Republican Karen Brown jumps to lead in mayoral ad wars

It's true – Republican mayoral candidate Karen Brown has produced the first, and perhaps only TV ad of the contest between Brown and incumbent Democrat Michael Nutter.

Brown says the ad ran on Channel 10, which gave her time after she complained to the FCC about the station's televised town hall with Nutter last month.

The 30-second spot shows Brown standing in front of what appears to be a sidewalk memorial of a murder victim, declaring that "this mayor has used our cops and fireman as a way to balance the budget. He has not kept the streets safe for your kids or mine..."

The video was shot by Warren "Fuzzy" Bloom, who does video and photo production and ran for city commissioner in the spring primary.

Bloom's a Democrat whose business card has a picture of him with President Obama.

"I did it as a favor to her," Bloom told me. He acknowledged the production values in the video aren't high, explaining that he didn't have his high-definition camera that day.

The memorial in the background isn't real either.

"We just made that up for illustrative purposes," Bloom said. "We were going to use the real backdrop at 5th and Indiana, but we didn't have time."

Nutter doesn't plan to run TV ads for the election. Campaign spokeswoman Sheila Simmons said there will be radio ads, which could begin airing next week.

Also, most of the audio from last night's debates hosted by WHYY is now available on Newsworks.

The debate among seven City Council at large canndidates is here. The debate among three candidates for city commissioner is here.