With two and a half months left until the election, the mass media phase of the Salt Lake County mayoral race has begun.

GOP incumbent Nancy Workman began airing a radio ad Friday that implicitly acknowledges the public relations problems she has been experiencing of late with the county's gasoline scandal and an investigation into her hiring practices, attempting to defuse them with positives.

The ad features a deep-voiced male announcer who starts out trying to conduct a negative ad until a sweet-voiced female convinces him that Workman is more deserving of a positive one.

"I assume it will be negative," the man says.

"Why would you assume that?" the woman says.

"Well, just what you read, plus I have this deep, booming voice — I usually do negative ads."

As you might expect, that gives the woman the chance to extol Workman's virtues, including a recycling program, a contention that she has cut taxes three times, the Clark Planetarium and other accomplishments of her administration.

Workman is also set to unveil an advertisement in today Salt Lake newspapers, including the Deseret Morning News, basically adopting the same theme.

The top of the ad is dark and asks the question, "What is Nancy Workman doing with our tax dollars?" As you read down, however, the ad gets lighter until you reach the words, "Saving them!" She then lists many of the same things voiced in the radio ad.

Democratic challenger Peter Corroon noted that Workman came into office with a large tax hike put in place by the outgoing commission (which she reduced somewhat) and said that, while taxes technically have not gone up, the county budget has still grown substantially.

"We need to look at what she's doing with tax money," he said.

Corroon has yet to enter the mass media market, and said he likely won't do so until October, given the amount of funds he has raised relative to Workman's war chest.

Independent candidate Merrill Cook has long maintained that he will reserve his biggest punch for just before the election.

---

E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com