Carl McCall’s cash-strapped campaign is so short of funds that it hasn’t bought TV time for the last full week of the governor’s race, broadcast executives said yesterday.
Advertising directors at stations in four upstate television markets said McCall’s campaign has yet to come up with the cash needed to book air time for the crucial period running next Monday through Friday.
“McCall’s people told us that, right now, they wouldn’t be buying any air time for next week,” one exec told The Post.
“I checked with the ad directors at our affiliated stations and was told, ‘The same is true all over. So far, no ad buys,’ ” the executive added.
McCall spokesman Steven Greenberg called the contentions “completely untrue.”
“There will be a very significant buy next week,” insisted Greenberg, refusing to say how much would be spent.
Erick Mullen, chief media strategist for Tom Golisano’s Independence Party campaign, said TV buyers also told him that McCall has bought no air time for next week.
McCall, meanwhile, sought to tamp down the damage from a blow-up with Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who said on Wednesday that he won’t send any more money to McCall until his campaign shows it has a real chance of defeating Gov. Pataki.
McCall told reporters that he spoke to McAuliffe yesterday and was told the Dem bigwig was “committed to supporting my campaign.”
But McCall noted that there were “some things he thinks we should do, and we think that what he has proposed is reasonable and we will attempt to comply.”
A campaign aide said McAuliffe told McCall “he’d like to see us more visible, and that’s what you’ll see.”
McCall for much of the past few weeks had limited himself to one public appearance a day, mostly in the city.