Rep. Anthony Weiner unveiled the first television advertisement of his mayoral campaign yesterday, a 30-second slot titled “Homeplate.”

The ad opens with the congressman, who represents Brooklyn and Queens, playing stickball on the street in Park Slope, where he spent his childhood. “When we played stickball growing up,” Mr. Weiner says in the ad, pointing to a manhole cover, “this was home plate.”

The scene and the ad emphasize Mr. Weiner’s middle-class, outer-borough upbringing, and the spot even includes a cameo by his mother, Frances, a public-school teacher for 31 years. The policy centerpiece of the advertisement is Mr. Weiner’s proposed 10% cut in the income tax rate for New Yorkers earning less than $150,000 a year, which, as the congressman acknowledges in the ad, is financed partly by a tax hike on the city’s millionaires.

The advertisement will begin airing on cable and network television this Friday through August 29. The costs come to $686,178, according to the Weiner campaign. Mr. Weiner has promised to spend an additional $1.8 million on television advertising between August 30 and the September 13 Democratic primary, pledging to be “competitive dollar for dollar” with his three Democratic rivals.

At yesterday’s premiere, held at the Weiner campaign’s headquarters on Williams Street, the congressman fielded questions about Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate and his health.

Asked by reporters whether the forum – which, according to press accounts, consisted of the Democrats’ piling on Mayor Bloomberg and not highlighting the differences among themselves – failed to change the perceptions of an electorate that considers Mr. Bloomberg’s challengers indistinguishable, Mr. Weiner said it had not, and heaped criticism on the press.

“Anyone who thinks I have the same approach as Fernando Ferrer hasn’t been paying attention,” Mr. Weiner said.

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Not to be outdone by the Bloomberg team or by any of his Democratic rivals in the mayoral race, the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, is launching his first Spanish-language television commercials. The 30-second spot, which is called “Resultados,” will begin airing this week on NY1 Noticas, Telemundo, and Univision, the three most popular television stations among Hispanic New Yorkers. Mr. Miller, who has more campaign money than the three other Democrats competing for the nomination, has aired a similar commercial in English. But this one seems to target voters who might lean toward Fernando Ferrer, the only Hispanic candidate in the race.

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The Westchester district attorney, Jeanine Pirro, won the endorsement of New York’s two members of the Republican National Committee in her bid for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Clinton’s re-election bid next year. A former chairman of the Republican State Committee, Alexander “Sandy” Treadwell, and a Republican fund-raiser, Jennifer Saul Yaffa, indicated their support in a statement issued by the Pirro campaign. Ms. Pirro has kept a low profile since a rocky first few days on the campaign trail last week and tabloid reports this week about her husband’s illegitimate daughter.

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A comment by Rep. Anthony Weiner at Tuesday night’s democratic mayoral debate harshly criticizing union leaders who supported Mayor Bloomberg caught the attention of union officials yesterday.

When asked if union leaders who supported Mr. Bloomberg had erred in abandoning Democrats, Mr. Weiner said they should “hang their heads in shame.”

A spokesman for local 32BJ, the city’s largest building workers union, said yesterday that Mr. Weiner’s comment sounded like “sour grapes from someone that is not doing particularly well in the polls.”

The spokesman, Matthew Nerzig, said the union’s endorsement process was extensive and included interviews, an analysis of past records, and a June 30 mayoral forum in front of 300 members. Mr. Weiner was the only candidate, including Mr. Bloomberg, who did not attend the event, according to Mr. Nerzig.

“Bottom line, a union endorsement is not something that is taken for granted, it is something that needs to be earned,” Mr. Nerzig. “The incumbent mayor had more to offer our members and working families than the other candidates.”

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While all four Democratic candidates for mayor have expressed their firm belief that the city needs an increase in “affordable housing” to resolve a perceived shortage of residential units available for low-income New Yorkers, only one, Fernando Ferrer, has expressed the belief that rent regulation can eliminate homelessness in the city, too.

During a radio interview yesterday morning on WBAI’s “City Watch,” Mr. Ferrer, the Democratic front-runner, was asked what policies he would implement to eradicate the “crisis in homelessness.” He responded: “When you see women and children on the no.6 subway because they have no home, that should offend the consciences of anyone in this city. … The way to deal with that is to build more permanent housing.”

Mr. Ferrer then went on to say that during his tenure as Bronx president, he had reduced homelessness in the borough by creating more available units of affordable housing.

Meanwhile, a 2006 gubernatorial candidate campaigned yesterday with Mr. Ferrer. The state’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, appeared with the candidate at Forest Hills, Queens. When reporters asked whether he supported Mr. Ferrer’s plan to levy a $1 billion a year tax on Wall Street to finance proposed improvements, however, Mr. Spitzer opposed the tax proposal. The would-be governor added, however, that the policy points on which he agreed with Mr. Ferrer outnumbered the candidates’ disagreements.

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The two Democratic candidates for district attorney of Manhattan would not say whether they are following the bar association’s ethical guidelines on campaign fund-raising. According to a May 1994 formal opinion from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, candidates for district attorney “should not personally solicit campaign contributions, but should establish committees to do so … and avoid learning the names of those contributing.”

The Manhattan race pits the incumbent, Robert Morgenthau, who has held the post since 1974, against his onetime aide Leslie Crocker Snyder, a former judge of state Supreme Court. Each candidate’s campaign has raised more than $1 million.

“Bob has a committee that does the fund-raising,” a Morgenthau campaign spokesman, Robert Liff, said.

A Snyder spokesman, Eric Pugatch said the challenger “does everything possible to adhere to the fund-raising recommendations, and generally does not mention specific monetary amounts when talking with possible donors.” But Mr. Pugatch added: “She has asked people to support her candidacy, and often that has financial implications.”