What Did the Gore People Know, When Did They Know It?

When were you first contacted by anyone connected with the Gore campaign?

A truthful answer may reveal that prior to election day the Gore campaign was planning a challenge to the certification of the vote in Florida and elsewhere. Proving such a scheme would go a long way toward showing that this theft, like everyday petty larcenies, was not reactive to events, but rather a premeditated ploy.

Consider the following: A telemarketing firm, as the polls were closing, was instantly in place to call folks in Palm Beach County to encourage them to complain about the style of the ballot. This suggests preparation.

Consider further: Team Gore's legal documents and strategies made public as early as Wednesday morning revealed a depth of knowledge about the vulnerabilities of computer punch card voting machines that would take days to research and digest and more days to formulate a strategy to exploit.

Gore's people knew all about "hanging chad" - a phrase not more than one in one million people had ever heard before. Chad has been at the core of a strategy they have executed flawlessly.

Thursday afternoon - two days after election day - I called and spoke with Bush's Florida campaign legal counsel. I told him about "hanging chad" and the need of the Bush campaign to at least think about asking for manual recounts, in the 24 hours they had left to do so, in heavily Republican counties to counteract Gore's selective hand recounts in Democrat counties.

This very bright lawyer clearly did not understand what I was talking about and what had to be done. I would have been surprised if he had. No one on the Bush team apparently understood fully the Gore gambit and how it would play out, not even a full day after they had begun to see it.

These are not dumb people. They were behind-the-curve people. Maybe months behind a curve.

Why does this matter? Because if it can be shown that the theft of this Presidential election was planned before a single ballot was cast, then at the center of that campaign is a heart of darkness unfit to govern.

The kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby was convicted in part because of papers in his home documenting his plan. What is in certain lawyers' files? What is in William Daley's files? Congress should subpoena them.

But in the meantime, reporters need to ask: What did you know and when did you know it?