Old drunken driving arrests.

Potshots at a ``slumlord boyfriend.''

Allegations of fraud and hypocrisy.

In the days leading up to Tuesday's elections, Miami Beach voters have faced an avalanche of attack ads worthy of a supermarket tabloid -- with garish fliers depicting candidates as shadowy villains and B-movie monsters.

Candidate Michael Góngora describes the ads as ``Hialeah-style politics'' coming to Miami Beach.

But Hialeah's elections have been relatively subdued. So have races in the city of Miami, where politics have never been for the mild-mannered or faint of heart.

In a county known for its bruising election battles, where four mayoral seats are up for grabs Tuesday, it is the race for one commission seat on the Million Dollar Sandbar that has stirred up the most acrimony.

Góngora, Alex Fernandez and Gabrielle Redfern are running to replace outgoing Miami Beach Commissioner Victor Diaz Jr. -- but the three-way race has largely boiled down to a fight between Góngora and Fernandez.

Redfern said the nastiness has made her look good by comparison.

``We love the Halloween one,'' she said, referring to an ad showing Góngora towering over the city like Godzilla as screaming citizens run from his grinning image.

``My 5-year-old wants to put that up on our door, she was so scared by it.''

Redfern, a 47-year-old condo property manager who has spent much of the campaign season tending to a daughter recently hospitalized with Crohn's disease, has raised less than $10,000. Fernandez has a war chest of $122,000 and Góngora $98,000.

Góngora is a 39-year-old attorney who in 2006 was elected to a one-year stint on the commission. Fernandez is a 23-year-old political newcomer who briefly served as an aide to Miami Beach Mayor Mattie Herrera Bower.

The race has garnered attention not only for its vitriol, but for being something of a political benchmark: Both Fernandez and Góngora are gay, and their contest is the first time two openly gay candidates have faced off in the city, say activists.

``This is a first in the city of Miami Beach,'' said Herb Sosa, president of the Unity Coalition, a gay-rights organization, which has endorsed Góngora and Group 2 candidate Sherry Roberts, who is a lesbian. ``Even beyond that, without a doubt, it's the largest number of gay candidates period'' in the county's history.

But not everyone sees the match-up as a watershed moment.

``I've not heard that at all,'' said Ray Breslin, a Miami Beach activist who is also gay, noting the Beach is a progressive community.

Instead, most of the political buzz has been about the mushrooming number of mailers and TV commercials.

Góngora and a third-party group have insinuated Fernandez's campaign has been funded by his partner of more than three years, Robert J. Wolfarth, the son of a local developer. One ad from a group called Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility calls Wolfarth a ``slumlord boyfriend.''

Fernandez has said his $104,000 personal loan to his warchest came from his own bank account, bolstered from a now-defunct business that marketed the real-estate holdings of a development company of which the senior Wolfarth is a partner.

He has taken to carrying around his bank statements to neighborhood forums and endorsement meetings.

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