From today's Hartford Courant:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman collected millions of dollars in campaign cash since his Democratic primary loss by tapping a lengthy list of major contributors to President Bush, dozens of Washington special interest groups and a lot of loyal Democrats....

The effort to get Bush loyalists into Lieberman's camp was triggered by White House political guru Karl Rove's Aug. 8 phone call to the senator, just before Lieberman learned he would lose to Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary.

Rove did not promise any help, or offer any support...

That call, said Republican strategist Scott Reed, "was a signal to a lot of the Republican faithful to get engaged in the Lieberman race."...

[T]he Joe-needs-help message has been spreading for a while in Washington. Beginning with Rove's phone call, "a lot of Republicans around Washington who know [Lieberman] and like him spread the word," said Charles R. Black Jr., a longtime adviser to the Bush family.

Among the GOP donors who gave to Lieberman: Bush inner circle member Joseph Allbaugh, longtime Bush family friend Melvin Sembler, and "dozens of others from Texas" and other states. Lieberman campaign manager Sherry Brown told the paper that the campaign hadn't had contact with the White House, but she added of the GOP money: "We reached out and people reached out to us."