You'd think the race for the Tarrant Regional Water Board would be a sleepy affair. Ensuring that Fort Worth and its environs enjoy an adequate water supply is undeniably important work, but not the kind that stirs the passions.

As you can see from the mailing above, which was uploaded to the Internet by a rollerblading Fort Worth blogger who makes reference to "incumbent cockroaches," this year is different.

The "controversial Dallas millionaire" wallowing in the mud seems to be hotelier Monty Bennett. Bennett, the Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy reports, sued the water district over a pipeline that will cut through his East Texas ranch and has funneled $105,000 to the three challengers in the race, John Basham, Mary Kelleher and Timothy Nold. The identity of the child actor isn't exactly clear.

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Brenham

Subrina Brenham, the businesswoman challenging Tennell Atkins in the District 8 City Council race, was driving along Lancaster Road this morning when she noticed something odd: One of her campaign signs, the large rectangular variety you see plastered on the sides of buildings and fences, had been cast aside in an open field alongside a heap of other debris.

This was not the first one she had found. "Once I started putting my signs out, my signs started being removed and replaced by Tennell Atkins signs," she said this afternoon. Four of them by her count, at $50 a pop.

The other ones she took in stride, but this one? This was the last straw. She called police. She filed a report. She spoke with Unfair Park.

"I know [Atkins] knows," she said. "This is with his knowledge. He's done this before in other campaigns."

Those are bold accusations. They also happen to reek somewhat of desperation. After all, Atkins had no trouble destroying his opponents in his two contested races, in 2007 and 2009, without resorting to petty crime.

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From a purely aesthetic point of view, Ori Raphael is dominating the District 11 City Council yard sign war. His opponent, former park board member Lee Kleinman, went with blocky, mustard-colored letters superimposed on a blue background, his enormous first name partially obscured by a silhouette of the Dallas skyline.

Raphael opted for a red and blue name on a white background. The only flourish is a stylized "O." It's a clean, modern design that harkens back to the campaign materials of another young politician whose name starts with "O."

And that right there is the rub.

According to a dispatch from Preston Hollow People, Raphael accused his KIeinman's canvassers of going door-to-door and highlighting the similarities in the designs. (Kleinman denies this.) "I've already had doors slammed in my face because of that," he's quoted as saying.

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Herschel Weisfeld and Adam Medrano

It didn't take long for the District 2 City Council race to turn into a mud-slinging match, even if the mud has come from only one side. The first volley came last month from Herschel Weisfeld, who seized on Adam Medrano's refusal to discuss his sexual orientation to question his opponent's openness and honesty.

Yesterday, Weisfeld unleashed another barrage, suggesting that the Medrano family might seek to illegally influence the May election.

"I can't predict that because I'm not a fortune teller, but what we know is that the family has a history," Weisfeld said. "What it appears [like] is that they're doing the same manner of operation that they have a history of doing."

Specifically, Weisfeld is speaking of voter fraud. He points to the conviction last year of former Justice of the Peace Carlos Medrano, Adam's uncle, for illegal voting in his 2010 election and other rumors of electoral misdeeds by family members.

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Mayor Mike Rawlings, in the chopper his campaign will soon be able to afford.

Yesterday was the deadline for state and local candidates to report their fundraising totals for the last six months of 2012, which meant a flurry of last-minute clicks on the City Secretary's website. The reported figures first real glimpse at candidates' fundraising prowess and a suggestion of which candidates are gaining traction leading up to the May 11 municipal elections. Here's what you need to know.

Rawlings has a lot of very wealth friends: Rumor has it that Mayor Mike Rawlings will not seek a second term. That didn't prevent him from stockpiling an eye-popping $391,440 from, as the Morning News' Rudy Bush put it, "the kind of folks you might meet at a really, really nice party in Preston Hollow."

Actually, Bush left out a "really." Rawlings' list of donors reads like a who's who of Dallas' business and civic elite: Ross Perot, Sr., Harold Simmons, T. Boone Pickens all gave generously. Local heavyweights like Ruth Althsuler Lucy Billingsley, Margaret McDermott also opened their wallets.

The question, of course, is what Rawlings needs all that money for. He gave himself $180,000 to repay loans he'd made to his campaign. For other answers, we'll just have to wait and see.

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Last night's Senate debate between Ted Cruz and Paul Sadler got surprisingly heated, with the two men snapping at each other about illegal immigration, healthcare, where Barack Obama was born and whether Ted Cruz is, in fact, a troll.

Meanwhile, John Jay Myers, the Libertarian Senate candidate who did not participate in last night's debate, has also been disqualified from KERA's October 19 debate.

We know this because Myers sent us his email exchange with Rick Holter, the vice president of KERA's news division. We've reproduced it in full, because it's important and newsworthy. Not because we enjoy watching people bicker. Certainly not.

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Myers, from his Facebook page

A few weeks back we told you about John Jay Myers, the Free Man-owning, big government-distrusting Libertarian candidate for Senate, who believes he's being unfairly excluded from a Belo debate that will feature his two major-party competitors. After a small protest in front of WFAA's Young Street headquarters failed to convince the TV station to allow Myers to enter the debate, he announced today that he's filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission.

The complaint letter (news of which was broken by Robert Wilonsky) runs some four pages, and calls WFAA's standards for debate inclusion "subjective, inconsistent, and biased."

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Since @barackobama has forgotten how much he's added to national debt #ForAll our kids to pay off... twitter.com/GovernorPerry/...

— Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) September 20, 2012

Rick Perry is so good at Twitter. A few days ago, he posted the gem above, complete with that extremely OG photo. Seems pretty clear, right? Barack Obama has added $16 trillion to the national debt. And Rick Perry is so tough, as one of my colleagues pointed out, that he can wear a long-sleeved white shirt and no undershirt outside on a 90-degree day in Texas without sprouting any un-gubernatorial pit stains.

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Myers, far left (no pun intended), with some of his protesters.

Earlier this week we told you about John Jay Myers, the Libertarian Senate candidate who believes he'll be unfairly excluded from WFAA's planned October 2 debate. He promised to bring protesters to the station's headquarters on Young Street, which he did today around 11.

When we got there, there were about ten people, cheerily holding signs and waving at cars despite the heat.

"Sometimes you just gotta stick your finger in the eye of the man," Myers told us. "We just want people to know we exist. We've done just about everything we can."

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John Jay Myers, from his Facebook page

John Jay Myers owns the Free Man, a Cajun joint in Deep Ellum. He also runs a wholesale embroidery business, has a "deep, deep mistrust of the government," would like to legalize medical marijuana, and thinks we should bring all the U.S. troops home. And he believes Texans are being denied a chance to hear his views in a planned October 2 debate for U.S. Senate candidates on WFAA because of unfair standards for inclusion.

"The Belo-owned --" he begins during a recent phone conversation. He pauses. "Are you guys Belo-owned? Don't tell me you are. No? The Belo-owned media don't like to have alternative parties in their debates."

Myers is running for U.S. Senate, against two better-known and (much) better-funded challengers, Republican Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz and Democrat Paul Sadler. His campaign is planning the protest for Wednesday morning in front of WFAA's headquarters on Young Street, saying that the five criteria WFAA uses to determine who should be included in its debates are unfair, and per the Facebook event invite, "meant to specifically keep out opinions other than those of the two major parties."

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