Senator Kerry is focusing his campaign on national security this week, which is just as well, because it sure is getting difficult to attack President Bush’s handling of the economy. The Labor Department will release May employment numbers on Friday, but there’s a mountain of evidence already in to support the idea that the economy is in the midst of a boom.

Home ownership reached a record high in the first quarter of this year, with 68.6% of American households owning their own home, reports CBS Marketwatch. The same report notes that GDP growth for the 12 months ended March 30 was the biggest 12-month gain since 1984.

On Tuesday, data were released showing that construction spending rose 1.3% in April, which the Associated Press described as “the best month ever.”

The Institute for Supply Management released a report Tuesday showing that the economy had been growing for the 31st consecutive month. According to the survey of purchasing executives at more than 400 industrial companies, “employment has not registered this high since April 1973.”That’s 31 years.

There are those who keep looking for the cloud behind the silver lining. Some people are worried about gas prices. But, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday, gas in America still costs far less than milk, orange juice, or Evian water. Gas in America, even at $2.50 a gallon, still costs far less than it does today in Mr. Kerry’s boyhood summer home of Europe, where the fuel costs $4 or $5 a gallon. That’s why Europeans drive Fiats and Citroëns, while Americans drive Hummers and Roadmasters. Adjusted for inflation, gas in America is still significantly cheaper than it was during the oil shock of the late 1970s. Much of the cost of gasoline here is made up of taxes, but for all the Democratic politicians clamoring to blame Mr. Bush for the high cost of gasoline, you don’t hear many of them calling for lowering gasoline taxes.

Nor do you hear the Democrats praising the high gas prices for encouraging people to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, carpool, or take public transportation, and therefore pollute less.

Democrats for the most part seem to prefer to impose governmental environmental regulations through top-down corporate average fuel economy standards, rather than letting consumers make free-market decisions in response to costs.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terence McAuliffe, unleashed an e-mail to supporters yesterday complaining of Mr. Bush’s “gross mismanagement of the economy.” Another Democratic group, America Coming Together, was flogging a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Americans Coming Together e-mail somehow left out the news that, as the AP reported on the study, “Challenger says that so far this year, job cuts are running about 28 percent below the pace seen the same time a year ago.” Mr. Kerry, at least, had the sense to spend yesterday talking about the threat of bioterrorism. When you’re losing an argument, sometimes the best approach is to change the subject.