Gus Bilirakis fired back in his race against Democrat Phyllis Busansky. This morning on the NBC affiliate I saw the first attack ads for the Pinellas Republican, which featured whacky photos of a smiling Busansky flying around the screen as she was accused of making "false attacks" against Bilirakis and raising taxes on everything from summer camp for kids to dog leashes.
Busansky has been running two different ads against Bilirakis on Pasco and Hillsborough cable television. Her general theme is that Bilirakis is a tool of the insurance industry and that "Gus is not for us."
Bilirakis' first, positive ad can be seen on YouTube. His attack piece is not up yet; I'll see if I can hunt down a copy for us all to enjoy.
And one more thing … Bilirakis' advantage in this race can be seen in the media buy. He's up on broadcast, which provides great immediate reach. Busansky's cable buys are OK, but no match for the more expensive broadcast. Her campaign manager, Robert Becker, said last week that a broadcast buy was "coming soon."
(Almost forgot my standard disclaimer: I worked in Busansky's 1996 congressional campaign.)
