Lots of political craziness circulating out there. On Marty Griffin's KDKA morning talk show, county exec candidates Mark Patrick Flaherty and Rich Fitzgerald went toe-to-toe and talked about ... their first girlfriends? I think? And the Flaherty campaign's mailing address?

I thought I might have hallucinated some of that, but no. Apparently, this has been a political issue, because Tom Corbett's gubernatorial campaign has used the very same post-office box. And while Griffin kept insisting "I could care less," they kept talking about it. And then a short time ago, I got this statement from Team Fitzgerald in the e-mail in box:

After a week of denying that he has any connection to Governor Tom Corbett, Mark Patrick Flaherty’s campaign yesterday was forced to admit to KDKA’s Jon Delano that the campaign does indeed share a PO Box and campaign staff with the Governor.

Thank God that's settled. The folks at Early Returns have more about the Griffin debate, such as it was.

Over in city council district 7, meanwhile, challenger Tony Ceoffe Jr. has been sending out a mailer finding fault with incumbent Patrick Dowd for just about everything short of the mural gracing the New Amsterdam. 

It's a sweeping bill of indictment. It complains about schools that have been closed (ADDED: and which are not, in fact, even in city council district ) and schools that have been opened. It objects to the lack of an adequate grocery story in Lawrenceville, while complaining that "Problem housing continues to exist in Bloomfield and throughout the district," and arts groups in Friendship don't get enough support.

Presumably, Ceoffe will solve all these problems if elected. Just be careful what you wish for, Mr. Ceoffe.

Because one item in particular jumped out at me: Ceoffe's flyer objects to stalled development along Bryant Street, the business district for Highland Park. That struck me as odd because a few weeks ago, I was at a community forum where Dowd was confronted by an agitated resident who lived right by Bryant Street. (Dowd himself lives in the area.) Her concern was that parking in the area was getting difficult -- because too much new activity was going on there. 

But without question, the most intriguing thing to hit the inbox today was this political cartoon, courtesy of Ward 12 chair Jacque Fielder.

As you can see, it's a stork -- respresenting  city councilor Ricky Burgess -- trying to swallow a frog, which symbolizes Burgess' constituents, the residents of city council District 9. The frog is saving itself, however, by strangling the stork, thereby preventing the stork from ingesting it.

One of the reeds, meanwhile, is labeled "Lucille," apparently a reference to Lucille Prater-Holliday, one of two women challenging Burgess' reelection bid.

Fielder is backing the other challenger in the race, Phyllis Copeland-Mitchell, who doesn't appear to be represented in this image at all. But the message here is pretty clear, it seems to me: Ricky Burgess is bad for city council district 9, so the community's survival depends on removing him from office. And Lucille Prater-Holliday is a tall, slender grass -- apparently of the order Poales -- whose native habitat is the freshwater wetland.