Upon hearing that Ned Lamont was about to launch his closing advertising blitz, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman hastily called a press conference to pre-emptively denounce ads he'd never seen.

"Ned is going to use his wealth to run an uglier campaign and throw as much manufactured mud at me as he possibly can ... every half hour of every television viewing day from here on in," Lieberman said.

Offering only speculation, Lieberman then questioned if the personal fortune Lamont is using to pay for the ads comes from big oil, tax shelters or investments in companies that ship American jobs overseas. After savaging his opponent, he promised to fight "the politics of personally funded, personal, negative, attack campaigning."...

By calling Lamont a partisan figure, Lieberman ignored the message of his primary campaign, when the audience was exclusively Democrats. Prior to Aug. 8, Lieberman emphasized how well Lamont had worked with Republicans as a member of two local boards in Greenwich.

"He's attacked Ned as being a closet Republican, as a fanatical liberal and just about everything in between," said George Jepsen, the co-chairman of the Lamont campaign and former Democratic state chairman. "He has attack ads up right now that massively distort Ned's record as a successful businessman. What he says about Ned being on the attack rings a little hollow."...

"I will tell you there is no way I can now match this last-minute Lamont onslaught of attack ads without your help," he said.

From listening to Lieberman, no one would suspect that he had raised $6.1 million from mid-July to Sept. 30. Or that his total fundraising as of that date was $14.8 million, a record for a Connecticut campaign.

At least 10 payments labeled "petty cash" for "volunteers" are listed in Lieberman's campaign finance report, which was made public last week by the Federal Election Commission. The largest payment of $135,000 was made Aug. 4. Other cash payments in the days before the primary included $75,000 on Aug. 7 and $87,500 on Aug. 2.

Tammy Sun, a spokeswoman for the Lieberman campaign, said the money was used for payments to young field workers hired in the closing weeks of the primary. She said they were paid $50, $75 or $100 a day.

Sun was unable to say Saturday why the workers, some of whom appeared to have stayed for days or weeks in dormitories at the expense of the Lieberman campaign, were not listed by name and salary.

The report listed tens of thousands of dollars for rooms rented at a YMCA in Stamford, Fairfield University and a culinary school in Hartford, as well as more than $50,000 for rented buses and vans that transported the workers around the state.

Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun said she wasn’t with the campaign at the time of the primary, but her understanding is that there was a staffer in charge of keeping track of petty cash.

She said the money was used to cover salaries, food, lodging and transportation for hundreds who were hired to do statewide canvassing. The daily rates ranged from $60 to $75 to $100 for the work, Sun said. She said she would attempt to find the petty cash report by Monday.

Tom Swan, campaign manager for Lamont, said the expenditures would be in violation of FEC rules, if they aren’t documented.

As for Social Security, a mailer sent out by Lamont calls Lieberman “Bush’s point man on Social Security.” Lieberman over the years has rejected the use of private accounts, only to periodically reopen the subject, before ultimately rejecting them again in 2005, making himself the target of Democratic ire.

While he votes with the Democrats 93 percent of the time, “He always seems to give credence to the other side and so there are always statements out there that you can take and use against him. That seems to have gotten him into some trouble,” Mark said.

“I would say that I think the Lamont attacks are absolutely fair game. There is a lot of hypocrisy on Lieberman’s part,” said the author.