Episode 934: Sorry not sorry

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, there isn't time. There isn't time to write a fucking episode. I have not written anything. So what I suggest is that the show that is known for having no guardrails has even fewer guardrails today.

Zain 0:23

Just tell me what you want to talk about, then we'll jam on it. I don't know. Is this for real? Is

Corey 0:27

Is this a real

Zain 0:28

real thing? i literally have nothing i was watching the basketball game in my basement and then i fell asleep and it's too hot to write an episode so this is here we

Corey 0:37

we are at least this is the least regard we've ever shown for our listeners in a long history of disregard for our listeners it

Zain 0:44

makes you remember the episode about the dairy queen cory

Zain 0:50

where i don't know 93 of the people listening were like what the fuck is this But the 7%,

Carter 0:55

7%, they got it, loved it. A year from

Corey 0:59

you're going to think about several months of The Strategist, and it's all going to blur together, but someone's going to say Dairy Queen episode, and you're going to remember what the hell that we're talking about there. I

Zain 1:06

I hope this one has the same legendary folklore,

Zain 1:09

folklore, Corey. So make it a good one. It won't. It already doesn't. Because the pressure's on you, because

Zain 1:15

because I have nothing. Hang

Carter 1:16

Hang on, guys. What do you want to talk about? Can we talk about basketball?

Zain 1:20

Yeah, we sure can, Carter.

Corey 1:20

No, because I was actually doing things while Zane was watching the game, so I don't even know who I am. I

Zain 1:26

was also doing that. I was sleeping during the last five minutes of the game. This is true. How about those

Zain 1:32

No, no, we're not going there. We should have planned an episode. Jesus Christ, that just made me regret everything, Carter.

Zain 1:37

Corey, what do you want to talk about? Bring something to the table. We can do this. We have the intellectual horsepower to sustain anywhere between 20 to 90 minutes. uh mckenna

Corey 1:50

mckenna mckenna is not running which means there's now a vacancy that don ivison can run in which means that mark carney can run at edmonton center this

Zain 1:58

this is correct carter you have predicted this from the from the from the beginning well

Carter 2:02

well i mean we heard it we

Carter 2:04

we didn't necessarily predict it we we heard it on a podcast and this is

Carter 2:08

here we are um

Zain 2:10

um actually i want to talk about the mckenna story is this

Zain 2:13

this a big loss for trudeau like let's start here like is this a Is this a big loss for Trudeau from the standpoint of, obviously,

Zain 2:21

obviously, one of the more prominent female ministers that he's had? I think a lot of the spotlight goes on Freeland for obvious reasons and all of the roles that she has, but a pretty prominent minister. Is this a big deal and a big loss, Carter, for the liberals?

Carter 2:37

Yeah, it's a big loss. I mean, I think that Catherine McKenna was a good minister. I think that she also carried a lot of heavy files. miles and i can see why she would be um tired tired of this crap and tired about uh being a minister in a government that uh she had to do a lot of heavy lifting so i can see that i understand probably why she wants to leave um but

Carter 3:03

but uh yeah i i think that i can't help but think that this was this there was more to this you know the mark carney rumors uh moving away from our own little playing with it as the strategist, the Mark Carney rumors have

Carter 3:19

have always been there, and this is a perfect seat for him to take. So maybe this was in the works for a much longer period than we thought.

Corey 3:28

Corey, what do you think? Big loss for Trudeau? Well, I don't know. Carter, without looking, what was she minister of?

Carter 3:34

This most recent one? Because I was more familiar with her in environment.

Carter 3:39

But I'm not familiar with her now. What was she recently?

Carter 3:42

know. I can't name three federal ministers. No,

Zain 3:44

No, no, just try it. Just try it. No, we've got the time. Yeah, we've got the time. Yeah, there's no guardrails. Use that as a hint.

Corey 3:51

know what? I've got good news for you, too. There's actually two parts of it. There's blank and blank, if that helps you. Yeah, that

Carter 3:56

that doesn't help me at all.

Corey 3:58

Well, you've got two chances, though. You

Carter 3:59

You can't get Carter.

Corey 4:05

right, so my answer, Zane, is no, this is not a huge loss for Trudeau because Stephen Carter, known political strategist, couldn't even mention that she was Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. The reality is since the last election- I'm not going to say infrastructure. What

Corey 4:17

of a fool am I? Sure you were. You didn't say anything. You didn't even guess.

Zain 4:19

guess. I was a fool. You

Zain 4:20

missed all the shots.

Zain 4:22

You missed all the shots you don't take, Michael Scott. Yeah.

Corey 4:25

She has taken the back seat. I think it's pretty fair to say since the last election. She's been a much less prominent player since she was shuffled out of the environment file. And in many ways, it feels like it's been a bit of a long goodbye. So if there was a hit that Trudeau took, that hit was taken years ago at this

Zain 4:44

this point or a

Corey 4:45

and a half ago, I would say, when she was put into the portfolio in November of 19. So, no,

Zain 4:50

don't think it's the biggest deal

Corey 4:51

deal in the world for the liberals or for Justin Trudeau personally. I do, however, think it is a loss for the liberals and it is reflective of the fact that in 2015, there were all of these personalities that came in that were supposed to be these new star players in this cabinet that was going to be more primus inter pares, at least in theory, right? We're going to have all of these. You know, after the

Corey 5:16

criticism of the Harper years was you've got Stephen Harper and a bunch of people, but they're not necessarily that

Corey 5:21

that authoritative, not that well known. And then there was this Team Trudeau that was prominent people who were coming forward to take on these positions. And Catherine McKenna was supposed to be part

Corey 5:34

part of this, right? She was one of these personalities who was going to be moved into the limelight. But there's been this thing that's happened over the past six years of governance with the Trudeau liberals, and that's been this shrinking of who we consider to be a key player within the government. And I think that in many ways, her story is a microcosm of the bigger story.

Corey 5:53

is no longer a government of ministers. This is a prime minister and a bunch of apparatuses that are attached to him.

Carter 6:04

I think that's totally true. True. I really, you know, like the it's the tendency that is happening within the provincial governments for quite some time. And I think that maybe it was less so when the when the prime minister, prime minister had less experience. But kind of it's not just the shrinking of the number of cabinet ministers that he's relying on. It's also the shrinking of the number of staff that he appears to be relying on as well. He seems to have a smaller and smaller subset of people that he can reach out to and rely on. And that is evidenced by some of the campaign team that he's announcing, as well as the people who work and are serving his office. It feels like this prime minister has fewer people to call on through the course of his tenure than more people to call on.

Zain 6:47

Isn't that natural for any leader, though? I believe we've discussed in past episodes that the trust circle just gets smaller and smaller. Like, isn't that just a natural extension? Do you feel like this one is particularly noticeable because of the team effect that came in 15 and the Trudeau effect that we're feeling in 21?

Carter 7:06

I don't know. I mean, I think it is something that does happen. I think that, you know, if you look at leaders that have lasted a long time, I'm thinking of Klein. line. Klein was able to shift between chiefs of staff with relative ease. You know, this is not necessarily the same situation that everybody's in as they go through their leadership process. So, I mean, I'm trying to think of other ones that have served for a long time and whether or not they were successful. You know, if you want to last more than a decade, you better be expanding your circle in year six and not contracting.

Zain 7:43

Corey, I want to talk to you about that. There's two obvious things here like let's talk about carney in a second but like let's stick with mckenna i mean she will probably be known as the minister that that faced like the most amount of vitriol and social media hate became the epicenter of of that in a climate that between 2015 and now that's gone even more noxious online do you feel like i

Zain 8:06

hate to say it this way that that's what she might be defined as less so her successes on the environment or infrastructure and communities file, but more so as being the minister that faced, unfortunately, this disproportionate vitriol and social media toxicity.

Corey 8:20

I definitely think that that is a big part of the story we're going to think of when we think of her. Now, I don't necessarily know that, in hindsight, that's going to be to her detriment,

Corey 8:33

detriment, is a funny way. Here's what I can say. I think that the attacks that she got leveled against her were so obviously sexist and so so obviously shallow and and the

Corey 8:43

the the damage that's done to her you know her constituency office and all of these things it

Corey 8:48

it became more like this moment where we had to sort of look at what had happened in the poison in the body politic and and maybe she will be seen more as a canary in the coal mine than you know than this sad tale right i i don't know i mean it's funny you ask the question it's hard to separate the two right i i think that just the notion that you would call Call somebody climate Barbie is so damning. And, you know, it's

Corey 9:12

it's damning of the kind of the level of discourse that we're in right now.

Corey 9:18

just the abuse she took.

Corey 9:20

There is a bigger conversation here, a bigger question. And I'm not really sure if this is what you want to unpack at this moment. I doubt it is. But why does any sane, talented person want to be an elected official?

Zain 9:33

Yeah. Yeah, it's just

Carter 9:34

just or even working government, you know, especially with the rules that are being put in place to constrain, you know, everybody, everybody seemed to be on the take. So you have to have a five year cooling off or two year cooling off or whatever the cooling off period is in your jurisdiction. But you're going to go work for less money than you probably could earn in the private sector. But seems like a lot of money to people who are in the, you

Carter 9:57

you know, people who aren't making those types of dollars. But when you're comparing them, it's not, you know, it used to be that people would give years of service. I mean, the stories about Lougheed going around and recruiting senior people from oil and gas or, you know, various industries and asking them to serve for four to eight years and then they would be returned into their regular jobs. I mean, who does that anymore? You become, you get tarred with it. And when you're done, Steve Paikin wrote a great couple of books. One is called The Life. And I always recommend The Life to anybody who's – I

Carter 10:34

I give it to spouses of people who want to run for office. And I say, read this. It will give you some insight into why that person wants to run. And it's about some of the great joys of serving, the great joy of being able to do things for your fellow citizens, and the great joy of actually being a leader. And it is something that is enticing and it's addictive. And then he wrote a companion piece called The Dark Side.

Carter 10:56

And the dark side is the one you give to the candidate.

Carter 11:00

And you say you need to understand that this book outlines what's going to happen to your life. You are less likely to be able to get a job afterwards, right? I have friends that I have worked with in government that left government, left elected office, and still haven't found work.

Carter 11:16

Still haven't found work. Not

Carter 11:18

Not because they're not talented people, but because they have been blacklisted by their opponents, because they have been attacked by their opponents and because their reputation is such that corporations don't want to take them on for

Carter 11:28

for no fault of their own because they're doing the work of the government. And that's just, that's

Zain 11:36

If this was a nationally syndicated radio show, I'd have to go to commercial break, Carter, but you nailed it right on the 13 minute mark. Look at you. We could do traffic and weather right now. Weather, fucking hot. Climate change is real. Traffic, probably more of it. There you go. There's your national climate and weather forecast together alongside traffic. Carter, here's the thing. You guys have opened up something fascinating. In fact, this particular point both of you made in the past, I think, Corey, I'm going to quote you. Scarlet letter was what you used and or albatross, right? Like you wear it around your neck running for political office, being a political staffer. You know, it's not often this trampoline to your next gig, this sweet landing spot that many people think it is. With that being said, I'm kind of curious right now. Like, if you're the prime minister, right, you've got a few folks that you've probably lined up. Well, I'll shove the Carney question one more time for a second. But what is the PM's pitch right now to recruiting new candidates? Like, what would you tell the PM if he's on a phone call with, oh, I don't know, like a Don Iveson or, you know, someone in the other part of another part of a country who could be a candidate for him? What would your pitch be right now, knowing we just discussed the noxious nature of social media, of the overall sort of thanklessness that is public service, the scrutiny, the limelight, etc.? You know, what would your pitch be in this moment in time? Corey, maybe I can start with you. If you're the PM and recruiting new candidates, what would you be telling them?

Corey 13:01

Well, it's at that charged moment that you can actually make the case somewhat perhaps even compellingly, like the now has never been a more important time to serve. Look how charged everything is. Look how over the top politics has become. And even if you want to kind of look at it less in those kind of virtuous senses, the fact is there's also the negativity there. They're so terrible. We need you to help us. We need you to stand up and support us as we try to build back better and build this different Canada. of that so the um the

Corey 13:34

the thing is this

Corey 13:36

this is actually not a bad time to try to be recruiting candidates particularly if you're the liberals just even setting aside that dramatic moment the clash of civilizations that's going to draw people to the ramparts people always sign up for war even though they could get a bullet in the head right even besides that moment if you are the prime minister a you've got the fact that polls are looking very much in your favor and And so it looks like you might be looking at a majority government going forward. And hey, four years of the gig sounds pretty cool, I'll bet. But B, and probably more importantly,

Corey 14:08

we're at such an inflection point. And the way the prime minister is talking and the way even you can just look around at other jurisdictions and just see so plainly, decisions are going to be made that are going to dictate the course of this country for decades to come, generations to come. We are spending so much money. We are going to have to decide whether we continue to spend. If so, are we going to be doing it on transitioning our economy? Are we going to be paring down? Are we going to be having an entirely different paradigm in the next bit? And there's something very enticing about that, right? There's this sense that this is a moment that you want to be part of because you can really make a difference. There are moments of caretaker government in this country. I can think probably I would argue the 90s in many cases after we sort of got through the early 90s and decided everybody didn't like deficits for a while. Now, where governments didn't do a ton, you

Corey 14:58

you know, there's not big national projects you can point at.

Corey 15:02

It was very caretaker in nature. This is not this. Now it's big national projects left, right, and center. And I mean that quite literally. Right-wing projects, left-wing projects, centrist projects. And that

Corey 15:12

that could be pretty alluring to some people.

Zain 15:16

Carter? Bill Donald Corey said, what's the pitch if you're the PM?

Carter 15:19

Well, I think that he's nailed the pitch. I think that this is a, you know, as Corey said, an inflection point where we're going to be shifting. In fact, the shift has occurred, though. And so now you've got people who are going to be attracted to it. And there's also going to be a group of people who are going to be attracted to defeating it.

Carter 15:37

But, you know, on either side, I mean, if you push away the ideology for a moment and say you forget, you know, which side you think is right.

Carter 15:46

And instead you say, you know, can we get better people to come in on these two sides or these different things? there has to be kind of a different way of respecting one another, a different way of approaching the office if you're really going to get good people. Because while Corey's appeal has certainly appealed to me, and I think to you, Zane, because we've been in this arena quite a bit, what I'm seeing is the opposite. What I'm seeing is more people trying to trend towards independence, trying to trend towards, I'm not going to take a side. We had someone tell us today that I have to be Switzerland in the municipal government race. Why the hell do you have to be Switzerland? what's at stake what the hell's at stake it's a municipal government race like who's going to hurt you um but this is not just municipally but it's municipally provincially nationally people are perceiving the choosing sides is in some fashion going to hurt them and and i think that the reason for that is that it does so cory's pitch notwithstanding if we go back to cory's core premise cory's core premise was this is a time when good people need to do good things we're forgetting about which side. My

Carter 16:48

My fear is that

Carter 16:50

that it has been that for a long time. We just last, you know, three days ago, we talked about how we weren't dealing with big issues like First Nations and, you know, reconciliation around the

Carter 17:01

the big issues that happened with residential schools or the big issues that are happening with

Carter 17:05

with inequality and systemic racism. This isn't new. This

Carter 17:09

This is something that has existed for a long time and recruiting people to deal with with it has been a nightmare right

Carter 17:15

finding people to do the big jobs to do the big things that need to be done it

Carter 17:19

it remains the big problem losing someone like Catherine McKenna regardless of how close she was or how far away she was from the prime minister she

Carter 17:27

she still was a good person who did good work and who could be in cabinet in a significant role doing significant things and frankly even when you have 338 MPs finding those people who can do those things is still finding

Carter 17:41

a needle in the haystack how

Zain 17:43

do we get over this though right like let's use mckinnon as an example right uh senior minister to various files but she leaves branded as a liberal right so future career prospects it's all about being branded as a liberal like is there a way we can get over this or is this just like the natural way of things that you're just branded as a partisan and you just pay the price and that's what the back end of public service looks looks like i

Carter 18:10

mean i've tried to recruit people and i can see

Zain 18:12

see this is a personal struggle for you like i think you and i have talked about this quite a bit we

Carter 18:15

we this isn't new i mean this isn't new just because we're recording it on the podcast all three of us have tried to recruit candidates right

Carter 18:21

right all three of us have spoken to people that could be an excellent mayor or they could be an excellent counselor or they could be an excellent uh mp or an mla and especially women candidates, right? Like the number of women that I've spoken to to try and recruit them to run and the look of shock and horror on their face as they kind of contemplate what does this mean and what will it mean for me and my family. It is the

Carter 18:52

the challenge of our days. It is the challenge of this time because it

Carter 18:59

it used to be that being a politician was not seen to be so disgusting as it is today, right? And today it is seen by many people as a fallen profession.

Zain 19:13

Corey, any thoughts on that?

Corey 19:16

Well, yeah, when Ipsos does their regular trust barometer for different professions, politicians come in last. They tie ad executives at 10% believing they're trustworthy untrustworthy in the last one i've got just pulled up the numbers here but 61 say they're untrustworthy which is by far the highest of any of the various groups and and you know carter said something earlier that i wanted to jump on and say i don't 100 agree with but i want to maybe revise and see if he'll accept the amendment on it in many cases when a politician leaves the reason they don't get work is not because they've been blacklisted by the party that's in power but because there is this sense that they're just too affiliated with one side and hiring them becomes comes a political act and we've talked about that in the context of staff before but if you hire a former premier what are you saying about your organization are you saying that they are a

Corey 20:04

conservative organization a liberal organization a new democratic organization and that's you know that's a charge that a lot of companies don't want and that's a charge companies maybe could have gotten away with back when nobody knew who the hell was on the board of directors of coca-cola or you

Corey 20:19

name it right but now we all know these things all of the time and everything's a culture And everything's a fight. And it, it

Corey 20:26

it really is difficult to see what the upside is, I think, if you're just going to look at it kind of in the, in

Corey 20:33

in the simplest terms. So when

Corey 20:36

when you asked, what's my pitch as Trudeau, right? Well, my pitch is going to have to be on what I can do and the better angels and the virtuous stuff because the rest of it is such bullshit at this point. You're under the public microscope. People think you're a crook and you have far less power than before because it's all been centralized in the first minister's office. So yeah, you better be able to sell me on something that's whimsical because the nuts and bolts of what does it mean for my family and my life, they're

Corey 21:06

they're not going to be very good. it carter

Zain 21:09

carter is carney doing it he's

Zain 21:11

he's just literally paving the way i

Carter 21:15

mean all the signals are that he's doing it i

Carter 21:17

i mean if he was to pick up the phone and call me as he often does um i would probably uh say to him a pitch very similar to what cory said you know in his pitch about what the time looks like and uh what he could achieve and what and how canada could be could be made to be different um and

Carter 21:37

and i think i would believe all of those things but then if he said to me what's the downside and asked me to honestly explain to him uh

Carter 21:45

uh what will happen to him what will happen to his reputation um i think that i would i would caution him that that

Carter 21:51

that doing this might be the best thing for the country but

Carter 21:54

but it may not be the best thing for him um

Carter 21:56

um so i'm hopeful that he comes in and

Carter 21:58

and i hope that when he does come in that

Carter 22:00

that the attack dogs from the conservatives

Carter 22:05

uh don't come after him right

Zain 22:09

cory what do you think about carney at this point

Corey 22:12

i don't know i don't have a clue i last i heard he was running that edmonton center now i'm here in ottawa center who can believe these rumors zane this is

Zain 22:20

is this is so true let me let me finish it off here before i ask carter what he wants to talk about next so carter keep it keep it keep it uh keep it ready find a topic for us okay

Zain 22:29

okay cory so let's just let's just end it off here And Carter, get your question ready, or your next topic ready. Corey, if Carney calls you about advice in terms of should he do it, should he not do it, a last-minute heat check before he launches, what are you telling him?

Corey 22:44

I'm telling him that he used to be an important person who would get the phone call of absolutely anybody he called, replied to, and that will not be this job. And if he's looking for future glory, this is not the path for him. But if he's looking for different ways to serve, and he believes he can truly be of value to the country, and he can perhaps define the economic conversation within the Liberal Party, and he has some confidence that the Prime Minister is going to listen to him, then yeah, what the hell. But don't kid yourself. This is not just like being the governor of the Bank of England or the Bank of Canada. It is a very, very different job.

Zain 23:19

Carter, where are we going to next? Tell me. me well

Carter 23:21

i would love to talk about uh pensions

Carter 23:26

pensions for politicians i mean i think that we have this idea i

Carter 23:31

was thinking about this the other day because pensions have come up a number of times municipally provincially and federally are

Corey 23:35

are we still talking about the same thing like he asked for a new

Zain 23:38

new he asked for a new

Carter 23:40

and i and i want to talk topic

Carter 23:42

yeah i mean it's related but it's not related because all right i'm intrigued why do people respond so negatively about

Carter 23:49

the idea of pensions for for politicians right

Carter 23:53

right like it's not like we're walking around going you know fuck those firefighters they got a fucking pension you

Carter 23:58

know i fucking hate the nurses with their pension right

Carter 24:01

right like why is it that we're why is it that we are teachers don't get you know the vitriol the politicians get why is it just reserved for like we don't want politicians to be lifetime politicians and we still reject their idea that they get a pension They get a compensation package that most of us, frankly, want and require.

Corey 24:22

Well, I just disagree that people aren't mad about other public servants getting pensions. We hear that all of the time. Effing teachers with their pension, you know, they only work 10 months a year. I know this is not the case, teachers. Please don't at me. But, you know, people will say, oh, they only work 10 months a year and they get this golden pension at the end of it all. And do you know how much money they're making? I mean, the

Corey 24:42

the defined benefit pension takes all sorts of flack. As somebody who has one, can I tell you, it's a pretty awesome thing. But most

Corey 24:50

most people outside of the public sector don't get defined benefit pensions anymore. They get defined contribution pensions at best. And so part

Corey 25:00

part of why people don't want their politicians to have it is because they don't have it. If you want politicians to be able to get pensions again, Carter, start getting everybody else pensions. That's my advice.

Carter 25:11

Yeah, I mean, I get that. I mean, I get that indeed. And that was one of the reasons that, you know, people,

Carter 25:18

people, I guess that there is a pension question, but I just think that for me, when, again, this boils down to the overall compensation question we were talking about moments ago, but people get less money for doing this than they could in the private sector. and

Carter 25:34

fact that they you know the this pension question is coming to a head because there's there's going to be a number of mps that will not qualify for a pension if

Carter 25:43

if they lose in this upcoming election and

Carter 25:45

and i think that the the prime minister is taking a uh a

Carter 25:48

a bit of a gamble with it because he's thinking maybe they'll work harder or maybe you know whatever they'll they'll try and stay elected but it

Carter 25:57

is a bit of a gamble uh but at the same time you know is

Carter 26:02

is six years enough for a vested pension or is there some something else that should should happen i don't know but we can't have we can we as a population talking to both sides of our mouths we want politicians who are capable and and able we want politicians who aren't going to make this a lifetime profession but then we don't compensate them in a fashion where they you know they can shift out or they They can go and do other things. And then we treat them like shit. So all this to me was related. That's why I brought up the pension idea, because I'm

Carter 26:32

I'm increasingly frustrated with how hard it is to recruit a candidate to run.

Zain 26:39

Fair enough. Good topic, Carter, I guess. I don't know. This is why you fucking choose the topics, you dick. This is a great show, because it exposes who really does the work on the show, Carter, and it's me. Just want to let you know. This is

Carter 26:53

is what happens. You have three days at a time to prepare a show. You gave me 28 seconds.

Zain 26:58

That's pretty good. You did okay. Corey, anything you want to talk about?

Corey 27:01

I just want to point out that Zane only uses 28 seconds of those three days to prepare the show. This is not something that he spends a lot of time on. My

Carter 27:09

My favorite was when we used to be in person and we would arrive and

Carter 27:13

he would be scribbling on a piece of paper and we were like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm writing the show, just give me a minute.

Carter 27:19

Those were my favorite moments.

Zain 27:20

Hey, I want to actually talk to you guys about this. I'm going to throw this before whatever you had on your mind, Corey. The liberals have named their campaign director, okay? So on its own, probably another, you know, proof point that an election is coming. Azam Ismail, the current director, the national director of the party, has a field background. I'm curious for, like, national campaign directoring, like, as a job construct, is a field background, like, the best skill set? Or are you looking for someone that's, like, your air war marketing digital person i i know we've kind of touched on this in the past a bit but i'm curious if you've got any thoughts on this because i was thinking about it i mean seems like a very talented guy seems like he's been part of the liberal machinery for a long time ran a go tv for them but a field director running your national sort of campaign does

Zain 28:09

does that make sense carter or is that just just the right play or or am i am i am i overthinking this too much I

Carter 28:15

think you're overthinking it a bit because, you know, the person at the top doesn't make, you know, they may make all the decisions, but more likely they're not actually making a lot of decisions. But the decisions they're making are who am I going to hire to do the air war?

Carter 28:29

Who am I going to bring in to do the digital campaign?

Carter 28:32

Who am I going to bring in to do the rapid response groups? Who am I going to bring in to do media from the plane? those

Carter 28:38

those those decisions um i think are probably pretty well borne out in a field operation right learning how to um grab people get them engaged and get them and empower them you

Carter 28:50

know if if we're correct in this this election's happening in a relatively short order um then he doesn't have a lot of time and he's and he will be just

Carter 28:59

just grabbing and and implementing and making the right decisions and i think that that is in at its core what field is field is about getting things done. The only thing the field should be doing is measuring outcomes. How many doors did we reach? How many people did we convert? How many names did we get? How many signs got out there? And that type of, you know, measurement of actual activity is probably a great thing at the national campaign director level.

Zain 29:29

Yeah, I guess there's been this mythology in campaign directing, probably through a bit of Hollywood and a bit of, you know, the circle that's kind of run political campaigns in the 80s, 90s, that it's really the strategist, the person who does the air war, like that big sort of thinker, so to speak, that kind of like it has their hands on the campaign, so to speak, from a leadership perspective. Corey, am I overthinking this from a campaign perspective or any thoughts you have with the liberals appointing their new national campaign director for the upcoming campaign? Well,

Corey 30:01

Well, I think that when you start talking about campaign directors, it's a little bit like campaign manager, but bigger in the sense that you can come up through the organization a lot of different ways, right? You might be a data person. You might be a communications person. Maybe you are all about logistics.

Corey 30:16

logistics. But ultimately, when you get to the top job, it's like any other company, right? Your CEO search might end up picking the COO, might pick the CMO. There

Corey 30:25

There are a lot of different options. Some are more likely than others. But ultimately, what you've really done is you've proven kind of an overall leadership capacity that you then take into the big job. Bob. And part about being a leader is delegating. And when

Zain 30:38

when you're running field,

Corey 30:38

field, you are delegating a lot. Your team is very big. You've got systems in place to manage it all. You've got managers who are out there dealing with different components of it. And when you look at the

Corey 30:51

the CEO job, let's just call it the, you know, you want to look for comparable complexity. And I think that the director of field has comparable complexity. And as long as they're taking a systems approach to it and listening to the experts around them, I think it makes a great deal of sense. Now, Now, you talked a lot about this idea of, like, the tall forehead. Stephen Carter has a very tall forehead. He's the classical campaign strategist,

Zain 31:11

strategist, right? Yeah, that's actually true. Like, as much as fun we make of Carter, like, he is the mold, right? Like, thinking and, you know, left and right, show which direction, someone figure out how to do it. Like, no offense to you, Carter, but that's your MO. Like, we've worked with you.

Corey 31:24

you. I don't know why that would be offensive, but now I think it should have been offensive. Because Carter

Zain 31:28

Carter has no ability to actually, you know what?

Carter 31:31

I'm not the best campaign manager.

Carter 31:33

I'm not the best campaign

Corey 31:34

campaign manager. You're rarely a campaign manager. I

Carter 31:36

I am a strategist

Carter 31:37

strategist first, and if in a really strong campaign that I'm involved in, we will have someone who manages all the various details, because there's tens of thousands of them and I can't actually see them. How deep are

Zain 31:53

telling people what to do, though, Carter? Corey, I'm interrupting you. I'll get back to you in a second, but now we're on Carter for a second. How deep is your strategic advice? Is it super high level? Or are you telling field two layers down what exactly to do? I

Carter 32:03

I can tell field two layers down what to do. I mean, I have that that,

Carter 32:08

that, you know, I have done all of those things, but my I'm much better if I'm just trying to figure out the the air war stuff. If I'm just stuck in communications, advertising, media relations, I do better in a campaign than when I'm trying to figure out which areas we should drop lit at or how do we organize teams or how are we doing the training. That stuff eludes me. I will say that there is something to be done, and I think that's the end of the to-do list. And then someone comes in. We saw this in Hale and Knowlton when we worked there. There was all these account directors, and I think you guys wound up being them, who would, I would say, we should do this. And then they turn it into a to-do list of like 30 things. And I'd be like, how the hell did that get so complicated? Because I just said we should do this thing. And that's, that's the nature. I think that's the difference between a captain and a director. I like that you don't even,

Zain 33:05

even, you pretend like you didn't even know what our jobs were there. Yeah, that's

Carter 33:10

great. What was your job? Corey, you were talking about old

Zain 33:19

white men with bald heads or something to that extent. Please keep going.

Corey 33:24

Yeah, right. I don't even know where I was going with that. I just want to talk about how bad – I was talking about the

Zain 33:29

80s, 90s sort of mythology of like the strategist or like the Stephen Carter type running a campaign.

Corey 33:37

there is also this push towards the more moneyball approach to politics, like show me the nuts and bolts. Let's get it done. Let's figure it all out. And the other thing is within a campaign, there are an awful lot of ways

Corey 33:47

ways you can give people senior titles and senior roles. And Carter has taken a few examples himself. Like he was – I remember in the 2012 provincial election, you weren't the campaign director for the PC party. You were like the chief

Corey 34:02

whatever it was. Yeah, there you go. And so – but obviously very important and very deeply involved in all of the campaigning. And this is – I

Corey 34:10

I guess my point is there is no shortage of different campaign structures and architectures that can allow you to put talented people in different situations and give them varying levels of autonomy and authority. already and the other thing you got to keep in mind is that ideally you've got a lot of this in place before the campaign director is just making sure it goes off without a hitch if

Carter 34:28

if i can just add on onto that though because one of the worst campaign structures is all the the tall foreheads in a room and arguing about the strategies right there have been many many campaigns that have been bogged down by having a bunch of different strategists all arguing with and not giving the strategic advice to the campaign director or whatever title, the campaign manager, the operations manager. There's a thousand different titles.

Carter 34:54

But allowing the strategy to become action is where so many campaigns fail because they skip that step. They either have

Carter 35:04

have too many people doing tactics or they have too many people doing strategy.

Zain 35:10

anything else you want to talk about? Anything you want to throw onto our pile of stuff that we've been discussing thus far? I

Corey 35:16

I would like to discuss the fact that Stephen Carter was terrible to work with at Hill & Knowlton on a regular basis because he never had any command of the details. And he would be like, what? There's a plan? There's 30 steps? I just was in front of my whiteboard and came up with some dumbass idea. This is revisionist. This is

Zain 35:31

is revisionist. Are we doing impressions? Listen, guys. My strength, I have one strength. Building teams, I have two strengths. Doing meetings. Teams and meetings. That's what I do. That's why they pay me the big bucks. What's your name, brown kid? Anyways, that was my impression of Stephen Carter talking

Zain 35:48

talking to me on

Carter 35:49

on my first day. Except I probably wouldn't have spoken to you on your first day.

Zain 35:55

It was several weeks until we chatted. This is true.

Zain 36:00

I had Chester. I didn't need you at that time. I had

Zain 36:04

None of which will go on air.

Zain 36:06

Corey, anything else you want to throw onto the pile of stuff for this week? Let's talk

Corey 36:11

talk about the fact that the Trump Organization might get criminal charges next week. Let's go south of the border. Let's actually talk about – This is good.

Corey 36:18

But let's talk about the strategy of it. Let's talk about what do you do if you're Biden and all of this goes down at the Trump Organization. Corey,

Zain 36:25

Corey, can you contextualize this? I have to be embarrassingly honest. I actually have not kept up with this. So can you give us a heads up as to what's going on? Yeah,

Corey 36:32

Yeah, the Washington Post is reporting that the Trump Organization – and there was some additional reporting last week. uh effectively they informed the trump organization last week they were considering criminal charges against them because of the way they were dealing out perquisites to to uh you know high officials of the trump organization and unusual by the way for criminal charges to be delivered for for such violations of the tax law but apparently they the trump organization has been given until monday afternoon to tell the prosecutors why they should not file charges against the trump organization so this would be criminal not civil charges against the trump organization not donald trump but the trump organization the suspicion is this is to try to put the squeeze on the people who would be implicated including a lot of trump's lieutenants who may then in turn flip on donald trump but the the consequences could be effectively the trump organization is if they were to lose all of these things not really able to operate at least as they do today and

Zain 37:32

and sorry this is being run by the biden justice department no it's the manhattan d.a no

Zain 37:36

no okay okay okay yeah interesting yeah

Corey 37:38

so manhattan d.a but this stuff is now all of a sudden going to be live again potentially and you could have a former president uh facing legal jeopardy oh

Zain 37:48

oh this is like the southern district going after uh bobby axelrod if you if you get the billions reference carter uh

Carter 37:55

i'm a big fan you do you do

Zain 37:56

do i can see it the the

Zain 37:58

blank look look on your face.

Carter 38:00

know. Billions in basketball. Those are my two core areas. That's where I go.

Zain 38:04

So to ask a question that came originally from my head, what is the Biden strategy here, Carter? What should the Biden strategy be?

Carter 38:12

Well, I think the Biden strategy should be to run away from it as far as they can go. I mean, this is the this isn't their Justice Department. It's not coming from them. You know, they're the

Carter 38:23

Manhattan D.A. has been after the Trump organization for quite some time, including the time when he was the president. They were blocked from getting a number of records while he was the president. He stopped being the president, allegedly, and now things are about to get real for his organization. I do agree with the speculation that Corey brought up that says that these charges are probably being used to get leverage against certain people so that they will testify against Trump or be involved in something bigger than this. I mean, this appears to be, to

Carter 38:58

understanding, this looks like a tax-free benefit that wasn't properly recorded. It feels like it's fairly minor

Carter 39:05

minor for charges to be brought against the organization. But, you

Carter 39:09

you know, I don't understand New York tax law. But here we go. This could be very interesting as it unfolds.

Corey 39:16

I'm sure you have a take on this.

Corey 39:19

No, I don't even find the issue particularly interesting. I think we should just move on.

Zain 39:27

such a dick hey cory tell me about uh tell me about um on a scale of one to ten um how frigid is the relationship between andrew yang and his advisors right now oh

Corey 39:39

oh the yang gang did not deliver uh the new york city primary at yang was expected to be in in the polling leading up to it yeah

Corey 39:49

number two if not number one on some of the polls looking back and ah he came in at 11 11% first choice votes or something like that. Yeah,

Zain 39:57

Yeah, not great. He's like in fourth. He's not going to win. He's already conceded. Like, it's

Corey 40:02

It's not happening for him. And this is an interesting election because they're doing a ranked vote in New York in the primaries. And if

Zain 40:08

if you don't know how to rank vote, you can find Bill de Blasio comparing pizza toppings as part of a ranked voting educational PSA he has done. Carter, you've got your hand up. Well,

Carter 40:17

Well, I mean, the thing that kills me is how long is it taking him to count these votes? votes like it's

Carter 40:22

it's not rocket science it's a rank ranked ballot i mean why is it taking them uh weeks to to tally up all of these votes are they doing it uh

Carter 40:31

uh like normally you would feed these types of things into a computer a computer would tabulate it and boom boom boom it's all over like

Corey 40:36

like where the fuck were you in florida in 2000 i mean it's

Corey 40:40

it's america it takes them forever to count these things this

Carter 40:42

this is embarrassing it's it's like come on guys this shouldn't take any time at all i

Zain 40:47

want I want to ask you guys about something about that campaign, though, maybe like comparing it to your experience is that the best analogy that I read about that campaign was that New York got a sugar high on Andrew Yang and then he literally crashed. The feeling inside a sugar high campaign, have either of you kind of seen one of those things where it just is to the moon or been on the inside to one of those things and then it just craters while you're in the middle of it and you just there's nothing you can do to resurrect it? Because the stories that came out from the Yang campaign, Corey, he was projected to be in first two months out. But the stories the week before were like, this guy's fucked. Vanity Fair did a profile. Politico did a profile. Strategists were turning on each other. Knives were being put in backs and twisted over the press. Like, you could tell that everyone had accepted that the sugar high theory was correct, that there was no resurrection to a fourth, fifth, sixth place finish. And we still don't know exactly where he lands. But I'm kind of curious what you make of that analogy from your personal and professional political experiences, if any, in your time working in this space. space so

Corey 41:55

so i haven't actually been i

Corey 41:58

haven't been part of a campaign that's been high and then down i'm aware of a couple of examples but they're pretty fleeting in this country they're very common in the united states though i feel in the primary environment and yeah you

Corey 42:10

you saw it for sure during the republican primaries in i

Corey 42:14

i guess wow uh 16 16

Corey 42:18

right there was trump and then somebody else would fly up for a minute and then somebody else would fly up and you saw them in 12 as well Well, everybody

Corey 42:24

everybody was in the lead before Romney was in the lead, but they go up, they come crashing down, and

Corey 42:29

and it's a little bit more steady around here, and I think that's to our great credit. And also it's because we just don't have that kind of insta-polling. Perhaps we would see those kinds of spikes and crashes if we had a

Corey 42:39

a little bit more of that. The closest I guess I can think of is during the – that

Corey 42:46

that I wasn't involved in directly, but I was proximal to was the mayoral election that elected Nenshi in 2010.

Carter 42:56

higgins is the example i was gonna guess yeah yeah

Corey 42:58

yeah a local tv personality came into the race rocketed to the top was all of a sudden 40 of the vote in a fairly contested election and then didn't even come in second when it was all said and done so uh that was your race too yeah

Carter 43:13

yeah i mean we watched that very closely i mean she she came in with all the promise in the world Now, I'm not sure this necessarily is a direct

Carter 43:20

direct correlation to Andrew Yang, but the

Carter 43:26

The execution or the ability to follow through was much more challenging.

Carter 43:31

People wanted her to be different than she was, and then things kind of moved away from her. And one of the things I keep trying to remind people of in this election campaign for our municipal campaigns that are ongoing now in Alberta is that this isn't 2010, right? And Nenshi doesn't win, by the way, without her collapse.

Carter 43:52

And I'll be very interested to watch because ranked ballot systems in Canada almost never return the frontrunner as the victor.

Carter 43:59

Almost invariably, it's the second or third place person who winds up winning. And

Carter 44:04

And Andrew, you know, Andrew Yang, I think, was right to concede he's not going to go from 11 percent to victory. victory um but you

Carter 44:11

you know the people who are 25 20 i think have a much better chance of winning than the the front runner who's only at 30 so um all

Carter 44:22

all of this to say that i think that when when higgins collapse higgins collapse moved so much to nenshi but was not a true not because of nenshi i want to make that really clear like the

Carter 44:34

the it really was this boom and bust where a candidate came in with a ton of promise and then didn't actually show or prove that she had the chops to manage that promise. So, again, I'm not sure it's, you know, the same as Yang, but certainly was fun to watch.

Zain 44:54

I mean, the analogy is interesting. You're not all that off. I

Zain 44:57

I mean, first of all, like the municipal comparison aside, you had a candidate that was, you know, that had the most amount of written name recognition comes in and then because they shoot to the top, they're faced media scrutiny. And it's the media scrutiny that kind of does them in in some way, shape or form, right? Or it's the fact that media interviews

Carter 45:18

You don't think so? I think it's the time. I

Carter 45:20

I think that it was the time. I think that it was a time of extreme questions and challenges of crime, of how race is being dealt with in America. And jumping in off of Bloomberg, a rich white guy, and jumping to a rich Andrew Yang, that doesn't necessarily seem to follow, right? I'm not sure that New York was really busting for another entrepreneur who's filled with big promises. I think they were looking for someone that had more life experience that more reflected their own, which is a very common theme in elections. Very often people get elected because they are like the electorate. And Andrew Yang, you know, rich tech, rich tech millionaire or whatever, billionaire, millionaire, gazillionaire, isn't very much like the good people of New York.

Zain 46:20

carter what where are we going to next you you you you uh whispered a poll at me i'm assuming you mean the poll numbers for the liberals you want to go here for a sec yeah i

Carter 46:28

i can't was it was it frank which i think it was abacus that did a really interesting poll that had the conservatives really down with the older canadians and i had to think that it was an aberration because we haven't seen uh conservative support drop from conservative you know in the older older population. Oh,

Carter 46:48

Oh, boy, I'm trying to remember. I mean, Corey, I don't know if

Carter 46:51

if you can recall any time off the top of your head, but it's been a long time that conservatives supported or

Carter 46:56

or were supported primarily by older voters. And if this poll is correct, it spells a very bad outcome for Aaron O'Toole.

Corey 47:08

It's a bad poll for the conservatives, and it's part of a season of bad polls for the conservatives and in fact they they've not been particularly compelling ever since um o'toole's leadership and and really even before that only fleetingly you know at certain moments the conservatives looked competitive with the liberals so yeah i mean if it's part of it this is all one story right it's feeding election speculation because why wouldn't you go to an election if you're in the lead the way you are um as the uh as the liberals and the

Corey 47:39

the question just becomes is it real is there something we're not seeing here is there a bit of a shy tory effect are the conservatives actually more durable i wonder a lot whether some of the weakness of the conservatives is conservatives further right showing their displeasure by parking their votes either in undecided or with the maverick party but

Corey 47:57

but in reality they will vote conservative at the end of the day it's a suspicion of mine and it's based on not a ton but i would probably look to bc in 2013 as the parallel in the 2013 bc provincial election in the lead-up to it the bc conservatives were polling in the high teens low 20s it was everything it was the reason why the ndp under dicks were leading themselves for so long but as we all know what happened on election night is um the liberals won and

Corey 48:26

and the liberals won relatively handily and part of it was there was a The total collapse of the B.C. conservative vote down to, I think, about five percent, five or six percent from its lofty polling grounds. So I

Corey 48:39

I don't know. I mean, it's

Corey 48:41

it's not if you're buying stock in Aaron O'Toole right now, it's probably just because you already own stock and you're averaging down. You know, it's just there's not a lot of reason to think that things are going particularly well for him. But I sure wouldn't count him out still. There's just too many unknowns for me right now. And it will be interesting to see what an election campaign does. Well,

Carter 49:00

Well, is this going to be an election where campaigns actually matter? I mean, we have had some elections where the campaign doesn't matter at all. And then we've had like the 2015 election itself, where I seem to recall doing a spectacular liberal strategy episode of the strategist, you know, longtime listeners will recall it fondly, where the campaign itself had to shift. The campaign shifted the outcome from a third-place liberal party to a majority government. Will this campaign be that? Because of our podcast episode.

Corey 49:32

episode. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Well,

Corey 49:34

Well, that was a good – we were crazier back then. We actually even ran our own polling, you'll recall.

Carter 49:39

recall. We did. Yeah. We did it all. We were crazy.

Corey 49:44

Carter, tell me this. I mostly remember it for the editing that was required. I don't know if you – we don't normally edit the show. Obviously

Carter 49:49

Obviously from this episode. And

Corey 49:51

And this episode is a great example of that. It would be about 20 minutes if we edited things. But what we did is we had like a strategy session of multiple hours to talk about things before we did the recording of the actual episode. Do you guys remember that?

Carter 50:05

that? Oh, yeah. And

Corey 50:05

And we edited down the strategy session into like a five-minute almost like previously on the strategists. And that almost killed me. I was doing it on an airplane. The background noise was enormous. It took, I don't know, seven hours. It was brutal. It was just awful because, of course, editing always takes a lot of time. And

Zain 50:25

what do people remember? The fucking Dairy Queen episode. They remember the Dairy Queen episode, despite how much work that was for you, Corey. I remember that. That was good work. Hey, listen, I have to actually, to Carter's point, to both of you, maybe we kind of loop

Zain 50:38

loop back and finish on this, which is, okay,

Zain 50:42

so what will this campaign be about, as an extension to Carter's point? Like, does this campaign need to have a justification? Because right now the justification seems to be Justin Trudeau wants the majority and he's going to call an election. Does he need a better excuse than that, Carter? It's so easy. Do

Corey 50:57

Do you just say it's about the recovery? We're out of COVID and it's what comes next. Yeah.

Carter 51:03

is about the recovery. You think that's enough for Canadians?

Zain 51:07

And you think that's enough for Canadians next week, week after? Or do you feel like there's a grace period that one needs to consider to not fuck up a summer? Or do you feel like you're good with that rationale if you're, Trudeau, agnostic of time in

Zain 51:22

next three-month stretch? I

Carter 51:23

I think that every week over the summer is going to feel different.

Carter 51:27

In Alberta, we're going to be the first ones experiencing it because on Thursday, we lose all of our restrictions in Alberta. In Alberta, it's stage four everywhere else is happening in Alberta on Thursday. thursday um

Corey 51:42

lose all our restrictions gain all of our freedom carter depends on how you want to look at it wow

Zain 51:52

that was a line from hamilton yeah

Carter 51:53

yeah it was really good uh we lose all the restrictions uh and we gain the freedom of getting potentially a fourth wave but anyways we we we have this uh you know so how do i feel about that well it's been changing over time as as cory and i have debated you know and i've had debates with with really good friends who are on opposite sides of this issue than i am um i think we'll feel differently in a week i think we'll feel differently in two weeks and we'll feel differently in the third week and this is the problem if i were trudeau picking

Carter 52:22

picking the right way week to call the election it's going to be really tricky because each jurisdiction is going to be going through these weeks at a different time you

Carter 52:30

you know bc ontario quebec may not even get to where we are right now for another another four weeks and and so i could i if if i were advising him i'd say be careful with pulling the trigger too early and be careful with pulling the trigger too late so

Carter 52:46

so i i don't know how to i don't know how to put that into words other than that i don't know how to come up with better solution but um

Carter 52:54

um i think that this campaign won't

Carter 52:56

won't matter if he chooses the right time if he does choose the wrong time then

Carter 53:01

then the then the the conservatives have a chance to grow the ndp have a chance to grow the

Carter 53:06

the block has a chance to grow tell

Zain 53:08

tell me by what you mean by won't matter you mean won't matter to canadians that he called it you mean yeah

Carter 53:13

yeah i think the canadians will be like riding a high i mean we'll be we

Carter 53:16

we survived the pandemic we've been released from our homes i mean the summertime is going to be the summertime i don't think anybody's going to care about anything uh but when we return if there's an election campaign going on in september i don't think i'm going to be angry about it i think i'm going to just be okay we

Carter 53:30

we knew there was an election coming it's it's almost factored in now and my life is basically normal i think the two weeks of september the first two weeks of september will be the first you know it'll be the most normal thing that we've had happen in like two years because we'll be returning to school we'll be returning to work our kids will have post you know post-school activities cory's going to be driving all

Carter 53:52

all of his dozens of children to many different places in the city of calgary and he'll It'll be, you know, it'll be the best time and the worst time all at once because we'll have missed it and then we'll be immediately reminded of why we hated it.

Zain 54:04

It'll also be while he drives all of his kids, we'll be editing the episode of our liberal strategy, the updated version for this year. That'll be good. Corey, any

Zain 54:12

any thoughts on the Trudeau pulling the trigger, reactions to what Carter said here, justifications, anything on that front?

Corey 54:21

Well, that was a lot of mighty pretty words, Mr. Carter. Oh, here we

Carter 54:24

we go. But they

Corey 54:25

they amounted to a hill of nothing. You're wrong. Nobody cares. He can call the election. He doesn't need a lot of justification for it. Everybody expects an election is coming anyways. It's entirely baked into the pundit class, and that will lead the conversation among Canadians. I don't think he's going to get hurt for calling an election. I don't think a weak one direction or the other is going to matter at all at this point.

Corey 54:47

Election time. Let's go.

Zain 54:49

I said we're going to end on this, but Carter brought it up. So let's do one quick hit or hot take, pun intended, considering how insane our province is weather-wise on Alberta. Anything you guys want to comment on either restrictions, on opening, on an Alberta story, on Jason Kenney, something you've seen on social media, whatever that might be. Or even the crazy social media back and forth, you know, takes between issues managers and comms directors and opposition leaders. There's a lot of stuff to chew on. Is there anything you want to hit on before we say goodbye?

Carter 55:25

Steve Allen report, the Allen Commission has requested feedback from, I think it was 30 NGOs about the funding that they received. And it sounds like they're not going to be accused of anything.

Carter 55:36

It certainly won't be implying that they did anything wrong, which

Carter 55:39

which then begs the question, what the hell did we spend all this money on, Steve? It just strikes me as this unbelievably stupid thing. and I could have gone with the Canadian Energy Center as being the dumbest thing ever but I chose Steve Allen's commission so Steve

Carter 55:54

Steve should be feeling pretty good about himself

Zain 55:57

Carter I should say Corey what the hell did we spend all this money on Steve is a phrase Stephen has heard many times

Corey 56:08

that's why we have to come up with 30 point lists then we show them the list and we say hey

Corey 56:14

that's what you did that's what you said it's

Carter 56:16

it's these people survived uh

Zain 56:19

uh cory anything on alberta you want to hit on either reacting to the allen commission or anything else on top of mind before uh before we say goodbye i

Corey 56:28

was on west of center this week and it was a lot better structure than the strategists uh apparently

Zain 56:34

like that's a good thing you say that you say that like it's a good thing like having the resources of the the taxpayer very good conversation

Corey 56:42

conversation very orderly went Went through a bunch of issues, had a bit of a flow to it. There was a good conversation. Kathleen was a wonderful host, as always. And I'm just so sorry to our listeners that you were subjected. If you're still here, seek

Zain 56:57

You mean Kathleen didn't fall asleep before

Zain 57:00

show was about to start?

Corey 57:01

Well, if she did, you

Corey 57:03

you know what? If she did, she's a pro and she didn't mention it on the pod. Yeah,

Zain 57:08

Yeah, but some of us live off our vulnerabilities as our identity. and that is me. We

Carter 57:13

We should hire a producer. They have a producer for this show. We

Carter 57:16

We should get us one of those. This show has

Zain 57:17

has highlighted and exposed many things. And with that, we're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 934 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belchie. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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