Thread by @_scottreid

Here's my take. About 8 days ago, the Liberals sent out a "throw some spaghetti against the wall, see what sticks" vid of Scheer from 15 years ago. Inexplicably, the CPC didn't say "whatev, screw it". Instead, they go all in and decide to ligitate the issue #cdnpoli

The effect is that they turned a single tweet into two solid days of online argument and earned media attention about Sheer's views on SSM - when the best he has to say is that he grudgingly accepts that it's now the law and he won't revisit it #cdnpoli

What is the logic of this? What battlefield general would think it makes sense to fight on this territory when the guy has literally nothing reassuring to say to the LGTBQ2+ community? He won't even march in Pride parades. Why engage on this issue? #cdnpoli

What's more, it begs a ton of obvious but grim questions - if his views have "evolved" when did that occur? Why did that happen? Or did it not happen and he's just conceding to the wider social consensus - which means he's not actually in agreement, he's just giving up #cdnpoli

And then...as if that wasn't good enough, Scheer goes AWOL. So the issue is suspended, hanging around unresolved for over a week. Like a sore that no one bothers to medicate. Like...WTF - if you're going to engage a fight, don't you feel the need to win it? #cdnpoli

Until today. Scheer barrels out of exile to re-flame the debate (because now hes clearly lost control of the media frame by deciding to talk lots about SSM). And even after a week to prep he still spouts out messages that sound defensive and technical #cndpoli

Which...FFS, highlights the fact that he's not in the consensus swim of this issue. He's got this weird "as defined in law" qualifier - which must be some sort of dogwhistle/wink to the anti's - and his QC lieutenant meltdown on abortion blows his "like Harper did" arg #cdnpoli

So...Scheer pisses away ten of the precious few days left before the writ drops by either fighting about SSM or going AWOL. Does this make a tinker's damn of sense to anyone? Why not just buy a boxing glove and punch himself in the stones until he coughs up cartilage #cdnpoli

And it's not over. Plenty of observers walked away from the whole episode by concluding - "there's something not quite there about this guy on SSM." He's working too hard to say the obvious. It's a pagentry of doubt. Why?! Why get sucked into this debate in 2019" #cdnpoli

Remarkably that might not even be the biggest consequence. For some goddamned reason - unsatisfied to watch the CPC flailing - Singh decides to leap in and volunteer that he will never support a Scheer minority, thereby evaporating his whole "balance of power" appeal #cdnpoli

So...for the Liberals, one half-assed Tweet in August which was just a 15 year old "even we don't expect much of this" troll produces HUGE dividends. I can't think of a bigger war room win from the past 20 years. Just a massive ROI #cdnpoli

But really, it isn't a demonstration of Liberal genius - although it was a massive score and deserves cred. It just reveals how easily the CPC and NDP can be taken off message and off strategy. Maybe I'm missing something but right now I'd say they both lost August #cdnpoli