The British Columbia election campaign is, as they say in politics these days, “weird.” That certainly held true during the televised leader debate on Oct. 8.

We’ve got a new, blue Conservative Party led by John Rustad that went from relative obscurity to tied at the polls with Premier David Eby’s ruling New Democrats, 10 days before the vote. They’ve brought us such fantastical headlines as “John Rustad’s bug-eating remarks mocked by David Eby” and opposition research drama intended to paint Rustad as a crazy conspiracy theorist who doesn’t believe in climate change (Rustad has denied this) and as an anti-vaxxer (Rustad also denied this, including at Tuesday’s TV debate — where he revealed that he is “triple vaxxed” against COVID-19). The NDP repackaged the research drama dossier, calling it “B.C. Conservative MAGA conspiracies.” It is full of the ghosts of Twitter Past, coming back to haunt Conservative candidates who — get ready for this — have an online history of racy posts. Am I the only one who is absolutely exasperated with the “dig up the past social media comments” tactic that desperate parties engage in when they know — or suspect — they’re in a losing fight?