Karen Carvin

This is one of the most respected political consulting firms in New Orleans.

Fur is flying in the race for a seat on the Civil District Court bench in Orleans Parish, with the release this week of scathing mailers and TV ads from candidate Rachael Johnson, daughter of Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson.

The ads target both of her opponents — attorneys Suzanne "Suzy" Montero and Marie Williams — in the race for a seat left open when Judge Regina Bartholomew-Woods moved last year to the appeals court bench.

Williams is the subject of a pair of political fliers, one of them distributed by Johnson's campaign, that feature her mug shot from an arrest in September in New Orleans on an attachment from Jefferson Parish.

Williams called the fliers an unscrupulous attack that falsely paints her as a criminal over a brief arrest from her failure to appear in 2015 at a hearing related to her bitter divorce.

No one has taken credit for the first flier, which appeared late last week on doorsteps in Algiers. It shows her mug shot under the fictitious masthead of the "New Orleans Times." The headline reads: "Marie Williams Arrested!"

Karen Carvin, a Johnson campaign consultant, said that flier didn't come from anyone in Johnson's campaign, but that once the details of Williams' booking were verified, the campaign sent out its own version of the attack mailer this week.

I got one of the anti-Montero fliers in the mail yesterday. It's kind of funny in that it says, "Lien on me" which goes with the musical theme of the TV spots 

Meanwhile, Johnson has launched a series of ads attacking Montero over a $15,000 tax lien that the IRS filed against her in 2011. The ads include a campaign mailer and a pair of TV spots set to a pair of classic tunes: the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" and Eddie Cantor's "If You Knew Susie."

Both attacks are clever. But also kinda dumb and not especially relevant. If only our elections could actually be about things...