Episode 979: Photo oops

Corey 0:02

This is the Strategist episode 979. My name is Zain Velji. You know, Zain, I can't live this lie any longer. It's not episode 979.

Corey 0:09

934, we actually ran a few different times. No. Really? This is actually our 1,000th episode. Is it really? This is our 1,000th episode. Fuck off.

Corey 0:20

Drop the balloons. Woo! This is amazing.

Zain 0:23

amazing. Carter, thank you. This is very exciting. And Corey, you know, to celebrate that excitement on episode 978, also known as episode 999, we soft-launched the Strategist Patreon, which of course is available at one of the websites between strategistpatreon.com and theestrategistpatreon.com. Not sure which one. Anyway,

Zain 0:44

to the 14 people that have signed up thus

Corey 0:48

You know what my favorite part of this? My favorite part of this, as Stephen Carter said, I bet you we'll get a thousand people sign up.

Carter 0:57

didn't i did not put a timeline on it right

Carter 1:00

right like as soon as they start finding out that they don't get regular you know regular episodes because you know the podcast audience needs to have people like you need to record for them like every sunday and every thursday that's what we've been doing religiously now for a thousand a thousand episodes cory yeah

Carter 1:16

one thousand episodes well

Corey 1:18

well we always said the first thousand were the trial episodes yeah

Carter 1:21

yeah it's now paywalled

Corey 1:23

yeah yeah Now that you've had the sample of 1,000 episodes of Sundays and Thursdays, going forward, starting this Thursday, you do need to be a patron on Patreon in order to get the Thursday episodes. So to do that, you

Corey 1:38

you know, that's the lowest level. That's $6 a month. You can send topics and questions to Zane. He will ignore them. Yeah. But you will get your Thursday episodes. episodes and depending on our recording schedule that's somewhere between a low dollar 50 per extra episode or infinite dollars if we actually end up if we

Carter 1:54

we don't do any yeah some

Corey 1:54

some risk there's some risk there for you you pay your money

Carter 1:57

money it takes a chance uh

Corey 2:00

yeah so consider it consider it hard now sell the ten dollar level right

Carter 2:04

right i mean that's the one that's the one that zane thinks people really want to fucking terrible at sales

Zain 2:11

Can I step in at some point?

Corey 2:13

No, sure. Okay, go for it.

Zain 2:16

Strategistpatreon.com. Okay, so that's where you need to go in order to sign up for the Patreon. Now, Corey, let's be very clear.

Zain 2:23

At Strategist Patreon, there's multiple levels. But the lowest level, I'd say that's where a significant value comes from. Of course, there's more value at the $10. There's significantly more value at the $20. And then, of course, Carter, there's the infinite $1,500 version, which I'm sure

Corey 2:38

sure we'll talk about. There's

Corey 2:39

There's a real leap between tier three and four. The

Carter 2:42

The $1,500 one is value, though, because you get to sit on stage with us during the live show, and we will make fun of you during the live show. There's still time to buy. That's the only way in to the live show next week. It's

Corey 2:55

It's really a very, very tragic level because it's not only you pay for friends. You're actually paying for enemies. Oh,

Zain 3:01

Oh, yeah. This is true, and we'll try our best. Now, we can't guarantee this. We'll try our best to make sure that $1,500 doesn't just get you a seat on the stage for our show, but any live show. We'll try our best. We may not be able to succeed, but any live show at the Martha Cohen, we'll try to reserve a spot for you on stage. I mean, it may or may not work, but once again, you pay your money and take your chances.

Carter 3:20

Arts Commons in general. I mean, you could be in the Christmas Carol, for God's sake. We're making it happen.

Zain 3:27

I don't know. That seems like a good value to me.

Corey 3:31

That's a great point. Great point. point ten dollars a month live stream video you can actually watch how the sausage is made it's exactly like listening to it here we

Carter 3:40

we actually had we had to invest in new new software to do that we had to spend money to

Corey 3:46

a good thing those 14 fucking people have signed up to to support this flight of

Carter 3:50

of also we have 300 we got 400 people coming to the live show we're making cash bank

Zain 3:56

bank what's we're gonna record are we gonna record an episode for 14 people here's what i say oh yeah if no if no more than 16 people sign up i'm not i'm not sure

Carter 4:08

kidding me there is a 50 50 chance you don't show up on sunday anyways you know you don't even are you gonna come to the live show can we get a verbal commitment that you'll be there we should

Zain 4:18

should say we should say for anyone attending the live show the bar opens at uh at seven so if you do want to come early before the show um steven cory will We'll be there maybe a quarter past 7. I'll show up closer to showtime. I have no

Carter 4:31

no intention. You have to do a technical rehearsal

Carter 4:33

rehearsal at 4. We'll

Carter 4:35

how it works. Can you please be there? I'm asking for everyone. At

Zain 4:43

Carter, pull up the email. Do the run of the show. Pull it up. No,

Zain 4:47

Are we good? Corey, anything else on your soft sell for the Strategist Patreon? Thursday episodes now on. We'll do – I will say this. Our Thursday episodes will continue. They'll be on Patreon. We might throw in some additional experimental stuff in there, too. Might do deep dives on things. Might do chatter on things that we find interesting that might not neatly fit into a segment. Happy to discuss what that looks like. Do indeed, if you do sign up, we'll figure out a way to have you send me topic ideas, etc. I will ignore 98% of them, but that 2%, you could be part of that 2%. I mean, it's all a gamble, but it really could be worth it for you to ensure that you send us topic areas and pay your Patreon dollar amount for the Thursday episodes, which we

Zain 5:30

we may or may not record on Thursdays, Corey.

Zain 5:32

This really could be a tremendous value or a tremendous grift, and I really don't know which one yet. Jesus.

Corey 5:39

Yeah, I'm the one who needs to work on the sales pitch. No, listen, listen. I'm

Zain 5:44

Let me just tell you something. There's a reason why we sold out so quickly for the live show. I have to say, my infomercial was about 95% of the reason why. Oh, yeah. That was good. People love that. Yeah. People did like that. Are

Zain 5:56

we good? Are we good shilling, Corey? Yeah, let's do a show. I wish this was live stream. You've got your hands on your temples as if you're losing consciousness. What's going on? Are you okay?

Carter 6:07

Can we get on to something that people care about? I did really well with my AFL predictions this week, and I just wanted to spend some time talking about it.

Carter 6:16

Really well with my AFL predictions. i'm now in second place in my league this

Corey 6:21

this two-person league of yours you can't shut up about just there are

Carter 6:24

are way more than two people there's like 14 people i'm okay we'll leave that

Zain 6:28

that we'll leave that there we're moving on to our first segment our first segment super pumped steven carter cory hogan oh yeah jason kenney went viral on friday for uh pumping car no pumping gas in pumping car into his truck pumping gas into his truck and then not being able to take out the nozzle uh this video viewed more than more than a million times on twitter made the rounds but i don't want to spend too much time on the actual now meme i guess uh but i want to talk about the art of the photo op and what to do when your photo op goes wrong and carter when i when you saw this for the first time when you saw this online uh what was your first feeling was it it sympathy for Jason Kenney? Was it fear? And then let's get into the where did your strategist brain go on this in terms of, oh, shit, how do I clean this mess up? I want to talk about that overarching theme on this segment around, you know, what a practitioner or strategist or a comms rep, what goes through their mind, how they construct these photo ops to begin with, and then how do they plan for them to go disastrously wrong, kind of like how it did for Jason Kenney. So Carter, top line thoughts, I've kind of teed up what I want to do for the rest of that segment but but give me your top line thoughts and i'll do the same for cory next i'm

Carter 7:43

i'm not sure i felt sympathy for him in fact i just kind of more or less looked at it more in a detached fashion i thought you know i bet you they they didn't practice uh because filling up your car with gas is you know seriously

Carter 7:58

you normally in a photoshop would you have would you have held practice sessions carter listen in the in in yeah a technical rehearsal is what what that's called you should be there at four o'clock on sunday no technical rehearsal so the

Carter 8:13

normally in a photo op you do go through the elements of the photo op you do a run through if you're doing proper staging you do not want to show up with the media and the cameras and do something for the very first time because the pressure of the cameras will make it go badly right so everything should be rehearsed in advance now filling up your car with gas is probably something you don't think, you know, we should rehearse this. We should make sure that this particular gas tank doesn't have a difficult to get in or difficult to get out gas tank. It shouldn't be that hard. Now, one would think he's filled up his truck with gas before. I mean, that thing guzzles some gas. I'll tell you that. It takes some gas all the time. So theoretically, he's done this before, but something just didn't work. And, you know, I didn't feel, like I say, I didn't feel bad for him, but I did think immediately, this is definitely something they didn't rehearse, and they probably should have.

Zain 9:06

Corey, initial thoughts for you, was it, there should have been a rehearsal?

Zain 9:11

that's not my initial thought. When you saw it, when you saw it, I actually sent it to us in our chat group. What were you thinking when you flipped it over to us?

Corey 9:18

Well, I was thinking, live by the prop truck, die by the prop truck, right? And part of the reason why it's hard to have sympathy for Jason Kenney in this moment is not because, it's not a gotcha moment. It's not as though Tom Ross just happened to be at the gas station with the premier of Alberta and said, oh, Mr. Premier, Mr. Premier, sorry to interrupt you. Well, you're filling up your car, but I've got some questions for you. And this happens and it's this fumbling moment. This was staged. It was staged as a prop. It was a gimmicky thing to say, like, look at me. I'm now filling up with cheap gas. And it went horribly awry. eye and you know i think that's where it's very difficult to have sympathy it's very funny by the way watching that clip as the look of horror comes over the premier's face oh yeah as he realizes there's something is it realizes he's failing at the act of pumping gas but you know and

Zain 10:05

as a political practitioner over the years himself he probably knows what like four seconds in of like trying to pull it out probably you

Corey 10:12

you you invite you created this moment that you you know is going viral as this is happening yes and there's just there's no there's no good way out of it at that point like the minute the joy dropped from his face it was over like in a funny way it's it goes back to that rule of never let him see you sweat which is part of what i want to sort of pack or jump into if we talk about this from a like a gaffe crisis management point of view uh but this

Corey 10:37

this is actually a known problem with dodge ram trucks if you google dodge ram truck gas nozzle you will see and there's a quote a class action lawsuit claims that fca us llc knowingly sells dodge ram trucks with a defective gas filler neck that prevents customers from efficiently filling their truck with gas and in some cases causes gas nozzles to get stuck in their vehicles so

Corey 11:04

better yeah oh totally

Corey 11:05

totally you know so like it's

Corey 11:08

let's put it this way let's be let's be fair the

Corey 11:11

the premier of alberta knows how to fill up a truck with gasoline okay but this was just one of those moments and sometimes in politics you have those moments where shit goes wrong for no foreseeable good reason uh

Zain 11:24

carter i want to talk about gaff management and and what cory's mentioning here but let's put the pump the brakes on that oh

Zain 11:31

i see what you did that's good really

Carter 11:31

really good you did you

Zain 11:32

you have a soundboard

Corey 11:32

soundboard what What happened to the fucking soundboard?

Zain 11:36

Thunderous applause and shock, shock, morning radio. We're

Carter 11:40

We're saving that for the Thursday night episode. Thursday episodes get the special effects.

Zain 11:45

Carter, honestly, like, actually,

Zain 11:48

actually, this is good because you just came off running a campaign most recently from the three of us.

Zain 11:55

still work, man? Like, are they just so tired and lazy and gimmicky and just so, ugh. ugh, why do we still do them? Why do practitioners still do them? Why do the media still show up? I'm really curious. Like, and I'm asking this in earnest because I'm genuinely curious. If you had to resource allocate, photo ops still, Carter, really? Well,

Carter 12:14

Well, I was very lucky. We didn't have to do photo ops because it was COVID time, right? So the only photo ops that we were looking at doing actually wound up getting canceled. So we were going to do the traditional campaign HQ photo op, fill it with 500 people, you know, 400 people or whatever. It's going to be one of those. Look how much momentum we've got. We're opening our HQ, blah, blah, blah. Saved from having to do that.

Carter 12:39

I don't like doing them. I think that you're right. I mean, they're tired. They're hard. They're hard to get media attention at. It's easier when you're the premier or you're the mayor or you're the prime minister because they have other questions. The media want to layer on other questions at your photo op. You want them to focus on your photo op and get your message out. That is your goal. their goal is to get you on whatever the topic of the day whatever the topic of the uh the moment is and it's a little bit of a jousting back and forth between what you want and what they want and and you know it's part of the deal right part of the deal is you know you're gonna have to answer some of their questions and they know they're gonna have to count they're gonna have to cover your um you

Carter 13:22

you know your photo issue or whatever you're doing that particular day um the trick is to give The trick is to give a photo op that is relevant to the topic and actually interesting enough that you can, in fact, bring out the cameras, especially if you're not the premier, the mayor or the prime minister. So if you're the candidate in trying to actually do a photo op, you can't just do, you know, like, oh, we're going to do a defend or, you know, defend the draft or drop the draft protest that they did this weekend throughout Alberta. And we're going to have the media show up because we've got everybody dressed in red.

Carter 13:58

Yeah, I mean, maybe the media showed up, but it's not a very compelling photo op. We've seen that photo before. And what you really need to be thinking is, can I actually do something where people haven't seen this photograph before and it actually has meaning? And the people shooting it,

Carter 14:15

you know, the photographers, the videographers and the reporters, they can actually get a unique story out of it because that's what they're looking for. They're looking for a good story that's packaged up. that people will watch.

Zain 14:29

Corey, I'll ask you that same question in a second, but maybe you can help us understand this. How is a photo op sold to the media? Is it sold generally, come watch the premier pump some gas? I expect not, right? Or like it's probably scaffolded in what you said, right? The tax is no longer being applied on the provincial side. The gas is cheaper. The premier is going to pump some gas. How are these things generally sold? And then to your point from a practitioner's eye, the efficacy and the effectiveness of photo ops these days, your commentary on both. Yes.

Corey 14:56

Yes. Well, there's two things that you can think of when you think of a photo op. You can think of a pure photo op where it's no questions. We're just going to be, this is an opportunity for photography to be taken. I can think of a million in my career where it's come here and see Brian Mason put on a hockey jersey or come watch. Many of the ones we're most familiar with are familiar with because they went horribly awry. but yeah yeah you know but generally

Corey 15:21

generally speaking that's one type and that's the rarer type although it certainly exists is that more campaigny type is that fair yeah it is and and so we'll you know i'll circle back to that yeah but the more common one is it's part of the bundle it's okay there's a media availability and in the comment on the media availability on the news release it says like visuals you know the the photos will be available in this setting or however it's

Carter 15:43

it's presented on there but

Corey 15:44

but what it what you're always trying to do in media relations in the public relations side is you're trying to put together a compelling bundle that can then be taken by the media and presented to their viewers in a way that helps them do their job and their job is to sell newspapers or it's to get people to turn on the news for the six o'clock. And so you want compelling visuals for that because that's what drags people back. And so you help them do that by providing more than just standing in front of a lectern all of the time. Maybe

Carter 16:11

that lectern's in front of a jet engine.

Corey 16:12

engine. Maybe it's not a lectern at all. Maybe you're going for a run with the person who was affected by this, whatever it may be. So I think they're actually pretty important still. I think the idea of compelling visuals has not changed because of the internet or social media. I feel, if anything, that hook is more important, because you can't sort of guarantee eyeballs in the same way, because every individual reader is going to decide whether it's worth sharing or not. Carter,

Zain 16:39

Carter, you wanted to jump in, do that. And then I've got a question for you that's maybe contrasting and comparing what we've seen, I'd say, in the last half decade with the prime minister's photo ops, which are very much almost all of them, except the ones that have been leaked and in other circumstances, are done by official photography. they're like you know like adam scott he's out there he's taking these photos being look the prime minister just jumped on uh it was just you know going for a run and this couple was proposing and he happened to be there like those sort of moments have rarely been media moments they've actually been moments for the pm's photographer it's kind of fed to the media but carter you wanted to jump in and i'll get that contrast piece in there after i

Carter 17:16

i think that cory's point about the backgrounds and stuff is really interesting because this is now a moment when And we are watching different campaigns go in different directions. There's the formalized photo op that Corey described, you know, like Flair Airlines is opening up in Edmonton. And, you know, in front of Flair Airlines stands Premier Kenny saying, this is going to be 350 new jobs for Albertans for a good five or six months. And this is... Oh, that's actually great. so so there's that standard photo op but then there's also something that's happening in the culture in the media right now and that culture and media now has people popping in front of their bathroom mirrors to take tiktoks right and some of the politics no no politician has been tremendously successful at tiktok yet i mean people will come at me it's with saying he's got 900 000 followers they're not real okay so let's just move past that but um pierre palliev is is getting closer right and um you know some of the younger politicians some of the mlas are starting to get there and we're starting to see that sometimes just walking down the street without a backdrop with just the video of yourself holding a selfie stick or whatever talking to the camera that might be some of our new but that may not be a photo op that may be a new type of media so i maybe can i may be bringing the two together where they aren't actually together you guys It's

Zain 18:41

It's just interesting because it's porous. And Corey, jump in.

Corey 18:44

I mean, that porosity is something that people struggle with day in, day out in any organization large enough to have both social media components and direct media relations. And so

Corey 18:55

so there is. There is the idea of intermediated communication. So you are putting something together for the media. You want to have a compelling suite of things for them to have, whether that is quotes in your news release, media availabilities, opportunities an opportunity to take photos of them or get video of of the principal who's talking whatever you think is going to help build that and then there's what we called a decade ago the content marketing side that's the owned content that's the things you do yourself and produce yourself and the line is blurring and it's blurring for a lot of reasons there's a lot of new fly-by-night media outlets that will happily take anything that you don't have a copyright on there are existing older media outlets that just don't have the budget to send people everywhere wear and we'll take content that

Corey 19:38

that you create yeah yeah that you create less intermediated maybe i've seen way too many times in my career at this point people write a story entirely from a news release and and you think poof ouch okay but you know it's fine and it's the way it's sort of going and so that line is a little bit blurred right yeah

Corey 19:54

but generally speaking historically and that this is changing as we're talking about that porosity you

Corey 20:00

you could pretty much guarantee that That the file photos you presented of your person in the greatest light is not going to be that interesting to the media. They're going to want to get their own photos in part because they think their reputation rests on not looking like their Pravda, right? Whereas the premier has shown up or has sent you a bunch of photos of, you know, like him flexing with enormous muscles in front of it, you know, whatever it is, but yeah.

Zain 20:24

can I stick with you on this for a second? Because, okay, we've explained to the audience how the first part of this works, how you're pitching the media, right? The pure photo op or like the bundled package. I think we understand that. What goes on in the staffer capacity, Corey? Like if you are, let's say you're the director of communications, or you're the staffer responsible for this bundle, let's use that second category, right? Because I think this one was more in that bundle category. category what are you prepping on your side are you you're obviously prepping who from the media is going to be there who you've pitched what other sort of elements are part of your mini comms plan and i'm getting closer i'm inching towards the gaff and crisis management element but before we get there what are you kind of preparing for let's use the kenny example for that photo op that happened at the end of last week what sort of things would a staffer uh have have prepared for in that regard yeah

Corey 21:16

there is no absolute this is the way you do it But generally speaking, you would have brainstorming done by your communications team who would come up with ideas and ideally would know the venue if there was a venue in question or would have an idea that they would be able to sort of run down with a gas station owner in this case or something like that.

Corey 21:34

But it was likely operationalized by TOR. And during a campaign, probably TOR would do it all from soup to nuts, right? The day before, they would be scoping out the venues that they were going for the next day's announcements. They would be looking at the angles. they would be thinking about the visuals i have seen tour people do things like if there's an inconvenient exit sign knock that exit sign out of the way or no they've got to take it down or cover it up in some sort

Corey 21:58

sense right so they're they're actually doing the shot like they're sitting back with their hands and they're saying okay what's this going to look like uh as they set up the meteorizers here and they take the shot of our principal who's there how's

Corey 22:09

how's this all going to feel how's this going to be and

Corey 22:12

and for things that are not so much the pumping the gas But they will even stand up there at the lectern, someone roughly the same height as their candidate, and they will say, okay, that's what it's going to look like. And that's how the meteorizers will be set up, and we know it will be set up at this height, and this is how it's going to be. So that's generally how it goes. When you have something like this gas pump thing, it's generally somebody has a brainwave, though, and says, I know how we're going to make this interesting. We're going to create a visual by sending the premier to go pump his gas, right? right? That's not something that happens accidentally. And that does tend to be more of a communications-driven approach to these things. Carter,

Zain 22:49

Carter, what else is, you've been a chief of staff to a premier, what else is part of that plan? Is, and this is where I'll kind of start getting into the crisis element of it, are like remedial or plan Bs, or if this goes wrong, sort of elements built into that plan, or is that just gut instinct? If it happens, it happens. Tell me from your experience, and then let's talk about best practice in that regard too. Like, where is this, talking about porosity where is the line between over planning for something to go wrong versus political instinct uh for if something goes wrong we've got the brain they've got the brains and the talent to figure that out how do you kind of balance that as a political operation i'm sorry if i'm getting too into weeds i just find this interesting myself jean

Carter 23:28

jean charre just let out a uh a video tonight right so it wasn't a photo op i'm going to continue our porous uh connection between these things and just allow us to to you pull examples he's standing in front of a

Carter 23:44

essentially a wall of brochures right you know like you go to the the tourism place and there's all those brochures you can take um he's standing in front of that and you know he just looks like he's a guy lost on vacation right he looks like he doesn't know where he's going and so you would as a as a advanced person a

Carter 24:03

a good advanced person or a good social media person and this all blurs you should be looking at and saying what's the symbolism here what

Carter 24:10

what is the symbolism that we are sending and is it some sort of a symbolism that will in turn flip

Carter 24:15

flip back on us so i'm not necessarily planning for the gaff right i'm not planning for the mistake what i'm planning for is that this thing that we set up how is it going to be read poorly right um you know you're you're You're doing a thing where you're talking about the poor and, you know, there's a thing where you're trying to get restaurants to take

Carter 24:39

take all their leftover food to homeless shelters. I don't know, right? Just a thing like that, right? You don't show up in the Gucci suit, right? Like you don't show up in the perfect clothes. You make sure that you're dressed appropriately. You're planning the shoot so that it represents the message that you want to get across. That's your primary goal. Not to necessarily say, you know, what if he can't take the, you know, the gas handle out of the truck? Like, that's not something you're thinking about, because that's just probably not going to pop into your mind. What you might be talking about is, you know, is this really the message that we want to send at a time when we've had climate crisis in Alberta? You know, six of the 10 largest climate events have been in Alberta. You know, we just had the West Coast completely washed out and we were unable to access the lower mainland because of flooding. thing is this the time to have the premier pumping gas now if it was rachel notley it

Carter 25:32

it wouldn't be but this premier wants to send the visual signal that's the opposite of that so it was totally fine so he sent the visual signal no one on his team thought you know anything was going to go wrong and for all intents and purposes it didn't go wrong until that moment when he was unable to extract which is something no one's planned for of

Zain 25:52

of course and so this is what i want to talk about Corey, which is how much of like, unplanned

Zain 25:56

unplanned scenarios are you thinking through scripting, like, whether it's in the larger category of this could be a any gaffe, maybe this particular one, or anyone? Is that all political instinct that you're like, we've got the brain talent, we'll figure it out? Or is is some of that actually pre planned and scripted? And you kind of have like a philosophy of engagement around what that looks like, if you know what I i mean yeah

Corey 26:19

yeah well let's start here most photo ops or most parts of a media veil that are about the photo op um are generally designed to be low risk affairs really really designed to take the risk out of them because it's a cost benefit analysis right if you have something how many photo ops can you remember there's there's multiple ones a day from the government the ones we tend to stick with are the ones where something goes awry and as a result you do tend to take a bit of a risk risk averse approach to this. Like you're not going to, for example, have a photo op with somebody that you don't know how they're going to react. Uh, right.

Corey 26:51

right. That, that would cause you all sorts of troubles. You're not going to go for example, and, uh, like main street and deeply hostile territory. You're going to go to the store that you already know that they, they love you at that store. And they'd happily tell you about all of, all of the good things that can go on. Uh, but there are, you know, there are kind of global approaches you have to take to this because things do go wrong. I can think of simple, dumb things like gusts of wind coming up, knocking off or down all of the visuals that are behind. I can think of some of the bigger, more embarrassing ones that are more about the construction of it. When I was in government, there was this dreadful budget shoe photo op with Joe Sisi where he wore virtual shoes. So he's wearing a VR headset and he's putting on virtual shoes as the budget event. But the photo op is just a man looking lost with his arms out wearing a giant helmet, right? So, you

Corey 27:45

you know, construction fails there. But when you get stuck with a bad photo op, there's just a couple of variations of the same rule, which is never let them see you sweat. Because

Corey 27:56

Because a bad photo op is one thing. It becomes a worse photo op when it looks like you can't handle the bad photo op in some way, shape, or form, right? So you just smile. You don't flinch. You keep moving on with it. you go with it right and uh when we think about the truly horrendous photo ops i

Corey 28:14

would imagine if you search your brain for them you will think of the reaction of the person actually being the more damning thing nine times out of ten jill decep wearing his hairnet oh yeah what the 2000 election yeah

Corey 28:26

you remember that anyone remember oh god yeah the forced smile on his face was worse than the hairnet yeah

Corey 28:31

right because he looked so clearly like oh fuck me look this is is terrible you know

Zain 28:35

know he in the moment he knows what's happening dan

Corey 28:37

dan quayle potato adding the e when he when it goes wrong and you get almost that curb your enthusiasm style larry david look on his face like oh fuck okay uh

Corey 28:47

uh george bush with the grocery scanner same thing like the moment where they're caught and it's terrible is actually is is the kind of the capturing thing uh lesser extent because it's more physical reaction here in canada robert stanfield fumbling the football ball the look on his face the one

Carter 29:01

one i always remember is stockwell day on the way on the jet ski yeah

Corey 29:04

yeah yeah and you know funny to me i can't recall his reaction there i don't remember his reaction i feel like that was that was more of the type with the virtual shoes so long it's

Zain 29:15

you're like okay but carter same question or a version of that question to you let's

Zain 29:20

let's get more particular when you when you what were your what would your rules be in terms of gaff management cory's talking about never let him see you sweat it's always a reaction that that matters more. What were your sort of rules that you try to hammer into a candidate or the staffer on site, right? If anything goes wrong, here are your principles of how you adopt this. And then we'll get into the specifics of this Kenny one and what you guys would have done. But what are some of your rules around gaff management? Or can you manage this gaff on the fly in the moment? Well,

Carter 29:47

Well, I mean, if you're if you're really good, you can manage the gaff on the fly and in the moment. You know, you you rise above it, and you you know, you make a joke or you do whatever. Um, and I think that Kenny actually did a pretty good job of not just like, I think he died for five seconds and then he rose above it afterwards, right? Kenny was, you could see him die a little bit right at the beginning and he knew this was going to go viral. Um, and he rose above it kind of immediately thereafter and he kind of made a joke about it kind of in the moment, which was pretty fun. Um, the, the

Carter 30:21

the best though, is when you're able to take this thing that's going viral and jump on it and turn it into something. and that's what he did the next day when they when they put out the meme that was uh you

Carter 30:33

you know jason kenney uh i can't remember the exact meme but he put he put out his own meme um which i think we shared on our little strategist instagram

Carter 30:43

yeah instagram versus reality that theme and for me that meme was perfect for it because um that meme you

Carter 30:50

you know poked fun at yourself but it didn't demean you you know he wasn't demeaned by it shit happens you know you You have to not, you

Carter 30:58

you know, the part of the problem with Stanfield dropping the football was that he got caught in the pose. You know, it was a still photograph. I think if it had been video, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as the still photo.

Zain 31:10

You know, part of the reason I think a lot of people are finding joy, if I can say it that way, about this Kenny meme and fail is because of the reason Corey mentioned, that this is a prop truck that he doesn't use. It's part of the cause play and, you know, good for him because he probably never uses this truck, probably has no idea about the class action lawsuit against the Dodge Ram that Corey mentioned has probably not had this happen to him before. If he had, he probably would not have used this truck. But, Corey, from your perspective, right, like what other rules are in place here that you would kind of consider regarding the GAF? And then let's get into the specifics of what you would have done if you were advising Jason Kenney.

Corey 31:50

Carter is very right about the ability to pass it off, make a joke of it, be quick on your feet. Some people can do it more ably than others, and it's easy to sort of money more to quarterback this. But what you want to do in that is not actually create a gap between it because things are clipped in this day and age. And most people have no idea what Jason Kenney said after fumbling with the gas pump because that was the 12 seconds they saw of him attempting to get it out. But you

Corey 32:16

you can almost imagine instead of the look coming off his face or him struggling and then coming up with something, in a perfect world, like if I try to construct the perfect reaction to this, right, you would want it to not look too bad. You would want to reinforce your key message. And so you'd say something like instantly as it's not coming out, like, oh, this cheaper gas, it doesn't want to let go or

Corey 32:35

something to that effect. But that's easy to say, hard to do. What

Zain 32:40

What would you have done on the staffer side? So let's say he couldn't think of that. That happens. The moment goes in. And he goes back in the truck and he's like, oh, fuck,

Zain 32:47

right? He knows you guys all know what would you – how important is speed? I have a question. How important is speed and reaction? Because, Carter, you talked about the next day. I believe it was the day after. I think it was 36 hours later that they came up with

Zain 32:59

with that. I mean, you guys could correct me wrong. How important is speed? And what are kind of some of the principles you think of in this case when it would have happened? What would you have done, Carter?

Corey 33:07

Or, Corey, let's go to you, Corey. I'll tell you.

Corey 33:09

you. So what I would have done if I was the premier's director of communications, like on the political side, I would have called Tom, and

Corey 33:16

and I would have said that was brutal. You know, it was brutal. We know it was brutal. But we also know it's not substantive. And it was just a, you know, it was a, it's a glitch that has to do with the Dodge Ram. So we'd

Corey 33:26

we'd like to give you something substantive in return, if basically you make a deal like that goes away, and you're going to sit down with the premier or something to that effect, right? Right. Now, some some journalists will be OK with that, some not, because some will say, yeah, that is actually deeply unsubstantive. And I'd much rather ask him hard, real questions about the province of Alberta for 20 minutes than I would see him struggle with a gas pump. Because that's that's just gotcha. But you've got to you've got to have the right relationships in order to do that. You've got to be quick in order to do that, because in this day and age, you're throwing that shit. Those trades

Zain 33:59

trades still happen, Corey. Oh,

Corey 34:01

Oh, for sure. Sure, for fucking sure they do, all the time, right? And it becomes a question of, usually not so crass or so thick. Sure, sure, sure. But if somebody says, for example, we've got this story, and you say, we're announcing that in two days anyhow, how about we give you a sit down on that story, and you hold the embargo until then? That's more the kind of trade that still happens perpetually. But trades happen all of the time in that space there. Carter?

Zain 34:26

Carter? Oh, do you want to jump in more, Corey, on what you would have done immediately once you get back in the truck? Well,

Corey 34:33

sobbing deeply for 15 minutes. No,

Corey 34:37

no, I think that's it. That's that's your options. Besides that, yeah, you want to be able to go quick on the social media and have your response. But the reality is, that's going to run around. The number of people who sent that to me in a 30 minute span was pretty unreal. real yeah

Corey 34:51

that was virality the likes of which you don't often see in a province of like alberta there's 1.2 million views on this thing tom ross put out who by the way must be as popular with the premier's office as madison cawthorn is it an orgy yeah it's just jesus christ carter carter uh

Zain 35:10

that's a very it's a deep i'm always a

Carter 35:11

a little jealous when you say jesus christ and it's not followed by carter it's always a little bit upsetting for me it's i

Zain 35:18

i do it to the guy that was actually raised catholic uh carter um what uh

Zain 35:22

uh by the way to both of you islam uh i'll tell you more about it at the live show that'd be great really i'll tell actually i'll tell everyone about it at the last this is probably this

Corey 35:31

this is probably not the week where it's easiest to sell that though oh

Zain 35:34

oh i mean uh by the way we are i don't know if everyone knows this but uh no food will be allowed at the live show until the sun is set uh we're actually following ramadan rules you

Carter 35:42

you just said there'd be alcohol at seven o'clock i

Zain 35:46

said the bar will be open okay

Zain 35:47

okay and i will will be arriving at eight okay it's not because i have a prima donna it's because it's ramadan okay carter uh what

Zain 35:53

what would you have done you get back into the truck what was your first what's your first uh instinct is it is it the trade or is it something else if if you're if you're right in the ship uh

Carter 36:02

uh first thing i'm doing is i'm reinforcing with the candidate or the premier whatever that

Carter 36:07

that was good don't worry about it the

Carter 36:09

the fact the fact seriously no seriously you're going going to go viral right

Carter 36:14

right sometimes it doesn't matter so what is he going to go viral about why the fuck was he pumping gas into his truck oh yeah the

Carter 36:21

decrease in the gas tax no

Zain 36:24

no one remembers that no one is remembering that no

Zain 36:26

no one is trying not

Carter 36:27

not true more people more people know about more people know about this than they would have if this thing hadn't gone viral i'm not saying it's the best way to do things i'm not saying you're setting out to do this but if it happens it's not all bad the premier didn't look like an asshole he looked like someone who was you know you

Carter 36:48

you know it was taking him aback he you know the world didn't end it was just something that happened and in the overall scheme of things you

Carter 36:56

can't let that get you down you like you don't want that to stand in the way of doing the next photo op you don't want someone to say when you go to plan the next photo op well we can't do that shit remember that time we just put the like you know we put the The gas pump in the gas tank and we couldn't get the damn thing out. Oh, that's terrible. Let's not do anymore. You got to reinforce with your candidate. You did achieve the goal. The goal was to make sure that people knew that you were taking an action to revoke gas. More people know it today than knew about it before you achieved the goal. That's honestly the first thing I'm doing. The second thing I'm doing is looking for what they did and that's the humor in it.

Carter 37:37

I thought that that was fantastic. fantastic i mean you know even even a tweet he could have tweeted the actual thing and say you know because tom ross when he wrote the tweet basically said i can't imagine standing in front of a bunch of cameras and having this type of thing happen to him jason

Carter 37:51

jason kenney could have tweeted something very simple like yeah me

Carter 37:55

me neither or i wish i wish i could forget or something like that and it would have been just fine like get in front of it laugh along with the people laughing and and you're 10 times

Carter 38:07

times better off. The worst thing to do is to have the candidate think, well, that fucking sucked, and everything being negative for the next 24, 48 hours.

Zain 38:18

Corey, react to Carter's candidate management strategy here. I mean, I think there's a general agreement where he went with the other piece, but the candidate management strategy here around telling the candidates it's not all bad, what do you think of that? I'm kind of curious from your eye of having dealt with many candidates and elected officials. What do you think of that candidate management approach?

Corey 38:40

I think it's okay, although it's not quite the way I would approach it. Because there is no doubt the candidate is going to see negative feedback on this is going to hear people saying, oof. So I think you do have to maintain your credibility with your candidate and say, oh, fuck, well, that's not the way we thought it was going to go. That wasn't ideal.

Corey 38:57

But on the plus side, people are going to be talking about this. And on the plus side, What are the things they're not going to be talking about as a result? Because let's be clear, there's

Corey 39:05

there's a lot of things going on right now that Jason Kenney would rather not be discussing, everything from RCMP investigations to leadership review accusations. So is

Corey 39:15

it really that bad for him? For the past three days, we've been asking whether he can pump gas. Of course the man can fucking pump gas. Of course he can. And so that just becomes kind of a silly thing that his opponents will latch onto and make jokes about. out but is it fundamentally going to change how people see the premier of alberta i seriously doubt it so you know if i was in the truck with him and i was saying that i'd be like yeah not

Corey 39:38

not not great but there's a silver lining here rather than just saying it's all silver lining put

Zain 39:43

put the rules together for me again guys what were they from the top so cory you had a couple on your page right you're ultimately saying don't let him see you sweat carter you've thrown in the the humor aspect what other sort of rules so to speak if you were trying to enshrine this This is a bit of a one-pager. Would you leave folks with on gaffe management?

Corey 40:02

Well, I think the speed thing does need to be captured. Speed matters. And don't

Carter 40:06

don't let it define you. Try not to make the mistake to begin with, right? But don't let the gaffe define you because the gaffe is going to happen. There's going to be things that happen outside of your control. And, you know, sometimes they're gone on camera. I can tell you stories about candidates, you know, a candidate doing a photo op that jumped off a rock and gave herself a concussion and had to spend the rest of the day in the hospital. So that didn't show up in the news because that didn't get, that wasn't, that

Carter 40:36

that didn't turn out to be the picture. So we got lucky. But those types of things happen all over the time, all the time. Don't allow yourself to be defined by the GAF.

Carter 40:44

Try and own it as you move past it.

Zain 40:46

Corey, round us out. What other rules do you want to throw on the table here?

Corey 40:50

Think about whether it actually matters. And maybe that's not the words for the rule, but the really damning gaffes are the ones that reinforce a negative that exists about you already, right? So George Bush, George H.W. Bush at a grocery store seeing like a laser scanner being just an absolute marvel about this technology as though he had not walked into one. You know, this was the 80s. And even in the 80s, they were not new, right? Maybe it was the early 90s. Dan Quayle, potato, trying to add an E. Well, the thing is, is Dan Quayle a lightweight? Is he an idiot? So that sort of reinforces him being a lightweight, just as the grocery scanner reinforces an out-of-touch elite, just as Stockwell Day showing up in a wetsuit is just the shallowest man in the world. And so some of these things become reinforcing of criticisms that exist and criticisms that are substantive and will actually change votes. I actually don't believe this is one of them. You don't think

Corey 41:42

think so? No, I absolutely don't. I think this is embarrassing. And both of you are saying

Zain 41:45

saying no. Interesting. Okay. I think

Corey 41:46

think it's embarrassing, but it doesn't reinforce a negative about Jason Kenney.

Corey 41:52

It's not like people are sitting around saying, okay, guy, but I really question his ability to pump gas. Yeah,

Corey 41:57

I've always thought of him.

Zain 41:58

Is it pump gas? No,

Corey 41:59

No, it's like do normal things would be the equivalent. But is that something people actually say about Jason Kenney?

Carter 42:05

Yeah, I mean, we all know the blue truck's a prop, but

Carter 42:07

but no one thinks he hasn't pumped gas before. No one thinks he's never bought milk, right? Like this is a guy who's – So

Zain 42:14

So you think the space between the prop truck and all those other normal tests is large enough that it doesn't bridge one to the other, so

Carter 42:23

It would be – like he's not because – it's not because he's driving his Prius hybrid that he's not able to figure this out, right? Like he's got his Tesla and he hasn't been able to figure out how to pump gas because all he does is know how to plug in his Tesla.

Corey 42:36

Tesla. He secretly got a smart car he drives around at night.

Carter 42:38

night. Yeah. Yeah, no.

Carter 42:39

And there's no one fueling his car for him. You know, like, it's

Carter 42:44

it's just awkward, but I think because we all know that he's actually got a security team that drives him 99% of the places, and the truck is a prop truck.

Carter 42:53

We're going to leave that segment

Zain 42:54

segment there. We're going to leave that segment there, move it on to our next segment, our next segment, pure and simple. Yes, we spent 43 minutes, Corey, on a photo op, on a 12-second video clip. We extended that to 43 minutes because that's the value that people get from this show. And think about the value they'll get on a Thursday. Guys, the Pure Poly Africa campaign, the rallies, the social media, the announcement a day, the Hookah Crypto Bro videos. I mean, I have to say, this is not my cup of tea. I suspect it's none of our cups of tea. But there seems to be something going right and something happening with the Pure Poly Africa campaign. And Carter, I want to ask, am I wrong? Am I wrong in my assessment of the energy, the momentum, what they're producing here? Like, once again, let's just make this a through line of the episode. From a practitioner's eye, when you're dissecting what you're seeing, is

Zain 43:48

is it good? Is it noteworthy? What are you kind of feeling and what are you kind of analyzing when you see the Pure Poly Earth campaign go through this spring?

Carter 43:58

I keep looking for reasons why it's not real.

Carter 44:02

I keep looking for a reason not to believe it, right? And I can come up with a few. I can come up with, like, these are the true believers, right? The far right has been the most active group over the past three years, you know, as we've kind of gone through our COVID problem. They've stayed very active. They're the ones most likely to protest. They're the ones most likely to go out to an event. Those people are very engaged. And they've also been the funding core for the Conservative Party.

Carter 44:33

So I want to be able to say things like, this isn't real. He's just appealing to a group of people, a small group of people that manifest themselves in a more cohesive

Carter 44:43

cohesive fashion. But then I look at the absolutely anemic campaigns coming out of the others, and it's like, man,

Carter 44:51

man, this guy's got something going on. And it is bigger. Well, it certainly is the bigger half, if you will, of the conservative cake at this time, for sure. It's big. big.

Zain 45:09

Corey, when you're seeing this, I mentioned, and I just blew past it, but massive rallies across the country, videos every day. He's obviously had that massive social media following that he's built over the last couple of years. So clearly leveraging that with videos and content constantly being produced. You then end on top of that, just the announcement a day dominating some of the earned media coverage, at least in the confines of the race. How are you looking at this when you see it from from your perch yeah

Corey 45:39

yeah look i mean some campaigns so clearly have it you know you just know looking at it they're filling venues they're getting money there's enthusiasm it seems legitimately grassroots and

Corey 45:51

and not that manufactured grassroots that stephen carter and i have specialized in over the years right we

Zain 45:56

we pay to grassroot it yeah yeah

Corey 45:59

yeah this is one of those campaigns his campaign clearly has it the question for me is it will it sustain for two months. I have no reason to believe otherwise right now, but at the membership cutoff on June 3rd, there's not a lot of reason to believe based on this initial performance that he's in anything except a great position. You look at the polls of memberships writ large, he leads. You look at the enthusiasm within the members and the donors, he clearly leads.

Corey 46:26

don't know. If I was sitting in one of the other campaigns saying, how do I construct a winning coalition? Well, I don't know. You don't have the numbers and you don't have the enthusiasm. So how How are you going to construct a winning coalition? Probably your best bet is to say, okay, this is clearly going to be a campaign that is anybody but Pierre at the end of the day, and start working that accordingly and go out and build those coalitions where you can. But, yeah,

Corey 46:49

yeah, there are some frontrunners that are tough to catch, and this feels like one.

Zain 46:53

Carter, you know, this is interesting about the notion of a frontrunner campaign. campaign. You've often said, and we've talked about it on this podcast before, how in the right situation, you wouldn't want to be the front runner. In this case, would you want to be the front runner?

Carter 47:09

geez. So most of the time when you don't want to be the front runner, it's either because there's a momentum opportunity. So there's a large percentage of the population of voters that are undecided, and they will move in and they will fall in either probably against the frontrunner or there's more of an equal opportunity to get them. A leadership race can be a little bit tricky in that regard. Now, the other place where being

Carter 47:37

being the frontrunner is really dangerous is in a preferred, you know, preferential ballot type of structure. The preferential ballot means that if you get less, basically the math works out to if you get less than 40% on the first ballot, it's very difficult to pick up the rest because Because there's a reason why people don't vote for you on the first ballot. They don't like you enough. So there's certain math that you can use to leap from second place or third place, as Ed Stelmack did or Alison Redford did in the leaderships here in

Carter 48:10

in Alberta in the 2000s.

Carter 48:16

This feels a little bit different. This feels like Justin Trudeau, where it didn't matter what the rules are. He is such a frontrunner in the liberal leadership that, you know, Martha Hall Finley is just not going to catch him, right? It's just not going to work out.

Carter 48:31

Maybe Mark Carney could have played something, but realistically,

Carter 48:34

realistically, that was Justin Trudeau's to lose. And Pierre is now getting into the place where it

Carter 48:42

it could be his to lose, right?

Carter 48:44

And it doesn't matter what the process looks like. I think having specialized in running underdog campaigns, I do believe

Carter 48:54

believe that Pierre was gettable, but I just think that Charest's campaign has been so bad that he just isn't going to be in a position to get him at the end. So I think right now, Pierre's campaign might be one of those frontrunner campaigns that you'd want to be on. on.

Zain 49:11

Corey, how if you were advising one of the other candidates right now, Brown and Charest, to take the mantle of anyone

Zain 49:20

anyone but Pierre? How do you do that? Like, Carter, you've done campaigns like this where you've coalesced against a quote-unquote frontrunner. You've kind of taken all the votes off the table, coalesced your opponents, collapsed them, put them to your candidate. Corey, what would you kind of advise

Zain 49:37

advise them? Is there anything they can do? It's such It's such a weird question in some ways, because you talked about momentum, you talked about numbers and enthusiasm. How are you kind of building the anyone but Pierre campaign right now?

Corey 49:50

Well, it's in some ways, it's the fundamentals of an election, just a general election, right? You've got to find a way to put him on the wrong side of a wedge, where everybody's on one side of the wedge, and they're on, and he's on the other. And so that's a little trickier for the conservatives. is because yeah you mentioned two candidates who he could clearly wedge against him alone saying he's too right wing yeah

Corey 50:09

right not electable but is that going to work with leslie lewis's supporters no if anything you're just going to push them to make their second choice pierre instead of uh you know charre or or brown so it's got to be it's got to be something

Corey 50:25

a little more nuanced than that or maybe there's

Corey 50:27

to be multiple things and multiple strategies here um but you need to to effectively say this

Corey 50:33

this guy has you know he just condemns the conservative party to the wilderness true conservative could win career

Corey 50:40

career conservative can't or something to that effect i'm not really sure what it is at this point but that's the challenge they have it's easier in some situations than others to do an anyone but because there's one candidate who's so clearly to the right of the other candidates or to the left but interestingly pierre is not

Corey 50:59

the most right-wing candidate yeah running for the conservative leadership so he's he's in a great position right now carter

Zain 51:05

carter what are your thoughts like what's both from a morale like internally as well as organizational perspective if you're on one of the other two let's say a brown or a charrette campaign right now what do you what's going through your mind

Zain 51:17

um when you when you see this when you see the social media when you see the numbers when you You see all of this. You're like, fuck, what are you thinking? How are you processing it if you're inside one of those camps? And I'm making them interchangeable, but feel free to disentangle them if you'd like.

Carter 51:33

Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think I'm going to approach it differently. Like if I'm less than Leslyn Lewis's campaign, I'm thinking, how can I slice off a piece of that for myself? Right. Like, how do I how do I take that? That how do I go find that crazy right wing side? If I'm if I'm Patrick Brown or Jean Charest campaign, I'm saying, what have we done wrong?

Carter 51:52

have we done wrong that we haven't been able to run the campaign that we need to run? And I'm trying to, I'd probably be making changes right now. Um, there, there are multiple campaigns that can be run in any campaign. You do not have to run the

Carter 52:07

the same campaign to be in the leadership, right? Like, you

Carter 52:12

Pierre Palliev's large rallies and such doesn't need to be the model that, that everybody else follows. Everybody else can be doing a different style of campaign, But if I was in Brown and Ture's campaign specifically, I'd be saying, how is it that what kind of campaign is available to us that we can look as successful as this guy that is now the frontrunner in people's minds? Because I need to be able to start pointing the things that put us in the game. And that's

Carter 52:44

that's probably the thing I'd be working on right now is what type of campaign do we need to run? and and it's going to be easier said than done it doesn't pop into my little brain right like what

Zain 52:55

what that swim lane is that you can own that shows some like some metric of viability like it's you're not going to win on at least what he has right now right like the metrics that he's killing on so competing in that lane doesn't make sense but you you are you struggling with am i getting this right to find a lane that could be like oh shit jean charre is doing really good at x

Carter 53:15

Yeah, if I was Cherie right now, I wouldn't step set foot outside of Quebec.

Carter 53:19

Right. I would say there are 75 ridings there and we're going to kick ass in Quebec. And then once I've established that I own Quebec, then

Carter 53:28

then I go to where he was today in Halifax. And I would say, I own now Quebec and I own Atlantic Canada. Right. And if I own Atlantic Canada and Quebec, I am in this. And that's probably what I would start doing is saying, OK, that lane may be available to us. That lane may be there. And then if I were Patrick Brown, I'd say, OK, I'm going to own all of southern Alberta, southern Ontario.

Carter 53:51

Ontario. Right. I am going to own it. And I'll tell you something. If the 905 in Toronto is owned by Patrick Brown and Quebec and Atlantic Canada are owned by Jean Charest, all of a sudden this is a much different race. But right now, it looks like everywhere that the Pierre Palliev train stops, he owns. So you better start showing some ownership.

Zain 54:18

Coy, you wanted to get in on here, and I see you nodding to Carter's last two points around the dynamics of Brown owning Ontario, Charest owning Quebec. But your thoughts on how these two campaigns may want to think about what they're seeing? Yeah,

Corey 54:31

Yeah, well, there is definitely some logic in carving up real estate. That's less important in a preferential ballot. Obviously, you want to fish where there's fish. So Charest is going to have better luck in Quebec.

Corey 54:42

Brown's going to have better luck in the 905. That's where they should focus their efforts accordingly. But that doesn't mean either is required to ignore the other areas. But yeah, I agree with Stephen. Everywhere that Polyev goes, there's big crowds, including in southern Ontario, including in the 905, including in Ottawa, right across the river from that Quebec stronghold of Jean Charest, allegedly, right? Right. So you've got to think about, as

Corey 55:08

as always, and I hate to say it because I

Corey 55:11

I often would say this is not a winning strategy in a general election, but you've got to expand the number of voters out there. If you can't win the voters that exist in a leadership review, you've got to expand the number of voters there. And I'm just waiting for somebody, and I assumed it would be Sheree, maybe it could be Brown too, to run with like, I'm

Corey 55:29

I'm not asking you to buy a membership to vote conservative. I'm asking you to buy a membership to vote for a sane conservative party. Like, that feels like that's there for so many Canadians who

Corey 55:39

are watching with horror. And you can follow it up. You don't need to look like you're not a conservative. You say, and you know what, once we're done with having a credible conservative party, I'll be coming back to you to talk about the benefits of small government, economic growth, expanded liberty. But right now, this is a battle for the soul of a party, and by extension, the soul of this nation. Like, that to me feels like that's

Corey 55:59

that's something that could get people who are not conservatives but are politically active, maybe

Corey 56:04

maybe to shell out, what, 20 bucks, buy a conservative party membership. Carter,

Zain 56:07

Carter, you got animated there, which someone, if it was Thursday, would be able to see on the live stream. Yeah.

Zain 56:12

Carter, but what did you want to jump in with?

Carter 56:15

I just, you know, I reject Polyev's primary…

Carter 56:20

Like freedom? Yeah. Freedom? We're going to be the most free country in the world? What freedoms am I missing right now? Like, what freedoms am I not entitled to? What am I not getting? I don't even understand

Corey 56:30

understand what it is. Hey, man, can you buy shawarma with Bitcoin? Just

Carter 56:36

You've made it actually, you know what? I'm now Pierre Pauliev. Thank

Zain 56:41

Can you return shawarma for cash?

Corey 56:46

questions. Can you launder money through shawarma? I don't know. Now I have other questions.

Carter 56:50

questions. Me taking campaign money from Bitcoin turns out to be a good call. So that's good for me financially. It worked out. So thank you, guys. Hey,

Zain 56:57

Hey, Carter, a question for you. You know, OK,

Zain 57:01

OK, this might sound cynical, but I have to ask you this, which is like, as

Zain 57:05

as a strategist, when you see a campaign, whether it's your own, right, where you're self-analyzing or another, that's just firing on all cylinders. Let's just agree that this one is.

Zain 57:15

What warning signs do you have for it or for that campaign? What risks are you looking at? that a campaign that's just going really well, what do you kind of see as potential downsides of that? And that almost sounds like antithetical. Like, what do you mean? It's going great. It's like they'll maintain the momentum. But what fail points and or risks or other things are you looking at for a campaign that seems to be hitting their stride and on all levels?

Carter 57:40

It's really easy to win at the beginning and hard to win at the end. And the things that make you win at the beginning aren't the same things that make you win in the end. Now, leaderships are a little bit different. So I'll just kind of leave that out there. But in general, the things that make you win with the hyper-engaged, the people who pay attention at the beginning of these races, are often not the things that make you win at the end of the race with the less engaged. Who need to come in. Right. And so to attract new people, to build the tent, if you will. So in the mayoralty race, Jeremy Farkas was doing very, very well. Well, Jeremy Farkas, if you were following Calgary politics, Jeremy Farkas was the anti-Nenshi. And so if you didn't like Nenshi, you already knew who your guy was. But you had to be kind of following politics to know that you didn't A, like Nenshi, and B, who this guy was that was opposing him. You needed to be somewhat hyper-engaged, somewhat engaged already.

Carter 58:37

And Pierre has reached out and found the hyper-engaged of the Conservative Party. He has said the words freedom to them so many times that they forgot to go and put Canadian flags on their trucks while they struggled to get the gas pump out of their gas tank. This is who they are, and he's found them. Great. If that remains the only audience, you're going to win. But just being able to speak to that audience may alienate you from other audiences. And so if I was talking to the Sheree and Brown campaigns, I'd say don't sweat it yet. But do know that if you don't find a way to bring in the next level of like we, you know, Alison Redford was at 19 percent with two weeks to go. You know, she got 19 percent of the first ballot and she wound up winning the next week or two weeks later. Why? Well, because we engaged a whole bunch of new people. Women came in and said, yeah, we can have this woman become premier. right we like what she's talking about and they came in en masse because they could buy memberships right up until the second ballot that's that's what i mean is like the less engaged came in and changed the race now in this particular case it's

Carter 59:49

it's harder the less engaged have to be involved before the june cutoff right so it's

Carter 59:54

it's it's going to be tougher but i do think that just because you appeal well at the beginning doesn't mean you appeal well at the end cory

Zain 1:00:00

cory what what lessons What lessons, if any, are you taking from what you see right now in the peer campaign? Whether it be if you're, you know, the liberals right now and watching this thing as the governing party or the NDP, or just simply as a political practitioner, are there any lessons or things you'd want to underline that this campaign is doing well that you'd kind of either double down on or want to want to note as you as you observe it?

Corey 1:00:26

Well, there's things from the outside that I would instantly say, okay, is any of that replicable? But any campaign worth its salt as it's going on always is looking at what the other campaigns are doing and what's working for them, why, and what's not, both in a let's steal it if it's a good idea sense, but also, is

Corey 1:00:44

is there a way we can derail this? Is there an inherent weakness in this that we can point out?

Corey 1:00:50

if you wanted to be deeply cynical, you could say things like, wow, that's a pretty monochromatic crowd that Pierre Polyev's had in a lot of different locations. For example, you know, it seems to be a combination of gray hair and no hair at other locations. There are things that you look for. To dismiss it if

Zain 1:01:07

if you wanted to, yeah.

Corey 1:01:08

Yeah, dents in the armor that you can start poking at there. Yeah, be careful that you don't see that and convince yourself that means you're actually winning or anything like that. Because guess what? They get to vote too. But if you see things that are working for them, then go and say, okay, well, how did they get 300 people to this event? What were the channels that they used? What were the messages that they used? Is any of that available to us? Is it specific to who he is? Is it specific to his message? And just grab the components you can as you can. I mean, I say it all the time, and I'll say it again, good strategy comes from good analysis. And a huge part of analysis on any campaign is having your head up and looking about and seeing what the other team is doing, too. So you've got to be keeping an eye on that and seeing what you can learn from it.

Zain 1:01:54

Carter, let's ask you the more specific question. If you're the governing liberals right now, what are you looking at and how worried are you? If you are in the PMO, if you're in the Liberal Party operation right now, how worried are you? How skeptical are you of what you're seeing from what Pierre-Paul Lefebvre is doing, at least how he's mobilizing, to your point, Carter, the hyper-engaged and perhaps creating a new cohort of hyper-engaged with this campaign right now? I

Carter 1:02:21

I don't think this is a great move for democracy. I don't think that Pierre and his misinformation campaigns – because that's ultimately what I do think they are, is misinformation. This is how he tends to win. He takes a kernel of truth and turns it into a two-and-a-half-minute video. I don't think that's good for politics, but I don't think it's bad for the liberals. I think that, you know, Corey pointed out the age and ethnicity issues that Pierre is running into. The

Carter 1:02:52

The Liberals, I think, still have the best possible outcome having Pierre win, right? He

Carter 1:03:00

He is to the right and their move to the left, I think, does kind of slow them down. But I think that the Canadian population is following this right-left break,

Carter 1:03:14

there's more on their side,

Carter 1:03:16

less on Pierre's side. So I think that from

Carter 1:03:18

from their point of view, they're probably looking at it, and they should be worried

Carter 1:03:22

worried that he's a better organizer than them. But I don't think that they need to worry that he is a better – he's better in step with the Canadian population.

Zain 1:03:30

Corey, do you agree with that? What would you be looking at right now if you're the governing liberals?

Corey 1:03:35

suspect right now the governing liberals are looking at it and kind of laughing and saying we could only be so fucking lucky um although i i would say if i were them approach with humility be careful the reality is he has shown some strengths here and also as i've said many times sometimes governments just lose even if the other option is bad right general elections though are are very broad based. And turnout does tend to be 70-80% these days, right? It's not like when we were scraping down into the low 50s in the 90s, when it just seemed like low stakes, low interest elections here. It's hard for me to imagine that in a broad based voter pool, that Poiliev is going to do particularly well. So it does make it more likely the Liberals win. It does, of course, course make the consequences of them losing more significant and so that's part of why i would be a little bit nervous i mean think about how much people joked

Corey 1:04:32

joked about oh donald trump is the candidate for the republicans now now anything goes unwinnable but look at the consequences if

Corey 1:04:41

you're the liberals though don't

Corey 1:04:43

don't don't get into it too much you want to get all your oppo ready you want to just absolutely crush this guy coming out of the gate if he wins with the leadership he has has provided you much, much fuel to do so. You want to define him really hard and really fast, the way Stéphane Dion was, the way Michael Ignatieff was when the shoe was on the other foot. But now is not the time to be mixing up in the Conservative Party election. But good

Corey 1:05:07

good strategy comes from good analysis. So watch it very, very closely. Be

Carter 1:05:11

Be ready to hit the ground running in September, October.

Carter 1:05:14

We're going to leave that

Zain 1:05:14

that segment there. Thank you, Carter. We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. And Stephen Carter, I don't know if you've heard, but we do this for you. The final segment we always do for you.

Zain 1:05:24

Stephen Carter, overrated, underrated photo ops?

Carter 1:05:28

I think they're overrated. I think at the end of the day, photos aren't as important as they once were.

Zain 1:05:34

Corey, overrated, underrated political photo ops. We spent 43 minutes on this segment. Thank you, Carter, for the overall overrated. I

Carter 1:05:41

I can't believe we spent that much time on anything.

Corey 1:05:44

They're underrated. I think there is a general cynicism about photo ops. People roll their eyes and say, oh, just a photo op. Pick up your goddamn newspaper and look at how many of the pictures are photo ops by

Carter 1:05:54

by any definition. How many of us have picked up a newspaper in the last year? Okay, well,

Carter 1:05:58

go to a website. God,

Zain 1:05:58

God, are you going to peer-poly everybody what's

Zain 1:06:00

what's going on? Jesus Christ. How

Carter 1:06:01

How old and white are you, man? Yeah,

Zain 1:06:03

Yeah, Jesus Christ, and Catholic. Oh, my God. Oh,

Zain 1:06:07

Corey, are you in or out on how Kenny handled his gaffe?

Corey 1:06:12

I guess I'm pseudo-in. It had to be faster, I think, than he ended up doing. There were ways that he could have done it a little bit better. And ultimately, is this the photo op you needed? I actually think that it's funny because it was such a Kenny

Corey 1:06:26

Kenny-centric photo op. It should have been a photo op of somebody else getting gas, a family, you know, somebody with a minivan who has three screaming kids in the back saying, thank God the Premier has reduced the price of gas. why do we want a premier who many people and i am not one of them think is great grossly overpaid sitting there filling up his fuck off giant gas guzzling truck saying oh good now now we're great i mean i just think tonally it was off it should have been about albertans it should not have been about him to begin with but if you sort of accept the event as was his response to it was fine it was a b minus but it was a it was a you know an awkward event that just sort of occurred never

Corey 1:07:05

never should have been in that situation in the first place but not because of the great risks of pumping gas because because

Corey 1:07:11

it shouldn't have been about the premier uh

Zain 1:07:14

uh thank you for the unsolicited grading cory uh as well uh carter are you in around on the class action lawsuit are you are you jumping in are you gonna are you gonna jump in on the class action lawsuit yeah i'm

Carter 1:07:24

i'm actually buying that truck so i can get in on the track on the lawsuit it's

Corey 1:07:28

it's very good uh

Zain 1:07:29

uh carter in around how kenny dealt with it by the way cory wanted a family at the pump just like bathing breathing in gas that's what he wanted the photo up to be i think

Carter 1:07:36

think that that was actually an idea pitched in the west wing season six so way to go cory for stealing your ideas uh from the west wing uh but you know it'll be fine no

Carter 1:07:47

no i think you know whatever he should have had he should have done everything faster um but i don't think it was that bad carter

Zain 1:07:55

carter are you uh thinking it's overrated or underrated this this pure polyamory momentum that we see right now this campaign momentum momentum. You talked about it from the hyper engaged perspective, but overrated or underrated what you see between now and the end of the race? What are you seeing?

Carter 1:08:12

I want it to be overrated. I think it's probably underrated. I think that these are the people who vote in leadership. So, you know, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what blocks of voters are brought out and how they're organized.

Carter 1:08:28

If multiple blocks are brought to the table, then maybe it becomes interesting. And I know that that's supposed to be Patrick Brown's real strength is his ability to do ethnic organizing. So maybe

Carter 1:08:40

maybe that'll turn it into a game.

Zain 1:08:42

Corey, overrated, underrated, the early momentum by the frontrunner Pierre Pellier in the conservative leadership race.

Corey 1:08:49

Feels like one of those rare moments that's rated pretty much exactly right. I think most of the commentary says, oh boy, it looks like he's going to win this thing, but is not going over the top, is not talking about Pierre Mania or anything like that.

Zain 1:09:01

Pierre Mania. Oh, good. Can you imagine, Carter? Can you imagine? I

Carter 1:09:04

I mean, anybody named Pierre going, you know, getting a mania in Canada? Is that even allowed? Never

Zain 1:09:11

Never heard of it. Corey, final one here. And this, of course, a big news story that we want to talk more about. But Pope Francis has apologized for the conduct of some members of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada's residential school system following a week of talks with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis delegations. So what do you make of that? Are you in or out on this apology from what you're sensing right now? The positives that many are saying is that it's unprecedented. The negative, many are saying, well, it does not acknowledge the systemic nature. It's kind of isolating the some members part of it. What are you kind of thinking when you process this? Top line thoughts? We'll, of course, discuss it on a future episode.

Corey 1:09:51

episode you you've unpacked it the way that i feel about it which is on one hand i'm i'm thinking well by catholic church standards it's pretty far and i'm sure there's a lot of very angry hardliners in the church because of the pope's uh comments including in this country i would imagine um there's going to be a lot of angry uh hard right catholics on

Corey 1:10:11

on the other hand given the the scope of what went on it does seem insufficient doesn't it so but you know it's in some ways people we

Corey 1:10:20

we we'd like to think the church should be something more than just a corporation but in many ways it acts just like a corporation and there are liability questions as well and so

Corey 1:10:29

so the uh the catholic church probably went as far as you could reasonably expect it to be maybe even a little further than i thought it was going to end up carter

Zain 1:10:37

carter your thoughts on this and maybe i'll throw one another one do you feel like this inches us closer to a domestic on the soil of canada apology by the pope i

Carter 1:10:48

i think it's an important apology i i'm not certain that it gets us any closer i'm hope i would imagine um like we we continue to struggle with what reconciliation reconciliation and justice looks like. You know, how do we get past this situation?

Carter 1:11:08

And I think that the apology is always appropriate. It's always appropriate to say you're sorry for things that have been done. But it's also appropriate to step forward and try and make things right. And I don't know that the Catholic Church and the Canadian government have necessarily necessarily been able to step forward to start to make things right yet um there seems to be a time heals all wounds type of scenario with um you know but it it really doesn't a you know generational um generational impact will be it continues to be felt and you know one need only look at the statistics uh the statistics of uh indigenous youth and care in the province of of Alberta, tell us a story that says that things aren't right.

Carter 1:11:59

Things aren't right yet. And given the fact that the numbers haven't changed in probably 20 years, it doesn't look like we're making much in the way of good progress to fix this generational problem. So I applaud the Pope for his decision to apologize. But it's one of those situations where an apology is simply not going to be enough. And we as Canadians need to step up and figure out how to fix something that, But frankly, most of us, certainly me on this side of the microphone, I don't have the answer. So I'll be looking forward to listening to those who may.

Zain 1:12:34

I'm going to talk a lot more about that, but we'll leave that there. That's a wrap on Episode 979 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see some of you on Thursday.

Zain 1:12:51

Fucking 14 people. if we have two rows of 10 it wouldn't even be filled carter i'm not showing up for 14 people okay yeah if you can show up but

Carter 1:13:00

but i will not show up

Zain 1:13:00

up for 14 people we

Carter 1:13:01

we have to commit to the process okay we commit to the process thousands of people we

Carter 1:13:07

didn't tell anybody there was a benefit we didn't tell anybody there was a reason to do this and then we fuck around with the url no one knows where they are supposed to go to actually buy the fucking thing so how about if we do this how about if we point the strategist patreon and strategist patreon to the same fucking page where people fucking pay us for the fucking podcast i'm

Corey 1:13:34

okay you done well

Corey 1:13:35

well you done i'm

Carter 1:13:36

i'm a little cranky about it because you know we we put it off and we put it off and then it's like i only got you guys to do the live show because i booked the venue i'm 25 i'm still 2500 bucks into the venue i i don't know when we get paid back i look i don't have a contract with atp they haven't even told me when we get the money back so

Carter 1:13:56

so you know how about we start the patreon up and every month they pay us pay us for a product that we give to them and they that has value and how about if we stop fucking around and just tell people what the url is cory oh fuck

Zain 1:14:13

fuck i just realized i can't make naked on thursday i'm speaking i will fucking kill you i'm

Zain 1:14:18

i'm speaking to a junior varsity football team actually they have 16 members on that team i think i think i'll be speaking to more people i think i'll be speaking to more fucking people carter this

Zain 1:14:29

is ridiculous i'm so

Carter 1:14:31

angry right now what

Zain 1:14:31

what happened to the riches what happened to the money what is this

Carter 1:14:35

this going on if we'd been doing we've done a thousand episodes of this show if we had been allegedly

Carter 1:14:40

allegedly if we had been smart and monetized it we can sell ads do you want me to start i'm gonna look into selling ads that's what i'm gonna do we don't want to sell ads so we want to do the patreon that's what you guys said i've set it up how about if we promote it properly okay

Zain 1:14:56

okay here's here's a here's a promotion if someone's still listening thursday

Zain 1:15:00

thursday episode it's going to be pure fire um so it's going to be like middle of the road episode probably one of our most mediocre ones that will be

Zain 1:15:09

and you want to be there because it's what everyone's going to be talking about on the water cooler on friday morning i mean i lost

Carter 1:15:16

lost my temper guys that's

Zain 1:15:18

that's fine i mean listen what else there's it's a pretty good pitch cory okay we could do a bunch of shit for

Zain 1:15:24

for that thursday episode that i think people will enjoy you

Corey 1:15:28

don't know what you're gonna do yet no

Carter 1:15:32

you don't know what you're doing on the live show yet either do you

Corey 1:15:34

Why would I else? That's an even further

Zain 1:15:38

That's what Sunday at 7.30 is for.

Carter 1:15:40

Sunday at 4. Okay? I need you there for the technical rehearsal. I need you to understand this. Anything

Zain 1:15:46

Anything else, Corey? Can I go now?

Zain 1:15:49

Can I go? Can I be released from this hell?

Transcript