By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

Anthony Williams’ campaign Monday began airing a TV advertisement that criticizes Democratic gubernatorial foe Dan Onorato and his economic record in Allegheny County, the fist critical ad in the race for either party’s gubernatorial nomination.

It comes against the backdrop of a report from Capitolwire, citing Onorato allies that the state senator from Philadelphia has struggled to gain traction in the four-man race, which also features Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel and Auditor General Jack Wagner.

Onorato, the Allegheny County chief executive, has touted the area’s economic turnaround, and the government reforms he said helped spurt it, as the central plank of his candidacy. Williams’ spot challenges that central premise.

“Dan Onorato says he’s kept unemployment low,” a narrator intones, according to a script provided by the Williams campaign. “But unemployment in his county has risen a whopping 30 percent in just the last year – faster than the state and the nation.”

Video of the ad was not immediately available. Although Mark Nevins, senior strategist for the Williams campaign, declined to comment on which media markets it’s running in and how much the buy was worth, the ad appears to be airing in at least Pittsburgh.

The spot also highlights the executive’s support for a new levy on poured alcohol in the county, the so-called “drinks tax” that sparked outrage among some residents.

“Our families are hurting, but Onorato has raised taxes and fees on our families by millions on everything from swimming to parking, and Onorato even created a new tax on drinks,” it says.

“Onorato says he’s the change we need,” the spot continues. “Is Onorato the change you need?”

The chief executive has said that he raised a fee on alcohol only because it was much better option than increasing property taxes, which he has avoided since taking office. His campaign was not immediately available for comment Monday.

Capitolwire (subscription-only) reported Sunday that a key Onorato ally, David Cohen, had told it that private polls he had see showed the state senator failing to gain traction despite spending more than $2 million on TV ads in recent weeks.

“Even though the race isn’t ‘over,’ for any of the candidates to pull themselves from where they are to a winning position requires real resources. … While Tony has real resources, I don’t see his deployment of those resources giving him any traction,” Cohen told the Harrisburg news service.

Williams disputed Cohen’s comments as spin, saying his own internal polling showed him as the only Democrat who can defeat Onorato.

UPDATED: An Onorato spokesman shot back at the Williams ad in an e-mail to PoliticsPA, calling the state senator “one of the most anti-reform legislators in Harrisburg.”

“Given that Dan Onorato is running for Governor to reform the way Harrisburg does business, it’s not surprising that one of the most anti-reform legislators in Harrisburg — Tony Williams — has started to run a negative campaign against him,” said spokesman Brian Herman.  In the 20 years that Williams has been in Harrisburg, he’s raised his own pay twice and padded his pension by 50%.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, he even refused to return his pay raise after most of his colleagues listened to the voices of outraged Pennsylvanians.

“With a record like that, it’s unsurprising that Williams has to resort to misleading statistics to run his negative campaign,” he added. “The facts are clear that even in this national recession, Allegheny County’s unemployment rate is below the state’s and the nation’s.  And since Dan Onorato became Executive of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania’s second largest county, he has balanced the budget for each of the six years he’s been in office without once raising property taxes.”

Capitol Ideas has posted Williams’ ad here.

UPDATE 2: The Williams campaign responded to Onorato’s comments by saying the campaign is “freaking out” about someone challenging the county executive’s record.

“The Onorato campaign has had the playing field to themselves for the last two years,” said Nevins in an e-mail to PoliticsPA. “They’ve been able to say whatever they want any time they want with reckless impunity because no one has held them accountable.  So, it’s not surprising, now that someone is holding them accountable, that they’re freaking out.

“They need to accept that the facts are the facts,” he added. “The unemployment rate in Allegheny County has risen faster in the last year than it has in America or in Pennsylvania.  Dan Onorato has raised taxes and fees in the county by millions of dollars, including the wildly controversial drink tax.  And as for their claims about reforming business in Harrisburg, I’m not sure they should use words they don’t understand.  Accepting tens of thousands from campaign donors and dishing out millions in contracts to those donors isn’t exactly a solid platform for reform.”

* An earlier version of this story stated that Capitolwire reported Cohen was basing his assessment of the race based on internal polls from the Onorato campaign. That was incorrect. Cohen’s analysis was based on private polls not connected to any campaign, the news service said.

PoliticsPA regrets the error.