Mayoral Candidate A raises questions about Candidate B's campaign literature. The police, who report to the incumbent, Candidate C, respond by raiding the print shop where the literature is produced. Candidate D raises a stink, because he was using the same printing firm.

That's hardball. And that was just Thursday. Meanwhile, Candidate E portrays himself as the "Batman" who will save Moscow, and Candidate F lets himself be photographed in nothing more than a bath towel and an odd hat to demonstrate his Russian masculinity.

And the police, when they are not closing print shops, are rounding up hundreds of Vietnamese who are in Moscow looking for work, in a developing election-season operation that seems designed to pander to Muscovites' worst instincts when it comes to immigrants — but it just might be a genuine attempt to blot out the huge and unspoken problem of forced labor.