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From the Republican Richard Burr’s U.S. Senate campaign this morning:

"Today, the Richard Burr Committee released their first television ad of the General Election, “Main Street.” The ad highlights Senator Burr’s dedication to his constituents throughout the state, as well as his commitment to fighting wasteful government spending. “Main Street” was exclusively previewed for thousands of Burr’s grassroots supporters on BurrHQ.com before the official release."

You can see the ad itself below.

I’m waiting on info from the campaign regarding the size of the buy and where the ad is running, but this is a pretty typical first ad out of the gate. It introduces a candidate, paints the incumbent as a regular fella whose doing good for the state and shows him doing folksy stuff. There’s no mention of his challengers – Democrat Elaine Marshall and Libertarian Mike Beitler. And shoot, looking at this commercial, who'd want to run against an ol’ boy who visits lunch counters and walks down Main Street like that?

Update: A National Journal blog post (link) says the following re: the buy:

"So far, Burr has purchased ad time for Aug. 30 through Sept. 12. He dished out $578K on the buy, according to a source that monitors ad buys. That breaks down to almost $213K in Charlotte, $66K in the Winston, $54K in New Bern, $70K in Asheville, $128K in Raleigh-Durham and $40K in Wilmington."

Update: From a Burr campaign spokeswoman:

"We purchased ad time for Aug. 30 through Sept. 12. for about $500,000. We will be up on the air for the duration of the election."

This is where Burr’s fundraising advantage officials kicks in, allowing him to control the paid media narrative until someone with enough money arrives on the scene to deliver some push-back. According to FEC reports (link), the Winston-Salem Republican had $6.2 million cash-on-hand at the beginning of July. Sec. of State Elaine Marshall had $163,195 after raising and spending over $1 million during the primary season, although presumably her status as party nominee has allowed for some decent fundraising since then.

Still, she’d have a long way to go to catch up to Burr and there’s not yet signs of the national Democratic organs being willing to come in and blitz television ads against Burr as they did in 2008 when Democrat Kay Hagan unseated Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole.

Update: The Marshall campaigns responds with a spiffy PDF (link) dressed up to look like a ye olde document that calls Burr's ad a "fairy tale." It tries to knock down statements in the ad in compare and contrast style. A couple examples from the response:

• He said he was “down home North Carolina.” In reality, he was one of the largest recipients of special interest cash in Washington.
• He said he’s “listening, working for us.” But Richard Burr voted to bailout big Wall Street banks, while blocking tax credits and increased lending to small business.

It ends with the tagline: A 30-second TV ad can’t white wash 16 years in Washington.

Update: Burr's campaign spokeswoman fact-checks the fact-check, taking issue with a bullet point that reads, "He said said he’s 'tight with our tax dollars,' but pushed a deficit busting Social Security privatization plan..." She points to a FactCheck.org critique of the Social Secrutiy claim (link), which doesn't mention Burr specifically but says, "Few if any Republicans now in Congress have ever pushed for total 'privatization' of Social Security."