Mike Heffernan, the Republican candidate for treasurer proves his tightness with the dollar with an ad that seems to be made by his family, although it was really produced by an ad agency in Virginia.

Coakley and Baker discussed the economy, education and transportation at a debate just for them.

A pollster type discusses why a tight race in the polls would be good for Coakley.

The Globe introduces us to the people running for state treasurer this year:

Democrats Steve Grossman and Steve Murphy and Republican state Representative Karyn Polito are vying for the open treasurer's seat by trying to differentiate themselves based on their financial credentials, investment philosophies, and independence.

UPDATE: The Murphy folks have reverted to a more boring, if safer, "Coming Soon" Web site. So no more chance to edit pages or read "lorem ipsum."

Or, if one were feeling less than charitable, one might suggest the Web site shows he needs to hire Web consultants who understand the concept of "staging server" and the importance of not putting up pages that any idiot can change the content on (see that "Edit" button below? It actually works, or, at least, did a couple minutes before I started typing this):

Real-time politics, eh? I see that Karyn Polito got a tweet on her website dare to Steve Grossman's Twitter. He just responded to a debate challenge with:

@karyn4treasurer, I accept your invitation to debate. Let’s talk jobs, holding big banks accountable, & protecting people’s $. When & where? 16 minutes ago via web

Game on, boys and girls. Now, she'll have to come up with some substance to match his specific and elaborate proposals.

Looks like Steve Murphy's got the Hyde Park bar-crowd vote sewn up. If nothing else, Murphy, a Boston city councilor unable to ever get elected to anything else, should do well in his base in Boston's southern tier.

Steve Poftak wonders: Is Steve Grossman that intimidating? On the Democratic side so far it's Democratic moneyman Grossman and, maybe, Steve Murphy, who seems unable to leave the confines of the Boston City Council. In contrast, the Republicans have three candidates for one of those jobs that makes you wonder why it's still elected.