Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon is first to the air in gubernatorial race

SALT LAKE CITY — Democratic Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon has hit the airwaves with the first television commercials in this year's gubernatorial campaign.

Corroon's two, 30-second spots started airing last Friday on major network and cable channels and will continue at least through the Labor Day weekend.

"It's a substantial buy," Corroon campaign spokeswoman Stella Thurkill said Monday, adding that it was scheduled before last week's controversy over religion was brought into the race.

The spots, titled "Bipartisanship" and "Straight Talk," don't address comments made by GOP Gov. Gary Herbert, a Mormon, focusing attention on Corroon's Catholic faith.

Instead, Thurkill said the commercials are intended to introduce voters to Corroon and his running mate, Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, along with what they see as the key issues in the campaign, including education, ethics, government spending and illegal immigration.

"This is a good way for more people to get to know exactly what the focus for the mayor and Rep. Allen is," Thurkill said. "I think people are starting to pay attention."

She said the commercials will help the campaign capitalize on the increased interest in the race as a result of last week's controversy over the governor's comments.

Herbert said Mormon seminary classes were threatened by the Democratic ticket's call for increased high school graduation requirements and that Corroon was "hypocritical" for sending his children to private school.

Corroon said he hoped the governor wasn't playing the "religious race card" and called it "unconscionable" to bring a candidate's children into the debate. A day later, Allen accused the governor of injecting "a religious wedge."

Herbert's campaign spokesman, Don Olsen, had no comment on the Corroon commercials and said he would not discuss the governor's campaign strategy with the media.

"He has his campaign strategy, and Gov. Herbert has his," Olsen said. "I will tell you we will have our ads up soon. They're ready to go. … Our campaign is going to be very issue-oriented. And the ads you will see will be very issue-oriented."

It's not surprising that the Democratic challenger in the race for the remaining two years of former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s term is the first to advertise on television, University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said.