Bellone kicks off county exec ad campaign

Suffolk Democrats Tuesday morning launched a cable TV ad blitz for county executive candidate Steve Bellone, which party chairman Richard Schaffer said will run through Election Day.

The 30-second spot was sent out by email to party supporters at 9 a.m. and will be shown on 20 cable channels, including News 12 Long Island, ESPN, Fox, Lifetime and TNT. The ad will appear more than 1,000 times over the next three weeks, running more than 50 times a day.

The spot shows Bellone, the Babylon town supervisor, driving a pickup truck and touting his administration's accomplishments, saying, "Sometimes more is less."

He says the town has cut its debt, raised its bond rating from one of the worst in the county to A-plus and cut taxes $4.3 million. He also says the town has put government services online, installed GPS devices in town vehicles "to make sure town employees are doing their job" and cut pothole repair time from five weeks to 48 hours.

"We can do more with less with county government, too," Bellone says at the end of the ad.

The pickup is a rental, with a seal on its side mocked up to look like the official town seal, Schaffer said. "We were very careful and cautious not to use any town facilities," he said.

Suffolk Republicans have attacked Bellone's record on property taxes, unemployment and foreclosures as the worst in the county.

Suffolk Treasurer Angie Carpenter is the GOP's county executive candidate.

The Suffolk GOP is also running ads on its website and making automated calls.