By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Erlanger Republican Kevin Murphy has launched the first television and radio ads of Northern Kentucky's 4th Congressional District campaign.

The ads are scheduled to start today on WCPO's morning news (Channel 9), said Jay Townsend, Murphy's political and media consultant. The ads also will run during WLWT's (Channel 5) broadcast of Meet the Press Sundaymorning, as well as other times and other channels, Townsend said.

Townsend said the campaign will spend "five figures this week, easily" on Cincinnati television and radio stations and Northern Kentucky cable channels.

According to a statement released Tuesday by Murphy's campaign, the ad "features Murphy talking about the United Nations, questioning why Americans spend $3 billion a year supporting a U.N. that put Syria on the Security Council and Libya on its Human Rights Commission."

"Nations that engage in terrorism don't belong in the U.N.," Murphy says in the ad. "Their diplomats don't belong on American soil. You give me a chance to cut that U.N. budget, and that's a message they'll get loud and clear."

Boone County Republican Geoff Davis, Murphy's opponent in the May 18 GOP primary, questioned the subject matter of the ads.

"I can tell that Kevin Murphy is sincere in his concern about the U.N.," Davis said. "However, I am running for Congress to bring jobs and economic growth to the 4th District of Kentucky."

Townsend said future ads would address other issues.

"We have a number of subjects we are going to talk about," he said. "Kevin Murphy has strong feelings about this issue. He talks about it in his campaign speeches, and people are mentioning it and talking about it quite a bit."

Davis eventually will run ads, but is concentrating more on building support "on a grass roots level," said his campaign manager Justin Brasell.

"Murphy will have to stay on TV and radio from now until Election Day in May to even begin to approach Geoff Davis' level of name identification in the district," said Brasell. "We have a 24-county organization. We have hundreds of volunteers who will be going door to door and manning phones up until Election Day."

The only Democrat in the race is former television and radio personality Nick Clooney of Augusta in Bracken County. Neither he nor his campaign could be reached, but because Clooney is unopposed in the Democratic primary he is not expected to run ads until the general election campaign season.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas is not running for re-election.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com