The ad blitzes are all over the airwaves by those faced with primaries on Sept. 12. With less than two weeks to go before Primary Day, you probably won't be able to turn on a television and watch a non-cable network without getting a deluge of advertisements into your living room. Voters would be wise to listen to what isn't being said.

The bad old days of attack ads (the one exception may be an ad by Republican Attorney General candidate Jeanine Pirro, who is not even in a primary, but is trying to rough up the likely Democratic nominee, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo) may be over for the most part, at least looking at the most recent crop of political ads. Now it is sweetness and light, change, good will and reform.

But if one looks beyond the music, photos and backgrounds to what is being said - voters will often see that the ads are little more than fluff and platitudes - like diet soda - nothing of any nutritional value, just bubbles and flavor. They don't tell voters anything that is the least part controversial or what choices the candidate would make if elected, because choices have consequences.

For example, one only needs to look at ads of the Democratic front-runner and presumptive next governor of the Empire State, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, to see how shallow, yet feel-good the ad campaigns are. With millions of dollars in his campaign chest, he has the ability to run ads on a scale that his primary opponent, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, can't match.

With some of the best production values around, the ads are slick and tug at our views of not only what can be, but what was. Yet what do they really say to voters about making the tough choices that Albany has failed to address in a decade, on everything from budget reform to school financing?

Spitzer talks about how he wants to give property tax relief to taxpayers - who doesn't like that? The question is, how does he plan to pay for it? There is no detail on reducing costs, so the inevitable translation is that Albany will have to pick up a greater share of the burden from local governments and school districts. If that is the case, while your local property tax burden may go down, someone is going to have to pay for that shift to Albany. Will it be taxpayers through higher income taxes, new business and corporate taxes or another way that will create winners and losers somewhere else?

Elections are supposed to be about choices. But how can you make choices when all you hear are two and three word platitudes? Who isn't for apple pie, baseball and motherhood? Voters would be smart to look beyond the simplistic images of “lower property taxes,” “creating jobs” and “reforming Albany” when considering which lever to pull on Primary Day.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com