Frugal Matheson walks to own beat

Jim Matheson likes to tell you he's an independent guy.

As Utah's only Democrat in Congress, Matheson says he votes on issues based on what's best for his constituents in the sprawling 2nd Congressional District, not necessarily as U.S. House Democratic bosses wish he'd vote.

His bull-headed independence is a Matheson family trait, he says — noting that his father, the late Gov. Scott M. Matheson — showed it during eight years in office.

"I was taught in my dad's politics as I was growing up — be the independent voice. Don't be a rubber stamp for any party.

"That was the way he conducted himself. I told people that that was the way I'd be when I first got in this job."

A national journal that ranks all congressmen says that Matheson votes with national Democrats just over 50 percent of the time, while he votes with Republicans just under half the time.

Matheson, the third of four children, was at Harvard University during part of his father's time in office. And most political observers believed that it would be eldest son, Scott Matheson Jr., who would carry the family's political banner into a new generation.

But Jim Matheson is a planner — some may even say a schemer. And while Scott Jr. was coaxed to run for the U.S. Senate or governor — but hesitated — Jim looked at the 2nd Congressional District and then-incumbent Republican Merrill Cook.

He would have gone after Cook — and sought the Democratic Party nomination — in 1998, as he was tired of his energy consulting firm and was looking for new challenges. But former Utah Education Association president Lily Eskelsen got in the race early, had financial and political backing, and Jim Matheson backed away.

Good timing.

Cook crushed Eskelsen, helped on by some poorly written attack ads against him funded by out-of-state special interests.

When 2000 came along, Cook was self-destructing, challenged by two Republican newcomer millionaires. Jim Matheson stepped in, and the Democrats rallied around him. He raised some cash and took out eventual Republican candidate Derek Smith, who had defeated a crippled Cook in the primary.

Matheson, with his good family name, bucked the Utah GOP trend, even as President Bush won big here in 2000, taking the 2nd District office.

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