The Democratic Party-Mainstream Media team are assembling a blitz on the Florida vote timed for October of this year. Newsweek will be leading off with a cover story on the subject. At least three books on the subject, counting the one by a Newsweek writer mentioned in the article (plug, plug), are also timed for October release.

I'm somewhat puzzled by this as a Democratic battle tactic. One would think this was not just beating a dead horse, but running over it with a steamroller until you can read a newspaper through the street pizza. This issue has been dropped by everyone except liberals talking to each other.

I expected the jab for the Republican jugular to be related to the economy. But maybe this wouldn't work too well. Despite the feeble attempts of the Democratic leadership to stick Bush with our current economic problems, I think they realize that given the start time of the downturn, and the standard lag of employment figures, that there is not much credibility to sticking a Bush label on the situation. Attempts to blame the tax cut are even more ludicrous.

Maybe the Democrats see an upturn coming? The possibility exists that the economy could begin improving in the next few months. The possibility also exists that Americans may connect this (correctly or not) to the tax refund checks they received. You know, the ones that say "Tax Relief for the American Worker?" The ones they would never have seen if Gore had won? This scenario has Democrats waking up in the middle of the night, screaming. If Americans can ever be convinced that money kept in the private sector and out of government hands means prosperity, then the Democrats might as well just chug a quart of Drano and be done with it.

So, it's back to plan A: Bush Is Not Our Legitimate President.

This is a desperate tactic, with a lot of possible land mines for the Democrats:

- The Senate Majority Leader has a somewhat tenuous claim on legitimacy himself, and probably shouldn't be bringing the subject up.

- Had Gore won the coin toss, this article and these books would never have appeared, and the Democrats would have placed Gore's legitimacy beyond all possible question. The Democrats know this, and so does almost everyone else.

- The Democrats really shouldn't open this can of worms. Since most people have put the election behind them, the Big Lie put forward by the left that the election was decided on a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court has gone largely unchallenged. Who cares anymore, right?

But if the subject gets broached again, the Lie might be exposed. The Justices decided on a walloping 7-2 vote that the Supreme Court of Florida had acted unconstitutionally on equal protection. The 5-4 vote was on a secondary issue, whether there was time for a hand recount.

- Had the 5-4 vote gone the other way, and the hand recount proceeded according to the counting rules Gore had wanted, he STILL would have lost. A number of "after-the-fact" counts were done by the media, and by all the standard counting rules, Bush won them all. Gore won in a couple of scenarios where the counting rules were expanded beyond recognition, and beyond the rules Gore had asked for. These results showed up in the media for about eighteen hours, and then were locked in an iron box and dropped off a boat over the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Islands. Do the Democrats really want to bring this up?

- Some parts of the article seem to imply that this whole thing may be an attempt to resuscitate Gore. Gore has apparently timed a number of events for the end of September. Is this really smart?

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This new strategy is very dangerous for the Democrats. Although little of what they say about the "Bush Economy" stands up to close examination, there is even less about their "Stolen Election" scenario that holds water. I hope they go for it, and that the Republicans have the balls to hit these easy pitches over the fence. This could be the best news for Republicans since Janet Reno decided to run for Florida governor.