Mayoral contests are incredibly local, and rarely do they hinge on partisan issues. Instead, people vote for mayor based on potholes and traffic congestion, which makes most of them difficult to follow from a distance with any degree of expertise. But it's definitely a bad sign when a campaign's treasurer resigns after allegations he spent $40,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses.

It's even worse, in the case of Baltimore Mayoral candidate Keiffer Mitchell, when the campaign treasurer who resigned is your father. Now it appears that Mitchell Senior may have spent $56,000 inappropriately, including $9,000 in checks made out to "cash."

Mitchell, an underdog city council member running against Mayor Sheila Dixon, has raised a healthy amount of money -- more than $640,000. Dixon, who became mayor when Marty O'Malley won election as governor, has pulled in about $1.2 million and maintains a huge cash-on-hand lead.

In Baltimore, the real contest is for the Democratic primary, which occurs September 11th. The winner will likely cruise to election in November.