Petty cash disbursements over $100 are illegal.  So why did the Lieberman campaign need around $387,000 in petty cash during the last few weeks of the primary?  No answer to the question, and no admission of error.

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.

The FEC reports are made public so that citizens can know what candidates are spending their money on.  It is amazing to have nearly $400,000 of just plain cash on your FEC report.  Was Lieberman buying votes with the money, using the cash as 'street money'?  Was he paying 'volunteers' to disrupt Lamont events?  Or was it just a large canvass operation where he paid huge numbers of volunteers in, um, cash?  And why is he paying people listed as volunteers?  

That last question is kind of petty, but then again, it's not.  Lieberman can't even bring himself to acknowledge that people paid to support him aren't actually, you know, supporting him.  Connecticut for Lieberman, always.  Lieberman has a huge amount of cash, put up by lobbyists, corporate interests, right-wing Republicans to help fund the Senator they love.  He's using this money, at least 8% of it, in cash donations to, well, we have no idea.  That is illegal for a reason, because it opens up the door to all sorts of devious and unethical activities if everyone acted like Joe.

And the Lieberman campaign isn't even acknowledging error, when the action they took is clearly illegal.  I mean I can understand they might have screwed up, though this is a pretty large mistake.  But it's also illegal, blatantly so, and it's something you should cop to immediately, and fix.  That's just good politics.

So anyway, why do you think Joe needed $387,000 in cash?