The Lieberman Strategy: When you can't win on the merits or your record, try to
buy the election with his $387,000 slush fund, then try to hide the evidence.
Political committees may make expenditures of not more than $100 to any person or for a transaction out of the petty cash fund and are required to keep a written journal documenting the payments.
The campaign has said it is under no legal obligation to release the journal and has no plans to do so. Lieberman also said their attorney has assured him that they have done nothing illegal.
"To me, this is just a political trick," Lieberman said of the complaint filed by the Lamont campaign.
But interviews with some of the people who were brought in to help get out the vote for the campaign in the two weeks before the hotly contested Aug. 8 primary described situations that appear to be at odds with some campaign finance requirements.
At least one man who was hired as a consultant, Tomas Reyes of Oxford, said he has yet to be asked by the campaign to turn over material for the journal, which would justify expenditures of $8,250.
The FEC requires the treasurer of the political committee to keep a written journal of all disbursements out of petty cash, including names, addresses, dates and purposes.
The campaign failed to make campaign manager Sherry Brown available for an interview on the campaign report and the status of the journal. Treasurer Lynn Fusco also failed to return phone calls seeking comment.
Also, Reyes and another man, Daryl Brooks of New Haven, who ran a consultant service, said they each got one check from the campaign for their services, but they are listed in the third quarter campaign finance report as getting two checks, for a total of twice what the men said they received.
The report lists Reyes as getting two checks for $8,250, one on Aug. 4 and one on Aug. 15. Brooks received $12,200 on Aug. 11 and another check for the same amount on Aug. 15, according to the Lieberman report. Both men said this was inaccurate.
Several young men, who were paid $60 a day out of petty cash to canvass in Bridgeport, said they were paid in cash for aggregate earnings over $200.
Rob Dhanda, 18, or Stratford, said he earned $480 in cash over several weeks, while Walter Ruilova, 18, also of Stratford, said his total was an estimated $360 in cash. Ruilova estimated there were about 30 teenagers working out of the Bridgeport office, each earning $60 a day in cash, over a few weeks.
Michelle Ryan, a spokeswoman for the FEC, would not comment on specifics of the Lamont complaint, but said "in terms of itemization, it is required once the aggregate total to a recipient is in excess of $200."
As Stoller writes:
A cornerstone of the modern campaign finance system is disclosure. Everyone agrees on disclosure, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats. Old industrial political machines used to simply pay cash for votes, and this kind of corruption weakened democracy and allowed evil government activities to flourish.
We're down to the last few days of the election. Connecticut voters have too many reasons to fire Lieberman -- from his corruption, to his disdain for the democratic process, to his war lust. A vote for Joe is a vote for more war. A vote for Joe is a vote for more DC politics as usual. A vote for Joe is a vote for the Bush agenda.
Hopefully Lamont can ultimately make that case.