Even Richard Perle is now saying he wouldn't have advocated going to war if he knew then what he knows now:

Richard Perle, who chaired a committee of Pentagon policy advisers early in the Bush administration, said had he seen at the start of the war in 2003 where it would go, he probably would not have advocated an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein. Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan.

"I probably would have said, 'Let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists,'" he told Vanity Fair magazine in its upcoming January issue.

Joe Lieberman continues to say he would vote for the war again today.

Lots of ways to do it this weekend.

• Ned demands Lieberman repudiate Cheney's attack on Connecticut Democratic voters:
  

  “It’s time for George Bush, Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman to stop insulting Connecticut voters by likening their desire for change to a desire to aid and abet terrorists,” Lamont said. “It is absolutely unacceptable for any U.S. Senator to sit by silently while the Vice President of the United States attacks his state’s voters with such outrageous and inflammatory allegations. The fact is, the vast majority of Connecticut wants a change of course in Iraq because they know Senator Lieberman’s ‘stay the course’ policy is seriously endangering our country.”

  
  Of course, despite all the faux outrage he shows every day, you know Joe will show no outrage - real or fake - about this. It's simple: Joe agrees with Dick.


• In between recounting the antics of Lieberman supporters yesterday, Pazniokas smacks down Joe at the press conference he called - and then moved - to "complain" about the not-at-all outrageous claim that he will vote to continue the Iraq war:
  

  Lieberman later held a press conference at a fenced-in construction site, backed by non-singing construction workers, to complain about a Lamont ad that says, "A vote for Joe Lieberman means more war."...
  
  "This is reprehensible and wrong, and I'm not going to stand for it," said Lieberman, standing in a construction site near Dillon Stadium in Hartford, where access was limited.
  
  Lamont has called for Congress to set a 12- to 18-month deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, while Lieberman and the Bush administration oppose any congressional deadline.
  
  "This is the most baseless accusation in a campaign that has been filled with baseless accusations," Lieberman said. "The fact is that none of us wants more war."
  
  The ad does not say that he does.
  
  "I think with less than a week before the election, Sen. Lieberman is trying to confuse people about his position on the war," Lamont said. "I mean, with one breath he says the troops must stay, and then he says, `I want them out as soon as possible.'"



• CTBob and Spazeboy were out and about yesterday and filed reports from the trail.


• The Register on Lieberman supporters having the gall to disrupt an event with seniors:
  

  Lamont got off to a stalled start in Hartford when a meeting with senior citizens at the Percival Smith Towers Senior Housing was interrupted by about 30 people from the Lieberman campaign, according to state Rep. Evelyn Mantilla, D-Hartford.
  
  She said they crowded into the walkway and were so loud, chanting and jostling, that Lamont left after meeting some five people. "I didn’t mind the noise, but when they crowded the entrance, they startled the seniors," she said.



• AP: Lieberman is whining about Dodd.

What does it say about Joe Lieberman that there's an entire article out today about his whining about the personal tragedy of Chris Dodd even paying lip service to supporting the Democratic candidate, but he will almost certainly refuse to say a word condemning these reprehensible remarks:

In an interview with ABC television, Cheney cited the example of antiwar Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont’s primary win against incumbent Joe Lieberman to suggest al Qaeda militants would draw messages from the vote.

Lieberman, a supporter of the war, is now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary.

“I think when they (militant groups) see something happen such as happened in Connecticut this year with the Democratic party in effect (having) purged Joe Lieberman, primarily over his support for the president and the war, that says to them that their strategy is working,” Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week.”

National Lieberman Party Chairman Dick Cheney says... "more war!":

Four days before the election, as Republican candidates are battling to save their seats in Congress amidst a backlash over the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News the administration is going "full speed ahead" with its policy.

"We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George Stephanopoulos in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on "This Week."

He also says to vote for Joe.

It's the comedic gem of the entire campaign:



Even Lieberman's supporters are confused by his duplicitious new role as an anti-war candidate.

Backed into a corner, Joe is responding with predictable self-righteous indignation to the Lamont campaign's latest ad saying that a vote for Joe is a vote for "more war."

Who takes this man seriously when he says "nobody wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do?"

Hearing that Joe made a "Godfather" threat to Sen. Dodd on Imus this morning. Anyone have the audio/video? (Update and Bumped: Here's the quote:)

IMUS: "You said the next time you have a meal with Dodd, you'll have to bring a food taster."

LIEBERMAN: "Now I think I should bring Don Corleone."

Apparently, Dodd was asked about this on MSNBC a few minutes ago. And he laughed it off. Well, it's that courageous attitude that is sure to get him elected president in 2008.

Crooks and Liars has some video of another comment - Joe demonstrating his commitment to Democratic ideals.

"You gotta join one caucus or another to protect your seniority... but I'm going to be very independent... watch me..."

In a few short months, it's gone from being "how dare Ned Lamont question my Democratic credentials" to "the only reason I'm joining a party is to protect my seniority"

And Democrats and Republicans alike at Bloomberg's fundraiser last week thought it likely that Joe would caucus with Republicans if it suited him.

This is the second report I've heard about possible push-polling today:

Just got a call (noon Friday) purporting to be a survey. Asked how likely I was to vote, then gave a glowing description of how wonderful Lieberman had been, then asked, "if the election were held today, who would you be most likely to vote for, Ned Lamont or Joe Lieberman." The woman didn't say who paid for the call; she seemed pretty new at it, though - stumbling on the script several times. She got off the phone as soon as I said Lamont.

The other report said the person calling identified themself as from "BUTM" and the phone number on caller ID was 785-799-3900. I think it's more likely that it's actually "BVTM"... Check out "The Google" and see what comes up for that number.

Atrios on November in Iraq:

There have been 11 troop deaths in Iraq in November.

It's the third day in November.

Joe Lieberman wants at least three more years of this.

Enough.

Vote for change.

Kirby at CTBob has it:

The senator who sought his party’s presidential nomination in 2004 made preparations to abandon his party even before the outcome of the August primary, by lining up enough signatures to run as an independent. In his strange concession speech on primary night, Lieberman compared the loss to a football game, saying he was only down after the first half. By refusing to cede his interests to the decision of Connecticut Democrats, Lieberman also prolonged a headline-grabbing race that continues to draw attention away from other Democratic efforts in this election. Once again, his self-interest has cost Democrats opportunities. The three-term incumbent has since campaigned on experience and on a message of bipartisanship, saying his focus is on representing the people of Connecticut. But his track record on the loyalty front makes such pronouncements suspect, at least.

What changed?
During his successful bid to unseat Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1988, Lieberman pledged to limit himself to three Senate terms. He was asked recently by the editorial board of this newspaper what had changed his mind. He said that when he’d made that pronouncement he wasn’t sure he would get to serve even six years. He also said he felt Weicker had stopped producing and didn’t feel that was true in his own case. In any event, it was another example of a senator willing to rewrite the rules, even his own, to suit himself. Dissatisfaction with Lieberman’s performance is precisely what led to Ned Lamont’s victory in the primary. Lieberman’s stubborn support for an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq and his perceived too-cozy relationship with the Bush administration was a vulnerability the senator either failed to recognize or refused to take seriously until it was too late. During the primary he appeared surprised, even miffed, that his re-election was not going unchallenged. Now the senator wants a do-over. Ned Lamont’s campaign has never had the seasoned slickness the senator’s has displayed since the primary. On occasion, he still comes off as a neophyte. But his earnestness and commitment have never been in doubt.

...The U.S. Congress is indeed in need of a change. For the past six years, bipartisanship notwithstanding, Lieberman has been part of the problem, not a sign of its solution. Lamont brings a fresh perspective, not the result of naivete, but a concern that the future and health of the nation requires a challenged status quo.

Lamont wants to establish universal health care. He wants to use funds now being misspent in Iraq to bolster educational and employment opportunities at home. Experienced in running a business, he does not want to see children inherit the misfortunes of profligate and irresponsible budget practices. Significantly, the Democratic candidate sees Meriden as the focal point for manufacturing and distribution in the state, a perspective he’ll be urged to remember should he arrive in Washington. Lamont, whose only elected experience was as a Greenwich selectman, has a genuine claim to being a Washington outsider, a claim too many others try to make for political expediency. He can be counted on to help re-establish the checks and balances the country desperately needs right now. We endorse Ned Lamont for the U.S. Senate.

Final weekend. Volunteer.

• The Day finds Joe blaming his campaign manager for any FEC violations:
  

  The senator ducked a question about the Lamont campaign’s complaint to the Federal Election Commission about more than $387,000 in petty cash spent during the primary, and following a report in The New Haven Register that some Lieberman workers said they had been paid twice as much as the campaign reported to the FEC.
  
  “Well, I decided a long time ago in my political career that I couldn’t be both campaign manager and the candidate,” Lieberman said. “So, I’m the candidate.”

  
  They also have a new poll out which mirrors the results of the Q-Poll.


• The Times also brings up this flagrant violation of the law... in the last few paragraphs of their story:
  

  And Mr. Lamont filed a second complaint with the Federal Election Commission about how the Lieberman campaign accounted for an unusually high $387,000 in petty cash spending.
  
  His campaign continued to call on Mr. Lieberman to account for his petty cash primary spending after an article in The New Haven Register raised new questions about whether Mr. Lieberman properly reported payments to canvassers last summer.
  
  The campaign has declined to release details of its petty cash spending, which federal rules require to be disbursed in amounts of less than $100.
  
  The Register article said several of Mr. Lieberman’s canvassers collected more than $200 each, a threshold that requires itemization in public reports. Two consultants employed by the senator also told The Register that they got only half the payments Mr. Lieberman listed, in his last campaign finance statement, as going to them.



• Great op-ed by Rick Green in the Courant:
  

  As the Iraq fiasco deepens and change swirls across the country, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman campaigns on, convinced that we won't notice.
  
  In Southington, I listened with fascination and incredulity as Lieberman explained Iraq to a chamber of commerce breakfast.
  
  There was no mention of the much-hyped weapons of mass destruction. The reason for war was to take out Saddam Hussein.
  
  "We went in to liberate them from him and to liberate us from him," Lieberman told the crowd.
  
  If that's the case, what are we doing now? Bipartisan Joe should pay attention to what a truly great Republican, U.S. Sen. George Aiken of Vermont, once said about ending the Vietnam War: "Declare victory and go home."
  
  No, Lieberman said, we should stay until the Iraqis "take over their own security so we can leave." This is Nixon's "Vietnamization" all over....
  
  "The political shots taken here at home endanger those on a real battlefield," Lieberman told Hartford senior citizens at a press conference to introduce a "Hee Haw" radio jingle. He's even giving us a lovable dog in his "closing argument" television commercial.
  
  It's a sweet and phony diversion from reality. The election isn't about bipartisanship or slobbering dogs. It's about the biggest question of our day, a costly, botched war. Lieberman would have you believe that questioning his role in this colossal squander is "partisan" - or worse.



• Dan Gerstein seems to spend all his days writing whiny, angry letters to newspapers whenever he sees criticism of Joe Lieberman. This time, it's the Courant.


• The Courant on the debate:
  

  There was no empty chair, like the one Stephen Colbert left for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman on the set of "The Colbert Report" last summer, when Lieberman steadfastly refused to appear on his satirical news show.
  
  There was no life-size cutout of Lieberman, like the one that Phil Giordano debated on the stage of a nearly empty Garde Arts Center one memorable night in 2000, when Lieberman refused to acknowledge the candidacy of Giordano, a Waterbury mayor and future federal felon....
  
  Only 2 minutes and 25 seconds elapsed before Lamont needled their absent opponent, Lieberman, who is running as a petitioning candidate after losing the Democratic primary.
  
  "Alan, I'm happy to see that you're here," Lamont said. "In the interest of bipartisanship, we've got the Republican and Democratic nominee, reaching across the aisle. I wish that Sen. Lieberman was here as well to answer the questions of the people of Connecticut."...
  
  The show segued to a tongue-in-cheek commercial reminding voters that they will have to look hard to find Lieberman on the ballot. It seemed to be a comment on his absence at the debate.
  
  "Go, find him! Find Lieberman! Find Lieberman, boy," a voter says in the ad, leading a bloodhound. "Find him, boy. Go find Joe."



• The Register declares Alan Schlesinger the winner of the debates.


• The NYT also runs a profile on how the 2004 presidential run made Joe the bitter man he is today. But according to Carter Eskew, who manages to paint his decision to even run in the Democratic primary this year as a virtue, the whole thing is biblical:
  

  Senator Lieberman’s rejection by his party in 2004 foreshadowed his stunning loss in August to Ned Lamont, a little-known businessman with an antiwar message. And, some friends and advisers say, that earlier rejection played a role in Mr. Lieberman’s decision to run for re-election on his own party line; it freed him to do and say exactly what he felt.
  
  “I think that was kind of a defining moment,” said Edward L. Marcus, a former chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party who remains a Lieberman friend and supporter. “The whole experience made it clear to him that he was not being rejected by the voters, he was being rejected by a wing of the party that he just could not hope to appease.”...
  
  “I think it was his sense that it was Job-like, that he had to go through it,” Mr. Eskew recalled. “It was probably a combination of things — one, the practical suggestion that he needed to say to people: ‘I didn’t leave you, you left me. I didn’t give up on you.’ To his credit, he did run in the primary. And, to his credit, he didn’t trim his sails.”

It's going to happen if the Republicans retain control of the Senate. This is not a man of his word. We've learned that already.

Republicans peeling off checks for Joe Lieberman at Mayor Bloomberg's house Wednesday night were abuzz with the possibility that the Connecticut senator will join their party if reelected Tuesday....

"His Democratic buddies [Sens.] Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy screwed him," a Republican guest told us. "People are hoping he'll switch parties. He votes with the Republicans a lot. He's one of the last few statesmen."

One Democrat observed, "It could happen. The Republicans could offer him some big carrots, like chairmanship of the Budget Committee. I think he's up for grabs." President Bush praised Lieberman for his pro-Iraq War stance earlier this week.

Paul Newman in a new radio ad (mp3):

"When the voters in the primary chose Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman, they were sending a message,'' Newman says.

"But Mr. Lieberman wasn't listening. He turned his back on the very party that had supported him for 18 years. Entitlement - that's what 18 years in the Senate does to you.''

Hours ago, in the wake of the revelations in the New Haven Register today:

...Since the filing of this complaint, additional facts have been brought to light which further confirm the need for immediate action by your office. Those additional facts are as follows:

Additional Facts Evidencing the Misuse of Funds Beyond the $387,561.00 in Supposed Petty Cash Disbursements

....The New Haven Register reported today that “[Tomas] Reyes [of Oxford] 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.” M. E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor, New Haven Register (Nov. 2, 2006). “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.” Id. Thus, the amount of unaccounted for expenditures from the Lieberman campaign is now at least $408,011.00.

Additional Facts Further Evidencing the Failure to Itemize Supposed Disbursements in Excess of $200.00

...The New Haven Register’s report establishes that “[s]everal young men, who were paid $60 a day out of [the supposed] petty cash [fund] to canvass in Bridgeport, said they were paid in cash for aggregate earnings over $200.” M. E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor, New Haven Register (Nov. 2, 2006).

Specifically, “Rob Dhanda, 18, of 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. Id. Moreover, “Ruilova estimated there were about 30 teenagers working out of the Bridgeport office, each earning $60 a day in cash, over a few weeks.” Id.

one of these disbursements are itemized in any of the Lieberman Committee’s reports and we therefore submit that the foregoing constitutes a patent violation of federal law.

Additional Facts Further Evidencing the Failure to Maintain a Written Journal

Title 11 C.F.R. §102.11 (2 U.S.C. 432(h)(2)) (Petty Cash Fund) provides that “[i]f a petty cash fund is maintained, it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the political committee to keep and maintain a written journal of all disbursements. This written journal shall include the name and address of every person to whom any disbursement is made, as well as the date, amount, and purpose of such disbursement.”

As further chronicled in today’s Register, Tomas Reyes “said he has yet to be asked by the campaign to turn over material for the journal, which would justify expenditures of $8,250.”

It is simply not possible to comply with the foregoing regulation if the Lieberman campaign has not even made an effort to collect the information that may (or may not) exist to maintain the journal.

The committee filed incorrect reports. Petty cash is not supposed to be disclosed until it is distributed. Until such time it is part of a committee’s cash on hand. Thus, by reporting the creation of petty cash instead of the actual disbursement of the petty cash, this may have artificially deflated their disclosure of cash on hand.

Conclusion

The Lieberman campaign’s flagrant disregard for these laws and regulations calls for the immediate investigation of this matter by your office to ensure that the voters of Connecticut can be fairly informed about the conduct of their elected officials.

I would appreciate you contacting me confirm receipt of this amended complaint.

I thank you in advance for your attention to this pressing matter.

Sincerely Yours,

Tom Swan

Liveblogged it over at the official blog.

A new Zogby/Reuters poll shows Ned cutting the gap in half since their last poll a couple of weeks ago. It pegs the CT-SEN race as being closer than NJ-SEN (where Menendez has opened up a 12-point lead) and RI-SEN (where Whitehouse has opened up a 14-point lead), and just as close as TN-SEN (where they have Ford 10 points behind Corker).

Again, this is a volitile race. Between the ballot positioning, a major party candidate polling in the single digits, the likelihood of a motivated Democratic turnout, the night-and-day difference between field operations, the vast discrepancy between polls, significant uncertainty about turnout models, and the demonstrated inaccuracy of polls before the primary, a lot is up in the air.

And the debate between the two major parties tonight (Fox 61, 7pm) might make shake things up even more.

Really, there's no other conclusion to be reached.

Again, there is a reason disclosures like this are required by law. Because if expenditures are not itemized, and you have almost 10% of a campaign's warchest floating around in cash, it can be spent in any number of nefarious ways.

If this is just allowed to just slip by, think of what a horrible precedent it will set. What's to stop a future campaign from declaring 20% of their funds in unitemized "petty cash?" 50%? 100%? Where is the line drawn?

Joe Lieberman owes voters an explanation. He owes reporters a look at the petty cash journal he was required by law to have kept... if he even has it.

Update: Matt Browner-Hamlin, who's been on top of this story from the beginning, has a lot more. He's right. This is getting serious:

The Lieberman campaign essentially paid campaign workers off the books. The article doesn't find people who were necessarily paid more than $100 in petty cash (which would be illegal), but these are all individuals who received over $200 and thus should be itemized on Lieberman's reports. Failure to provide full information about these people, including their names and addresses, is an avoidance of the law. At minimum this information continues to fill out our understanding of the extent to which the Lieberman campaign stopped obeying campaign finance requirements and regulations during the Democratic primary....

The Lieberman campaign's continued silence only strengthens the need to ask questions like O'Leary has done in this article. She has brought out new information that demands answers from Joe; if she can't get them, I hope the FEC will. Every piece of evidence that comes out suggests malfeasance, albeit of varying degrees, by Joe's campaign. Lieberman's actions and Lieberman's silence do damage to the health of our elections. The need for truth has never been more clear than today.

• Last day to do family, friends, and neighbors. Deadline is 11pm ET tonight.


• First day of the Stand Up for Change bus tour. Begins with a rally at UConn, stops for a Town Hall in Manchester, and ends at the rally/watch party for the debate in Quinnipiac with Alan Schlesinger tonight... with perhaps a surprise stop thrown in somewhere, too.


• The Times' lead story today on Iraq and the elections:
  

  WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress next Tuesday and say Republicans will maintain or increase troop levels to try to win the war if they hold on to power on Capitol Hill, according to the final New York Times/CBS News poll before the midterm election.
  
  The poll showed that 29 percent of Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing the war, matching the lowest mark of his presidency. Nearly 70 percent said Mr. Bush did not have a plan to end the war, and 80 percent said Mr. Bush’s latest effort to rally public support for the conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy.
  
  The poll underlined the extent to which the war has framed the midterm elections. Americans cited Iraq as the most important issue affecting their vote, and majorities of Republicans and Democrats said they wanted a change in approach. Twenty percent said they thought the United States was winning in Iraq, down from a high this year of 36 percent in January.

  
  Democrats will be severely hindered in their efforts to demand a change in course in Iraq if Joe Lieberman returns to the senate. A vote for Joe is a vote for stay the course, and a crucial one at that, given the likely narrow margin in the Senate.


• The Times on Shays cozying up to Lieberman in an attempt to retain a Republican house seat:
  

  Mr. Shays, who says he will vote for Mr. Lieberman on Election Day, argues that both he and the senator are the focus of attacks by the most partisan elements of the Democratic Party, a message clearly aimed at moderate voters in the general election.
  
  “This is a huge election about whether or not people like Joe Lieberman and I are there reaching across the political divide,” said Mr. Shays, who has attacked Mrs. Farrell for supporting tax increases and what he calls excessive spending as the first selectwoman of Westport.



• The Courant on the tightening race:
  

  "I've seen polls that show us in a statistical dead heat, eight points down, 12 points down. I don't care," Lamont said. "I think the people of Connecticut want a change."
  
  A one-day Rasmussen Poll conducted Oct. 28 and made public Tuesday has Lieberman leading, 48 percent to 40 percent. The survey of 500 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
  
  The Quinnipiac poll of 926 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. It was conducted from Oct. 24 to 30.
  
  A less traditional poll by Zogby Interactive has Lieberman leading Lamont, 47percent to 43 percent, within the margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

  
  And on "principled Joe." Ned has never said an unkind word about Joe personally, yet Joe has called him a "son of a bitch" (or words to that effect) to his face. He's also been whining a lot:
  

  Lieberman generally found a warm welcome in conservative Naugatuck, but he was not conservative enough for Judith Busch. Sitting in a nearly empty beauty parlor, she told Lieberman that he did not share her strong opposition to abortion.
  
  "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to vote for my husband," Busch said, adding that she can't vote for any of the other candidates. "Ned Lamont is the biggest jerk in the world."
  
  "Well, we agree on that," Lieberman replied.



• The Register on the FEC looking into Joe's $387,000 Petty Cash slush fund:
  

  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....
  
  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."
  
  Lieberman answered an inquiry about releasing the journal, by pointing to his history of compliance with campaign rules.
  
  "I have an unblemished record of compliance with election laws. I always tell my staff at the beginning, whatever you do, just totally follow the law. I’ve never received anything approaching even a fine," the senator said in a recent interview.
  
  The size of the petty cash involved raised eyebrows with the nonpartisan Public Campaign Action Fund, which asked the campaign to go beyond the legal requirements and disclose the particulars of the expenditures.
  
  "No other senatorial campaign that we know of has ever left undisclosed to the public a sum as large as this," said the fund’s board Chairman Pete MacDowell, in a letter to the senator this week.

  
  This whole thing stinks. And the fact that the media is turning a blind eye to $400,000 in cash going who knows where - when other politicians have been jailed for less - stinks even more.

It's the final days of the campaign, and Lieberman - with whatever six-figure "petty cash" fund he has lying around nowadays, or with help from his Rove-backed friends, or both - likely has some really slimy stuff up his sleeve.

The guy who ran google ads comparing Ned to Osama bin Laden gave Joe another $1,000 last week.

And one report has surfaced of a mailer to Republicans attacking Daily Kos.

Joe is the worst kind of Republican, and he will use the worst kind of right-wing smears in the coming days in order to hold on to and fire up his far-right base.

(FYI, he also has until 12 noon tomorrow to re-accept the invitation to the debate he had originally agreed to attend but then backed out of.)

Colin McEnroe mourns the idea of Joe in words that many can likely relate to:

I still think he'll win by three points on election night, but what he will never win back is my respect. He really was, during the 1980s and much of the 1990s, not simply a politician I believed in but THE politician I beleved in. Among officeholders of significant rank, he was the guy whose integrity I regarded as unbreachable. I did not always agree with him, but I did believe that he arrived at his opinions through serious reflection.

I don't believe that anymore. I feel like Benjy, the "idiot" in "The Sound and the Fury," when he says Caddy doesn't smell like trees anymore. Joe has lost his innocence. He's an opportunist, a self-seeker, like all the rest....

Funny thing, that. This is kind of a farewell tour, too. One of the lessons he might have learned this time, by losing a primary, is that he had fallen out of touch with his home people. He spent too much time seeking the national limelight and had a hard time even mounting a field operation here where he lives. That might have told him he needed to water his roots....

I will never give him back the faith and the trust I invested in him when I was young and looking for people in public life whom I could admire. And there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people like me. People who believed in him and never will again. People who are now creeped out. That thing we gave him was a pearl beyond price. Losing it, he should feel like he's watching Tinkerbell die on stage, while he claps his hands and she doesn't stir.

Hope this runs a lot in Connecticut.

Short version, it's all about a condescending man supremely scared that his position on Iraq is being revealed for what it is, an incomprehensible disaster:

But Joe Lieberman seems to care a lot about whom the Times endorses.

He seemed personally hurt by the Times picking Lamont.

His No. 1 flack wrote a long diatribe on the subject.

And Joe resorted to what has sometimes been his ultimate defense in this campaign: No one understands me.

If we did, you see, we would appreciate him sufficiently.

Lieberman's exact words about the Times editorial board were:

"I don't believe that they've ever really understood my position on Iraq." It's not every man who can out-condescend The New York Times.

Why not just say, "They have their views and I have mine"?

And, anyhow, who does understand Sen. Lieberman's position on Iraq?

Maybe professor Irwin Corey.

To the rest of us, Lieberman's position on Iraq has long been incomprehensible gibberish.

More...

It's not just the Times that fails to understand Joe Lieberman's position on the war. Nobody understands it. Because it is contradictory and illogical on its face.

And why is that?

Because Joe Lieberman does not want to choose.

The choices in Iraq are three:

- Keep doing what we are doing.
- Get out - in an orderly way but a quick one.
- Send more troops and temporarily colonize the nation to save it.

Joe refuses to make any of those choices, and then he whines that those pointy-headed eggheads at The New York Times don't appreciate the position he never took.

Things are getting worse by the week:





Joe's attidude?

"With a friend, you don't essentially put a gun to their head."

The Lieberman Party's chief national surrogate will continue his campaign against the Democratic Party, Ned Lamont, and, today, John Kerry:

Time and time again, we're seeing examples of Democratic Party leaders apparently having lost their perspective concerning the nature of the enemy we face, and the need to wage this fight aggressively. No sharper example can be found than the Democratic Party chairman himself, Howard Dean, who said the capture of Saddam Hussein didn't make America any safer. And maybe it should be no surprise that such a party would turn its back on a man like Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been an unapologetic supporter of the fight against terror.

Instead they highlight people like John Kerry, their presidential nominee in 2004....

(Bumped.) One hundred and forty-four hours until polls open. Volunteer down the stretch.

• New Rasmussen Poll out this morning: Lieberman 48 (50 in last poll), Lamont 40 (40), Schlesinger 9 (6). And some cogent analysis, too:
  

  Lieberman's dip in the new poll could be a mere statistical wobble, or it could signal a significant tightening of the race.
  
  But all bets are off if the marginalized GOP candidate manages to climb much further. Schlesinger has been sidelined up to now because of a gambling controversy and the willingness of Republican voters to flow en masse to the Lieberman camp. But after managing only 6% early in the month, he now attracts 9% of the vote.
  
  ...To the extent Schlesinger gains in the campaign's waning days, the likely loser is Lieberman, not Lamont.... Thirty-seven percent (37%) now view Schlesinger favorably, up from 19% on October 3.



• New Q-Poll out this morning: Lieberman 49 (52 in the last poll,) Lamont 37 (35), Schlesinger 8 (6). Ned narrowed the gap by five points. Schlesinger continues to grow his support, but Joe still continues to get an eye-popping 73% of Republican support. The 17-point poll was clearly an outlier. And many factors are conspiring to make this election a very volatile one. As an aside, I don't know why anyone should particularly trust one poll over others when it is conducted by someone who makes editorial comments gleefully assuming an electoral and political outcome such as the following:
  

  "For Ned Lamont to catch Sen. Joseph Lieberman, he needs Alan Schlesinger to break out of single digits and take away Republican votes from Lieberman. That hasn't happened. Lieberman, the once and future Democrat, is winning 73 percent of the Republican vote," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.



• Speaking of that "once and future Democrat," the AP covers one of the most underreported stories of this race - the way the Lieberman Party is actively helping to re-elect three Republican House incumbents (at our nation's peril):
  

  The three-term Connecticut senator is aggressively pursuing Republican and independent voters in his race against Democratic nominee Ned Lamont and little-known Republican Alan Schlesinger. That targeted appeal _ and the potential for a strong GOP turnout _ could save three GOP House incumbents struggling to return to Washington.
  
  "There's resentment on a lot of people's parts," said Richard Smith, Democratic town committee chairman in Milford, a New Haven suburb. "There's something about the American character. We love a good fight, but we also love people who play by the rules. C'mon Joe, you're a Democrat or you're not a Democrat. Sometimes, self-interest takes the day."...
  
  Lieberman's coattails could carry the GOP incumbents to re-election and undercut Democratic hopes of majority control of the House.
  
  "It does help me," Shays said in a recent interview. "I know there will be a lot of Republicans who will vote for him, as well as a lot of independents and Democrats...."

  
  Who else but Doug Schwartz disagrees with Chris Shays, claiming in perplexing fashion that he doesn't "see Lieberman firing up the Republican base," despite his own poll showing Lieberman attracting almost unified Republican support. And Joe? He says he hasn't thought about it. Right:
  

  "Loath to be seen as a spoiler, Lieberman dismissed the idea that his success could hurt the Democratic effort to retake the House.
  
  "I haven't thought about it," Lieberman said. Contending that most voters tend to cross party lines, he added: "People are going to be smart enough to pick their way."



• The Courant on how the race is all coming back to Iraq, and how that's bad news for Joe. Joe wonders aloud whether the LA Times story about generals believing a timetable is necessary might have been a political ploy against him and the rapidly shrinking number of other Republicans who are staying the course with Bush:
  

  Lieberman declined to comment on a Los Angeles Times story, carried in The Courant and other papers, reporting that some military officers believe Iraqis will not undertake key political and security reforms unless faced with a timetable for troop withdrawals.
  
  "I'm surprised to hear that," Lieberman said. "I'd like to know more before I comment."...
  
  In response to a question, Lieberman told reporters he hoped the timing of the report was not political.
  
  "Obviously, politics affects the conduct of a war, because, as we've seen before in our history, maybe an enemy can't defeat you on the battlefield, but if you lose the support of the American people, it can have the same effect," he said. "But you've got to be real careful about playing politics with war, because people's lives are on the line."



• The Times on how the race is also returning to the Bush-Lieberman kiss of death:
  

  When, for example, he was asked recently whether the country would be better off with Democrats in control of the House, he said he was not sure. The next day his aides tried to clarify his statement, saying he would like to see the Democrats regain control of Congress, provided they promoted a more bipartisan atmosphere....
  
  It has been a considerable shift from the primary, when Mr. Lieberman spent most of his time talking about his record of voting with Democrats 90 percent of the time and criticizing Mr. Lamont for siding with Republicans as a member of the Greenwich Board of Selectmen.
  
  Mr. Lieberman has now taken to speaking of the potential of a Democratic wave on Nov. 7, noting that he could become chairman of the Homeland Security Committee if the Democrats took control of the Senate. But he ducked a question on Tuesday about whether the midterm elections were a referendum on the Bush administration.



• Two long profiles of the race this morning from New York reporters who have been out-of-state since (it seems) the primary, and whose writing seems to very much reflect it - one in the Observer, and one in the Times.


• The Norwich Bulletin was at the Conn College town hall last night:
  

  Ned Lamont said Tuesday he hopes U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman will change his mind and participate in Thursday's televised debate with him and Republican challenger Alan Schlesinger.
  
  "I think people are tired of the 30-second commercials and the mailings, and I think people want to see the candidates debate the issues, so I am hoping that he decides to be there," said Lamont, the Democratic nominee in the five-way contest for U.S. Senate.

Bob Englehart in today's Courant:



It's looking like Joe will spend $20 million on this race.

Matt Stoller was at a surrogate/Schlesinger "debate" at Yale, which had Colin McEnroe's Favorite Pundit, Lanny Davis, as Lieberman's stand in. He talked at length with Alan Schlesinger:

I got to talk to Schlesinger tonight for about a half hour. He's an interesting guy, and a cool guy who is appealing because he is seriously bucking the Republican party machine, and doing it explicitly. He is running for the seat because he feels that he has an outside shot at winning - he's looking at the 1970 Senate contest and thinking that a high 30s goal can elect him Senator. But he's also running because he's angry that Jodi Rell and the state and national Republican leaders threw him under the bus after cutting a deal with Joe Lieberman to merge political operations for this cycle. He's angry that the Republicans spread rumors about him and sullied his reputation. And he's angry at the machine lock that small groups of Republicans have had on the party on a state and national level.

BranfordBoy was also there:

Once again, I am somewhat abashed to report, Alan Schlesinger stole the show. He wasn't as flamboyant this time out (maybe sitting calms him), but he had some of the best lines and he has this disarming ability to speak as if what's coming out of his mouth (odd as some of it may be) exists somewhere in his brain as opposed to on those three by five cards your high school debate coach told you the always have at hand.

There seemed to be a cadre of Young Republicans in the audience and they heartily approved of his defense of the Bush tax cuts. On the other hand, the Lamont supporters ate up his characterization of Joe Lieberman as a shifty politician who says one thing and votes another.

CTBob also talked at length with Alan, who accused Joe of using his $387,000 petty cash on "street money:"

Schlesinger: "Well, it's an awful lot of petty cash. It's more than our whole campaign in petty cash. I'll tell ya, it's gotta be street money. I mean, it makes no other sense. I really thought the days of that were over, back in the early sixties, but I guess not. It's unfortunate."

Finally, a diarist at MLN reports from Ned's town hall event at Conn College tonight.

Not that big a secret.

Listen to Hillary and Schumer yesterday, too (Hillary was responding to Joe endorsing her). Nothing but kind words for an opponent who is continually thowing them and their colleagues under the bus using every known right-wing smear technique:

Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are two of a number of Democrats who initially backed Lieberman and then switched to Lamont after the primary. Asked yesterday if he considered Clinton and Schumer fair-weather friends, Lieberman acknowledged suffering "disappointments" this year.

"A number of people are following the rules of the partisan political playbook," he said.

A Clinton spokeswoman said, "Sen. Clinton appreciates Sen. Lieberman's kind remarks." A Schumer spokesman declined to comment.

The AP on Bush backing down from yesterday's endorsement of Joe:

Democrat Ned Lamont questioned Sen. Joe Lieberman's independence after President Bush praised the incumbent for his support of the Iraq war.

"Clearly President Bush and Dick Cheney are out there campaigning for Joe Lieberman," Lamont said Tuesday during a campaign stop. "They think it's a vote that they can count upon in a pinch ... The president is out there speaking loud and clear on behalf of Joe."...

Lieberman played down Bush's comments Tuesday.

"I have said from the first days after the primary ... that I was not going to allow this campaign to become a national political plaything for either side or anybody," he said.

New ad:

Today's Courant front page (pdf via newseum):



"Brass Weigh Exit Date":

Brass Weigh Exit Date
U.S. Officers Warm To Iraq Deadlines
October 31, 2006
By JULIAN E. BARNES, And DOYLE MCMANUS Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- Growing numbers of military officers have begun to privately question the conventional wisdom that has guided American strategy in Iraq - that setting a hard deadline for troop reductions would undermine efforts to create a stable country.

The Iraqi government's failure to tackle the problem of sectarian tensions has led these officers to conclude that, unless pushed, Iraqis will not undertake key political and security reforms. Therefore, the advantages of setting a hard deadline, these officials argue, may outweigh the disadvantages.

"The upside is that deadlines could help ensure that the Iraqi leaders recognize the imperative of coming to grips with the tough decisions they've got to make for there to be progress in the political arena," said a senior Army officer who has served in Iraq.

"I don't believe that they've ever really understood my position on Iraq."

- Joe Lieberman, this weekend, on the NYT's endorsement of Ned Lamont.

One hundred and sixty-something hours until polls open. Get involved.

• For once, a traditional media outlet breaks a story in this race. According to this morning's Courant, Lieberman has apparently been paying someone barred from touching absentee balllots... to distribute absentee ballots. Guess the petty cash fund ran out. (This jibes, BTW, with another pro-Lieberman mailer I've seen that actually encourages absentee ballot fraud):
  
  

  A Hartford Democrat who was fined and barred from involvement in absentee ballot activities last year is working for a company hired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's campaign to do voter outreach in the city - including the distribution of absentee ballot applications.
  
  Prenzina Holloway was fined $10,000 in July 2005 and ordered not to distribute absentee ballot applications or to assist voters with the ballots for two years, after the State Elections Enforcement Commission found that she had forged a voter's signature in the 2004 election.
  
  Holloway acknowledges working for Urban Voters and Associates, a company paid $17,550 by the Lieberman campaign since September to do "field work." But she said she isn't involved in the company's absentee ballot operations.
  
  "That is just a no-no," she said. "And I know it is a no-no."
  
  But five people at a Vine Street housing complex for the elderly have told The Courant that Holloway and another person came to their doors to give them absentee ballot applications, and a security worker at another complex on Woodland Street said Holloway tried to get into the building to distribute applications there. Holloway was barred from the building after getting into a verbal altercation with the worker after he made supportive comments about Lieberman's main challenger, Ned Lamont. ...
  
  [Lieberman Campaign manager Sherry] Brown said Urban Voters was hired to help with voter contacts in Hartford, including the distribution of absentee ballot applications.
  
  She said she was under the impression that the company was run by Holloway's daughter, city Councilwoman rJo Winch.
  
  Brown knew Holloway had an elections enforcement issue, but she believed it had been settled. She said the Lieberman campaign did not, however, do any background checks on any company hired to do campaign work..

  
  The way their entire campaign has been run - from throwing $387,000 in cash to the race-baiting flyers to the "website hack" claim to this - just smells.


• The Times on the shift in the race to the war. As in races across the country in the final week, it's all coming back to Iraq:
  

  Mr. Lamont expected to receive a boost to his central campaign theme — that Mr. Lieberman has been too staunch a supporter of the White House’s prosecution of the war — when President Bush singled the senator out for praise in a two-part interview being broadcast this week on the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes.”
  
  “One man who stood by his decisions is Joe Lieberman,” Mr. Bush said, according to an advance text of the interview. “He understands the consequences. And the Democratic Party ran him out of the party because he stood on principle.”
  
  This week, Mr. Lamont’s aides said, the campaign plans to release an updated version of a commercial it broadcast earlier this year, featuring a boy reading the names of American soldiers killed in Iraq. The new version will include a voiceover by Mr. Lamont arguing that the war’s human toll will continue to rise if Mr. Lieberman is re-elected.

  
  Angry Dan Gerstein says we shouldn't "re-litigate" the decision to go to war. It's the "mistakes were made, things were said" defense. Lieberman - precisely like Bush - seems to be physically incapable of taking any responsibility for his decisions:
  

  “The Lamont campaign’s effort to re-litigate the decision to go to war is not where most people are now,” Mr. Gerstein, the spokesman for Mr. Lieberman, said. “They want to talk about what you are going to do now. There is a lot of concern about the war not going well, and sectarian violence, and casualties. But at the same time, a lot of people in Connecticut reject Lamont’s solution.”



• A good letter to the editor on the Times endorsement - it's all about changing course. (Gerstein's bizarre rant didn't make the cut - next time, keep it shorter and maybe they'll read it):
  

  What are the voters of Connecticut saying if they now re-elect Mr. Lieberman? How can we change course and restore our standing as a great force for justice in the world, escape the Iraq quagmire, begin to direct resources toward crucial issues like the deficit, the environment, Social Security, medical costs and energy independence by voting for Mr. Lieberman?



• The Courant on the trail yesterday:
  

  Lamont, a multimillionaire who has invested nearly $15 million in his own campaign, seemed amused by the endorsement when he spoke to reporters outside a union hall in East Hartford.
  
  "I think Mayor Bloomberg's been a pretty good mayor, but I gotta say Joe doesn't seem to think much of Connecticut millionaires," Lamont said. "And he's got a soft spot for New York City billionaires. That's the difference."...
  
  In East Hartford, Lamont spent an hour with unionized Machinists, a group he needs to help turn out the Democratic base. He is scheduled to greet Machinists today as they leave the Pratt & Whitney plant in Middletown.
  
  Connecticut still has 193,000 manufacturing jobs, but work at Pratt has left the state and, in some cases, the country, giving the impression of an inevitable and continuing industrial decline.
  
  "It's not inevitable. It's because our country is making a lot of bad decisions," Lamont said. "And on Nov. 7, we need to start making some good decisions."
  
  He was frequently interrupted by applause from the crowd of more than 100. Lamont said the U.S. remains a dominant market and should be able to better protect its workers.



• Also from the Courant, Joe's been raising $100,000+ a day from corporate and right-wing interests. He's also backtracking and returning the Scaife money (which must mean he wholeheartedly approves of the Bill Kristol money and the Mel Sembler money):
  

  Thirty-six PACs have given Lieberman money so far this month, including Boeing, Qwest, the Indoor Tanning Association, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Bowling Proprietors Association, Air Tran Airways, Citigroup and Mutual of Omaha.
  
  And he continues to attract Republican and conservative money, getting contributions from Joseph diGenova, a well-connected Washington attorney, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, former Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, now president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Richard Scaife, publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
  
  Lieberman's campaign returned the Scaife contribution. Scaife, an heir to the Mellon fortune, was regarded suspiciously by Democrats in the 1990s when he was said to have helped fund the Arkansas Project, which among other things tried to learn details of President Clinton's extramarital affairs.



• The Register on Schlesinger's first TV ads:
  

  The TV ads were simple and generally positive, although he did manage to get in a couple of shots at the "drive-by media" he accused of trying to "hijack the election," as well as a swipe at "limousine liberals."
  
  "We're just trying to get people's attention," Schlesinger said enthusiastically. He said he's counting on people noticing the difference between his positive ads and the tough commercials of Democrat Ned Lamont and Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman.



• There's been a recent dearth of polling, which is very weird considering there's a week to go in the race and the ridiculous and stale Q-Poll keeps on getting referenced by everyone as the most recent. A new Zogby Interactive poll puts the race at Lieberman 47, Lamont 42.5, with Schlesinger still at 6. A not-yet-public Rasmussen Poll reportedly has it at Lieberman 48, Lamont 40, with the gap closing. This is going to come down to the wire.

It's all coming full circle, isn't it?

In a wide-ranging two-part interview that will run tonight and tommorrow on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes” show, President George W. Bush made some comments about Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Democratic incumbent who is running for re-election on his own Connecticut for Lieberman line.

“One man who stood by his decisions is Joe Lieberman,” Mr. Bush said. “He understands the consequences. And the Democratic Party ran him out of the party because he stood on principle.”

When most candidates lose a newspaper endorsement - even one as potentially influential as the New York Times' - they let it go. They might go so far as to mutter something under their breath about newspaper endorsements being meaningless. About how the voters are the things that matter.

Not Joe Lieberman.

And not Dan Gerstein, who, upon reading the New York Times' reasoned, articulate editorial absolutely dismantling his candidate's carefully constructed post-primary PR, sat down to furiously bang out an official letter of protest (impressively enough, at the same time his head was apparently exploding) to the "liberal media" heavyweight.

The blog post introducing the letter opens with this gem, echoing Lieberman supporters across the right-wing by accusing the Times of being biased and having a "clear partisan agenda":

We fully expected that the New York Times, given its strong anti-war stance and clear partisan agenda, would repeat their misguided primary endorsement of Ned Lamont for the general election. But we never imagined the Times of all papers would produce such an intellectually dishonest and shoddy editorial as they published Sunday.

The Gerstein letter itself goes on to accuse the Times of being:

• dishonest,


• "ill-informed,"


• "tendentious,"


• biased,


• "narrow-minded,"


• willfully ignorant,


• lacking "rigor,"


• "disinterested" in the truth,


• and intellectually captive to... wait for it... bloggers...

all in the first five paragraphs.

And there are twenty-nine petulantly vitriolic paragraphs that follow:

All of this goes to show that if anyone is guilty of not facing reality, it is the Times editors. You clearly overlooked all the signs that Senator Lieberman was listening and that his views could and did evolve. Instead, you repackaged the distorted caricature the Lamont campaign has been peddling for several months to serve your own ideological agenda.

The truth is, the only way Joe Lieberman could have won with the Times editors was to compromise his principles and recant his support for the war. And in much the same way, the only acceptable definition of changing course for the Times was a politically-determined timetable for troop withdrawal -– a path that has been rejected as a threat to our national security interests by many critics of the Bush Administration, including the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats, and our military leadership.

The most blatant evidence that the fix was in was your assertion that Mr. Lamont is “the far better candidate” to serve in the U.S. Senate. That is simply incomprehensible – and frankly an insult to your readers’ intelligence....

It is quite telling that the Times, much like the bloggers who have been trying to purge Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Party, failed to acknowledge any of these accomplishments and stands – or to explain why they were not relevant to your endorsement process....

Or, not least of all, the Times editors did not acknowledge the consequences of losing Senator Lieberman’s seniority for the people of Connecticut and for many of the progressive causes the Times has long championed.

That is probably because you long ago convicted him of not being ideologically pure enough and of not being reflexively hostile enough to his Republican colleagues. You clearly wanted another finger-pointer in the Senate, and Ned Lamont wins that contest hands down.

It's really perplexing. What good can come of this letter? Other than to direct people to the decidedly sane and civil - and convincing - endorsement from the Times that made Gerstein fly into such a rage.

What it shows is how Joe's is and always has been a campaign based entirely on entitlement, indignation, and anger. He was angry at having to face a primary challenge. He was insulted that anyone would ask him to defend his record. And he's been in furious rage at the Connecticut voters who rebuked him in a record turnout in August.

And guess who he'll take that anger out on if he wins.

80: the number people killed in Iraq today:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 80 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Monday, including 33 victims of a bomb attack on laborers lined up to find a days work in Baghdad's Sadr city Shiite slum.

100: the number U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month:

The U.S. military announced the death of the 100th service member killed in combat this month....

Along with rising civilian casualties, October is already the fourth deadliest month for American troops since the war began in March 2003. The other highest monthly death tolls were 107 in January 2005; 135 in April 2004, and 137 in November 2004.

Zero: the amount Joe Lieberman has done to help end the war in Iraq:

WASHINGTON—A day after saying in a major campaign speech that “we must get tougher with the Iraqi political leadership,” Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman met Tuesday with Iraq’s president and had a pleasant conversation that ended with the two men agreeing progress is being made.

“President Jalal Talabani is committed to working for a unified, democratic Iraq that preserves the rights and promotes the security of all its citizens,” the Connecticut Democrat, who is seeking re-election as an independent, said after he and four other senators met privately with Talabani for 45 minutes in the Capitol.

Asked if he followed through on Monday’s “get tough” message, Lieberman said, “This is a question of allies working together. With a friend, you don’t essentially put a gun to their head.”...

“If anyone asks what progress has been made in Iraq as a result of American involvement, look at this man,” Lieberman said. “He has taken the place of Saddam Hussein.”

Invite everyone you know to send postcards to registered voters in CT via Family, Friends, and Neighbors.

You can do it until at least Thursday.

The float was there to greet commuters in Stamford, too:



As was a banner or two:



Bloomberg, a year ago:

The mayor voiced strong support yesterday for the reinstatement of the commuter tax, a levy on commuters who live outside the five boroughs but work in the city. A commuter tax would do little to help traffic, but would generate revenue for the cash-starved city from suburbanites.

The state Legislature repealed the 30-year-old commuter tax in 1999 as part of a highly politicized effort to influence a suburban Senate race. Since then, efforts to reimpose the tax have been consistently rebuffed.

The old commuter tax - equal to 0.45% - would generate roughly $500 million in annual revenue for the city, which faces an estimated $4.5 billion deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 1....

"What we need is a commuter tax, and I fought for that a long time," he said. "We'll continue to fight for a commuter tax - that's the way to solve some of these problems."

Chris Bowers:

Lieberman's actions following the primary, as well as the actions of those Democrats who continue to support him, make it clear that it is in fact the Lieberman-Tauscher-DLC types view the party, its rules, and its members as a convenience to be easily tossed aside when they interfere with a personal path to power. This is our party as much as it is theirs. Hell, by now it is more our party than it is theirs. Lieberman and his supporters have become the new Naderites in our midst.

Two takes. Stoller:

In the Lieberman-Lamont fight, there has been a fair amount of handwringing over why Lamont isn't blowing Joe out of the water. Why, if Joe lost to Lamont, isn't he losing in the general? Why did Lamont let Joe get away? Well there are a number of reasons, but among the most prominent is the total abandonment of Lamont by the party establishment. And let's be very clear - this is not Lamont that they are abandoning, it's the party primary voters that they are abandoning.

Here's the latest on Lieberman bragging about the seniority he'll have if he wins reelection. Make no mistake, these DC Democrats are only our temporary allies. They have total contempt for the rules of the party, and they cheered Joe after he faced us in the primary. It is no longer reasonable for them to call for party unity, because they no longer have any legitimate claim to call themselves leaders of the party....

Tagaris:

But I wish folks talking about the glory of seniority would step outside of the conventional D.C. way of thinking for a moment… Look at this grassroots movement our campaign has built. Not just in Connecticut, but nationwide. Sure, Ned might enter the Senator tied for 95th in “seniority,” but he brings with him a legion of followers in each of the 50 states. The same legion that will follow his legislative career with the same zeal they stay abreat of campaign happenings....

Not only will Ned Lamont bring an entirely fresh perspective to the Senate, but a constituency far different from the DC lobbyists and political action committees that fund the campaigns of most representatives.

Who knows how much of a difference that will make, but we do know one thing: it’s time for change in D.C. It’s time for a different approach to getting things done and moving legislation in the capitol. Ned Lamont gives the people of Connecticut, and America, the best chance to change the course.

A couple of good independent flyers:

BranfordBoy at MLN has a great flyer with which to greet Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Lieberman tomorrow:



More on Bloomberg's support for a commuter tax on CT residents here.

And Mercury_Rising at MLN links to these downloadable posters at Bigpath.net:



Download it here: (pdf).

Today's NYT endorsement is really getting under Lieberman's skin (not that that's very difficult to do). Earlier this morning, Joe petulantly accused the Times editorial board of not understanding his position on Iraq:

"I don't believe that they've ever really understood my position on Iraq," he said after he attended a church service Sunday. "I mean, this is all about Iraq. They're not giving me credit for anything else I've done, including a lot of stuff that they've complimented me on over the years, on the environment, other things, global warming."

But Joe's campaign just said he'd vote to authorize the war again today:

On Iraq, Lieberman now tries to steer the debate away from the wisdom of the original decision to invade, a vote that Gerstein said Lieberman does not regret and would cast again.

What's so hard to understand here?

• Read the NY Times endorsement in today's paper if you haven't already. Then invite your personal contacts to read it, too.


• Wow. Gerstein says Lieberman would vote again for the Iraq war in the Courant:
  

  On Iraq, Lieberman now tries to steer the debate away from the wisdom of the original decision to invade, a vote that Gerstein said Lieberman does not regret and would cast again. Instead, Lieberman keeps the focus on more comfortable terrain: Is it feasible to withdraw while the insurgency rages in Iraq?
  
  And Lieberman, who repeatedly called for staying the course in 2004 and 2005, said recently, "I am not for stay the course."
  
  "He is trying to rewrite the past. He was in favor of `staying the course,' repeatedly," said George Jepsen, co-chairman of the Lamont campaign. "He wants to blur the issue in voters' minds."



• Op-ed in the Courant by Susan Bysiewicz's former treasurer asks "Why is Joe Spending So Much Under the Table?"
  

  I served as treasurer for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz's election committees from 2004 to this past January. These committees raised about $2.6 million, every dollar of which I had the legal responsibility of reporting.
  
  Poring over contributions, disclosure forms and receipts required attention to all details, compliance-minded finance staff and an accountant with expertise in campaign finance. We had a rule that each and every check and receipt had to be reviewed by three sets of eyes before any action was taken....
  
  How was this compliance system possible in the dog-eat-dog world of politics where the pressure to fund-raise is so intense?
  
  Simple - our campaign had a leader who insisted on best practices for compliance with campaign finance laws.
  
  I recently reviewed Sen. Joe Lieberman's filings with the Federal Elections Committee, in which he reported $387,000 in petty cash that was distributed over the 12 days leading up to the primary.
  
  The problem with a petty cash fund in political campaigns is that it may lead to an appearance of impropriety because these are cash payments to people and for purposes that are not disclosed to the public.
  
  For that reason alone, as treasurer, I never allowed a petty cash fund. ...
  
  Joe Lieberman needs to explain immediately and in detail to whom and for what purposes his campaign spent on average $32,000 a day in unaccounted-for cash in just 12 days.
  
  As Connecticut's former attorney general, Joe Lieberman knows that campaign finance information for public campaigns is neither privileged nor confidential. To the contrary, it belongs to the public. The citizens of Connecticut, as they prepare themselves for an informed vote on Nov. 7, are entitled to an answer.



• An editorial in The Day notes how Lieberman continues to torpedo the three Democratic congressional candidates. It doesn't mention how his allying with Bloomberg's operation - which is also supporting Chris Shays - also figures into this.
  

  Lieberman's presence in the campaign isn't helping the three Democratic challengers in the hotly contested House races either. His role in “consolidating those Republican voters is actually helping all three Connecticut Republicans,” Nathan Gonzales, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a highly regarded political newsletter, told the Bloomberg news service. Gonzales said “the trio is in better shape than what a lot of people thought earlier” and he predicted only the Rob Simmons seat is up for grabs with the others held by Nancy Johnson and Christopher Shays leaning Republican.



• The Stamford Advocate on Bill Clinton's silence since the primary:
  

  Though he lives less than 14 miles from Lamont in Chappaqua, N.Y., the former president has stayed out of Connecticut. He has chosen to spend time this month on the campaign trail instead with Democrats in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, Kentucky, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
  
  Clinton's schedule has led some to speculate that he is reluctant to work against his longtime friend Lieberman, for whom he campaigned in Waterbury two weeks before the primary. Political analysts say that Clinton also recognizes Lieberman's importance to the balance of power in the divided Senate. Lieberman is running as a petitioning candidate, but has pledged to caucus with Democrats if re-elected.



• The Courant was at the NAACP dinner last night in New Britain.


• CTBob notes evidence of Lieberman lying to a Democratic delegate pre-convention in order to get his vote:
  

  I asked Jim about the phone call.
  
  "One of his staffers called me shortly before the convention and asked if Senator Lieberman could speak to me. I was sort of honored that the Senator wanted to talk to me, so I said 'Sure thing.'"...
  
  "I said that I'd read in the paper that he would run as an independent if he lost the primary, and Joe said, 'No Jim, I will not run as an independent. That was something a Lamont supporter goaded me into saying.'"



• Spazeboy was at the SEIU 32BJ rally in New Britain yesterday. The New Britain Herald also has more:
  

  SEIU International President Andy Stern expressed his love for the union as he spoke.
  
  "All of us alone are just ordinary people," he said. "We ordinary people get to do an extraordinary thing."
  
  Candidate for U.S. Senate Ned Lamont stopped in as well to drum up enthusiasm among the union members.
  
  "On Nov. 7, we're going to rock the vote," he said. "The eyes of the country are on little old Connecticut."