to defeat
Carter
44:09
a guy by the name of Jason Kenney.
Zain
44:11
Corey I want to close out on this which is hearkening back to your experience as ED of the liberals when you had to effectively run a leadership race. and
Zain
44:20
and and maybe just give the audience a sense of perspective as to maybe what your like ground rules or your philosophy was when you kind of had to set these rules in place and and maybe tease to them a little bit in terms of what you may have done in this particular situation
Corey
44:34
so in our case and in most cases there was a leadership rules committee struck on which i sat but i didn't have a vote and we discussed all of them we broke it down into options what What was the method of voting in person versus online versus mail? Who was going to be able to vote?
Corey
44:52
Everything along the lines of what is the entrance fee for the leadership? What's the membership cutoff? And so on and so forth. And from that, the committee, I don't know if there were votes, but I think it generally worked by consensus. We came to conclusions. We put together a glossy, big document that explained everything that we assessed, how how we went through provided to the board of directors to do the kind of final vote on
Corey
45:16
leadership. And, uh, you know, the thing I always pushed for as ED and the thing, if, I mean, everybody gets into this for a reason, right? Politics I'm talking about. For me, it's always about openness, democracy, those kinds of things. I think people should be involved in the process. I always push for the most open process possible. And, uh, there were some changes, but generally it was accepted. The big curveball that was put in the liberal contest was after those rules were accepted at a special general meeting we called. We managed to push even more aggressive changes so that federal liberal system of registered supporters being able to vote originated in Alberta. It originated with us at that special general meeting. And that was wild because all of a sudden we had the most open contest. And that was pretty crazy. But, of course, there were people who wanted to see a much more closed contest. test and generally speaking uh there were two groups of people who wanted to do that one was the the uh notion that they just didn't like the system and they were sort of trying to re-litigate the special general meeting requests like let's see the member votes separate from the registered supporter votes things we were just like no that's that's not going to happen there's not two classes of voters um but
Corey
46:26
but there was also the class that were trying to game it and being like well i've been involved in this party for a very long time i would have a clear advantage if the tighter these rules were and they were
Corey
46:36
trying to push through you're
Corey
46:37
you're always going to have people say no matter what you do if it had gone the other way by the way when we didn't really talk about this but if it had been far more open there would have been accusations that it was kenny favoritism yes
Corey
46:48
yes and so i am i am mindful that from the outside it's always easy to cast like your mindset onto them based on what you think they were doing but at a certain point it becomes not debatable and there There is just absolutely no way, given how out of left field these rules are, that you can you can really look at them and say, like, no, this was designed to be an even playing field. There's just there's just no way I can say that. You have one candidate who is running against the party establishment and the party establishment decided to give themselves 45 percent of the vote. Full stop. And and I just don't think that's defensible at the end of the day, guys, like the ballot question of this election is about establishment versus not. and you have just decided establishment's choosing.
Zain
47:34
We'll leave that segment there. Okay, let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, political hodgepodge. Guys, this is, it's been a long time since we have done this, but I'm excited that we are. Okay. Oh, boy. So here's what we're doing.
Zain
47:46
Carter, you may remember this. Your memory is short. Your mental agility low. I don't remember
Carter
47:49
remember what the first segment was. There
Zain
47:52
You live in the moment. I like it. It's what you got to do out in these parks. You got to live in the moment, okay? We haven't done this in a while. I am going to give you an option of six different magic pills you can give. Six magic
Zain
48:04
pills. Write them down. You've got computers in front of you, so write them down. Hang on. I've got to get to the doctor. Six different magic pills you can give. Oh, God, I hate this one. That's good. It's good.
Zain
48:13
Six different magic pills you can give to the listed political parties. We'll go provincial, we'll go national, and we'll even touch on the U.S. Okay.
Zain
48:21
Okay, here they are. strategy execution
Zain
48:30
and or a grassroots support so strategy execution leader timing team and grassroots i think the last one's new it is new it's new because we're not in an election campaign so to speak and i'm actually broadening the scope knowing that the ongoing election is now a reality of everyday politics so we will list every
Zain
48:49
every single political party that we talk about some of them might be in current races i.e the u.s some of them have leadership races but you tell me which one of these magic pills you'd give them and justify it and
Zain
49:01
and and give us a reason okay well carter so good okay let's just start with the the party we're just talking about the pc party steven carter to you which
Zain
49:10
which of the six do you give the pc party as as they head into September?
Carter
49:17
I mean, they may think they want a leader. Yes.
Carter
49:22
That wouldn't seem like the
Carter
49:23
obvious choice. But in fact, a leader will emerge. And one of the things I reminded a journalist of today, leadership doesn't look the same at the beginning as it does at the end.
Zain
49:34
What do you mean by that? No
Carter
49:35
No one looked at Ralph Klein at the beginning of his leadership race and thought there's the premier that most people are going to look back on in Alberta and say that was the best premier in Alberta history. In fact, Corey and I would never say that. I'm shaking my head here.
Carter
49:47
You know, these people of greatness develop greatness in the office, not necessarily start off with greatness and say, look how great I am moving
Zain
49:59
Carter gives them execution. Corey, what do you give them? Well, they tried to give themselves the leader pill. I think
Corey
50:04
think that they're going to choke it back up. They need to learn a little bit about how to digest these things and how to ease them in. And so for that reason, I also say the execution pill.
Zain
50:13
Let's move it on. Corey, back to you. Provincial NDP of the six, which are you giving to the NDP?
Corey
50:19
I think grassroots support and specifically in Calgary. My concern for the NDP for some time and continues to be my concern is that they catapulted so quickly into all of those MLA positions that, you know, a class that normally is developed in advance of a government change did not really develop in Calgary. There aren't really roots to
Zain
50:39
to the top here. Carter, the provincial NDP have just finished year one of their four-year mandate.
Zain
50:44
What pill do you give them? Team.
Carter
50:47
I mean, I think that the biggest challenge that any government has is making up the world's most talented cabinet.
Carter
50:53
cabinet. And I don't
Carter
50:56
don't think it's a push to even the Orange Apologist to look at that cabinet and say you can strengthen that team.
Corey
51:03
I think to your earlier point, nobody looked at Ralph Klein and thought, what a hero.
Corey
51:10
You're going to look at some new people in this cabinet? Nicely
Carter
51:14
I want to know which of those cabinet ministers is Ralph Klein. Carter, back to you. Back
Zain
51:18
Back to you. The Wild Rose Party. Strategy, execution, leader, timing, team, or grassroots. What are you giving the Wild Rose Party heading into the fall? Do
Carter
51:25
Do you have an anti-grassroots pill? Is there something that they will— An antidote
Carter
51:31
Yeah, I mean, the Wild Rose is kind of one of those grassroots parties run amok because they're so grassroots-y that they will
Carter
51:38
will reject their leader every time. There is no way a leader can ever lead them because the grassroots is like, we
Corey
51:46
will not be led.
Corey
51:48
You will not lead us. We are the grassroots.
Carter
51:52
what I say. Are
Carter
51:55
British? Lord to the Lord. I don't know.
Zain
51:58
theater background, really wanting to extend that theater muscle. Corey, what do you give them out
Corey
52:03
out of the six? Yeah, Carter's right. I think strategy is what I would define it as. You know, ultimately, the problem that they have is probably the grassroots is a little too aggressive. But since that's not on the list, I'll say they need to find a way to take the energy they have and interpret it into something that's palatable to the rest of the province. They need a strategy. Corey, back at you.
Zain
52:26
you. Our federal liberal government, which of the six pills, strategy, execution, leader timing, team, or grassroots are you giving them as they head into September?
Corey
52:34
I'm going to give them execution. They can't take their shot right now. It's like they're on a fast break, and they've got the ball, and they're just sitting there sweating, thinking, if I shoot this, I might miss and look like an asshole, so I better just smile for the cameras. there needs to be more they need to do they know what they need to do the strategy is so clear they're just not doing it carter what do you give them see
Carter
52:55
see how it's funny i'm gonna go with the strategy pill i'm not sure that the strategy i mean the strategy to go like that is different than the strategy to govern and i think that they're in the midst of trying you know we really got elected well look at all those pictures and look how well they did and i know we got a little bit of heat uh on this the last podcast too you know how can you not see all the great things the liberals have done.
Zain
53:18
I can't see the great things the
Carter
53:19
the liberals have done. I'm so blind. But I would say the strategy, you've got to actually now do something. You've got to tackle the deficit.
Carter
53:28
deficit. You've got to tackle the direction that this country is going in. And you've got to tackle some of the big problems, especially looking at it from the West, some of our big issues. Energy East Pipeline hearing started today. That's a gong show. So a little bit of strategy Strategy from the government wouldn't hurt. Corey?
Corey
53:46
Corey? Well, they've taken a couple of extra passes that they didn't necessarily need to take. I'm thinking specifically on climate change where they were like, we're coming to get to an agreement, and they left the meeting me likey. It's great that we didn't come to an agreement. We'll come to one later.
Corey
53:59
Now's later. Let's figure this out.
Corey
54:00
Too much ball movement, no shooting. This is what I'm saying. All right. How
Carter
54:03
How come you guys can do it? I mean, it made sense. Zone defense. Because it made sense. Stephen Carter, to you. So you have these zones in the regional. Federal
Zain
54:10
Federal NDP. What are you giving them? Strategy, execution, leader, timing, team, grassroots. roots what do
Zain
54:15
do they need right now it's got to
Carter
54:17
right the obvious actual leader who can lead them somewhere okay and and uh you
Carter
54:23
you know re-electing the old guy is not going to work either so if you're thinking about that old guy don't do it cory
Zain
54:28
cory are you giving him leader as well the obvious
Corey
54:29
obvious one yeah i am um but
Corey
54:32
but only well i don't know it could be that or strategy basically there needs to be kind of a redefinition of what the ndp is it doesn't need to break the mold but they need to say this is us and that's probably only going to happen with a new leader cory
Zain
54:46
cory take us to the conservatives they're in a similar position leadership race of the pills available are you also giving them the leader one i'm giving them team when you start looking at some of the people who are running you
Corey
54:57
are reminded that we talked about this being a weak bench for a decade and we weren't wrong and now we have a leadership contest test from the weak bench with from a bunch of midgets and when tony clement is your standout most qualified candidate for the job easy
Carter
55:13
easy i worked on a tony clement you're doing
Corey
55:15
doing something wrong and it's time for them to time for them to start expanding outside of that small circle of current mps and trying to find a bigger better conservative team carter what are you giving them i'm
Carter
55:27
i'm going to give them eastern grassroots okay i'm gonna be very specific i think you've got a very strong strong Western grassroots subset. But I think that that grassroots out here in the West needs to be shouted down by the grassroots on the other side of the country. Carter,
Zain
55:42
Carter, back to you. Hillary Clinton, what are you giving her? Strategy, execution, leader, timing, team. Timing.
Carter
55:48
Timing. She needs to take a time machine pill and she needs to go forward, what is it, 80 days or whatever the number is right now? And she needs to be on November the 6th and actually get the goddamn election happening. Because her timing right now, Now, if she's peaking today, it's
Carter
56:04
it's going to be such a long wait for this fucking election to be over.
Corey
56:09
Corey, what are you giving Hillary Clinton? Hey, that was a good answer because I think not being able to put them away in the past couple of weeks means they're going to be right
Corey
56:17
right there. I mean, she may lead by four points most of the time the rest of the way, but there will be those polls that show Trump up one, up two, close races across the board. And
Corey
56:28
And that's going to be very frustrating. And unfortunately, all she needs is a bad break on the wrong week, and it's all over. Oh,
Corey
56:34
So timing is an obvious one, but I'm going to say leader. I'm going to say her. She would be much better off if she wasn't herself.
Zain
56:46
Justify that because I don't
Zain
56:47
want another ask her moment.
Corey
56:48
All of the baggage that she's bringing, she's
Corey
56:51
she's been in politics for a very long time. When we think about somebody running for president, you
Corey
56:56
you know, it's actually pretty rare that they're carrying a 25-year political career with them or longer if you think about her Arkansas time.
Corey
57:03
Before they run for an office like this, there's just too much to dislike no matter who you are. And that's not to say she's doing bad things. I think she's great. But the challenge is, you know, you've got email scandals. You've got health care failures. You've got, you know, the whole new left thing that Bill Clinton did where they were actually pretty middle of the road, which is pissing off the Bernie people. And and there's just too much history there. And I just if she was generic Democrat, she'd be leading by 10 points. Corey,
Zain
57:33
Corey, back to you. Donald Trump, strategy, execution, leader, timing, team or grassroots? Yeah.
Corey
57:42
All of the above.
Corey
57:45
just don't even know where to start with the guy. He's just such a wild card. If I'm going to say leader about Hillary, I guess I'm saying it about Donald, too. Generic Republican would probably be leading by five points. Carter, what are you giving Donald Trump?
Carter
58:02
want to say execution, but
Carter
58:04
but then it'll be taken the wrong way, and someone's going to think I've been calling for his execution.
Zain
58:09
I don't think anyone is thinking that until you clarify it, by the way. I
Carter
58:12
I think you have to go with grassroots. I mean, he's an unsupported candidate outside of
Carter
58:18
of the crazy people. It's a round game in a sense?
Carter
58:25
a la Obama in 2008 to actually move middle-of-the-road voters one direction. Can
Carter
58:32
Can you imagine being a swing voter in this particular election?
Carter
58:37
Which way do you swing? You're in a nightmare position.
Carter
58:42
think it's pretty – is that not simple? They're not swinging that way.
Carter
58:45
They're not going that way. If it was, it would be an eight-point lead to ten-point
Corey
58:48
-point lead. There's this amazing false equivalency people have where it's like there are things I don't like about Hillary and there are everything I don't like about Donald, ergo they're
Corey
58:58
they're equally bad. That to me is totally outrageous, but I take your point. Let's
Zain
59:02
Let's move it on to our next segment and our final segment, our over, under, and our slightly extended lightning round.
Zain
59:10
Yes, I like that. See, at least one of us is paying attention, Stephen Carter. This is very exciting. Okay, Stephen Harper resigned as an MP this past week.
Zain
59:19
Initially, Corey, any thoughts on Stephen Harper resigning as MP? I just wanted to ask you that, and I couldn't fit it in anywhere.
Corey
59:24
Not really. I mean, good luck with your new gig,
Corey
59:27
gig, doing the strategy thing, Harper & Associates. We'll
Zain
59:31
We'll talk about that in a second, Carter.
Carter
59:33
Yeah, I mean, I'm really tired of the people crapping down his throat. You know, you were a terrible prime minister. You know what? He gave up 10 years to serve, 15 years to serve, however long he was in government. Thank you for your service and the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Zain
59:47
Now, as Corey alluded to, he is moving into the strategy consulting space with a firm called Harper & Associates, the most bland name of all time. But I want to make a game out of this. So I want you guys to create names of strategy consultancy firms for some of our other retired leaders. I like this. You like this? Corey, can I start with you then? Yeah. Jean Chrétien, what would you name a strategy consulting firm run by our former prime minister, Jean Chrétien?
Zain
1:00:19
Not bad. Carter, you're horrible at this, so we'll just let you say your thing and we'll just move on to Corey again.
Carter
1:00:26
I was going to go with something along the lines of something to
Carter
1:00:30
to choke, but I'm not going to do it.
Zain
1:00:33
Good. This is working out really well. Corey, back to you. Jim Prentice starting a consultancy firm Let's say somewhere in Alberta Maybe even back in Toronto What does he name it?
Corey
1:00:43
Well, I think he just calls it Prentice Strategies I think his tagline, Making Math Simple Is more what I'm interested
Zain
1:00:51
interested in Stephen Carter, Jim Prentice decides to To start his own strategy consultancy firm Anywhere in this country What does he name it? The
Zain
1:01:02
I'm sorry Wow Okay Okay.
Zain
1:01:04
The Expensive Loser Strategies or just the Expensive
Corey
1:01:06
Expensive Loser? Okay. It's like the Barefoot Contessa for failed political candidates.
Zain
1:01:12
Sounds like a weight loss company.
Zain
1:01:15
Corey, final one. Bob Ray. What does Bob Ray do?
Corey
1:01:20
Bob Ray doesn't start a company at all. What Bob Ray does is he only works three days a week, although he wants to work five, but nobody will let him. because
Corey
1:01:31
that is the nature of Ray.
Carter
1:01:35
Just kind of going back and forth between consultant firms. Whoever will take him. Nicely
Zain
1:01:40
Okay, a little bit more conventional. Maybe even not. Carter, your four-word strategy to Justin Trudeau as he heads to China. What is it? Keep your shirt on.
Zain
1:01:51
Corey, your four-word strategy. Take
Corey
1:01:53
Take your shirt off.
Zain
1:01:57
Okay, time for another segment that we're pulling out of the archives. Chives, Stephen Carter, you are Anthony Weiner tomorrow morning opening up a fortune cookie beside your bed. What does said fortune cookie say if you are Anthony Weiner?
Zain
1:02:14
Do you have anything?
Carter
1:02:17
I'm working on something with a prostate. I don't know. Corey,
Zain
1:02:21
Corey, Anthony Weiner wakes up tomorrow morning after a disastrous today. His wife leaving him. He loses three jobs where he was a contributor at certain newspapers. He opens up the fortune cookie sitting beside his bed. What does it say? Have you ever heard of SMS?
Zain
1:02:41
Carter. I got nothing. Carter. I'm going to the next one. One more. You're Jason Kenney and you open up a fortune cookie tomorrow morning after the rules came out this weekend. What does his fortune cookie say?
Carter
1:02:52
Oh, God. I hate the fortune cookie one. I suck at the fortune cookie one. I suck so bad I
Corey
1:03:00
Corey what do you have
Corey
1:03:06
damn Zane I just hate not
Corey
1:03:08
roads hold on no no no we're gonna let Stephen take another crack at it we're gonna call that strike one strike one go ahead Stephen
Zain
1:03:15
it's good I'm gonna build off
Zain
1:03:17
collective this is nice
Zain
1:03:23
that's all I got
Zain
1:03:25
Corey, do you want to start with Not All Roads, or where are we going? Jason Kenney, opening up his fortune cookie.
Corey
1:03:32
You don't need friends to be successful, but
Zain
1:03:39
Not bad. And the final question, Stephen Carter, to you. Does
Zain
1:03:42
Does Jason Kenney drop out of the PC leadership race?
Carter
1:03:47
If I were Jason Kenney, or if I was advising Jason Kenney, I would drop out in a huge whirlwind
Carter
1:03:54
whirlwind of activity complaining about democracy and swearing that it still will build a united right.
Corey
1:04:02
Corey, does Jason Kenney drop out?
Corey
1:04:04
No. Jason Kenney uses the constitution of the PC party to organize enough members of the grassroots to force a special general meeting to make the party democratic again.
Zain
1:04:16
Nicely done. We will leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 590 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belge With me as always Stephen Carter Corey Hogan We'll see you next time