About the cable TV, Hansen explained, "He needs to watch C-SPAN to see what's happening in the Senate when he's not" in the Senate personally.

Matheson's resources

Meanwhile, Matheson, Utah's lone Democratic congressional member, started his 2008 re-election cycle with just over $300,000. That was as of Jan. 1.

Since then, Matheson has raised another $126,000 — bringing his campaign account's cash to just over $426,000. That's three times more than Matheson has ever had before when he's started running for re-election.

Matheson said he always works hard at fund raising — needed as a Democrat in Republican-dominated Utah — and the next two years won't be any different.

"I really didn't set out" to end the last campaign with $300,000 cash left over, he said. He acknowledges that he spent more money on his 2004 race — $2 million — than he spent on his 2006 — $1.6 million.

"I had a plan what to raise (in 2006), what to spend. And we did that."

Matheson's GOP opponent last year was former state Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper. A self-made millionaire, Christensen put $540,000 of his own money into the race, but polls never showed he was a threat to Matheson in his 2nd Congressional District. Matheson ended up beating Christensen, 59-37 percent.

"I was running against a self-funder. And you never know what can happen in that case," said Matheson. "I was real aggressive the whole time" in fund raising. Christensen "potentially had huge resources, and I took that as a serious threat" no matter what the polls showed.

Matheson's first-quarter FEC report shows that he's already raised some money from political action committees interested in legislation that goes through a House committee Matheson was just appointed to.

But the four-term congressman says he traditionally fund raises "from a wide range of PACs, probably as wide a range of PACs as anyone here" in the U.S. House. "I'm no longer on the financial committee, but you'll see some financial PACs" still giving him money, Matheson said.

And for the first time, Matheson is in the congressional majority, as Democrats took control of both the House and Senate in November for the first time since 1994. But he doesn't think being in the majority will help him much in money raising. He's raised money from both sides of the political spectrum, and he plans on doing that again. "Many groups value my participation" in middle-of-the-road lawmaking, Matheson said.

You are always glad to see contributions from loyal supporters, he added.

Indeed. His mother, former Utah first lady Norma Matheson, has already given her son the maximum contribution, $2,300, in an early re-election cycle, as has Zions Bank president A. Scott Anderson.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; lee@desnews.com