Bridgewater says he can beat Matheson

Tim Bridgewater's raspy voice is sounding more gravely these days.

"I used to sing a lot of country music. Or maybe it's that way because of bad genetics. At least it's distinctive," he growls over the telephone. "But I hope it will soon be the voice that represents Utahns" in the 2nd Congressional District.

Maybe.

But to get a shot at unseating Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, Bridgewater must first beat fellow Republican John Swallow, something he couldn't do in the 2002 GOP primary.

In a week, the same two names will appear on the Republican ballot.

But Bridgewater believes there will be a different outcome in this vote count.

"Nobody knew me last time," he says in voice much like rocker Joe Cocker's. "I'm better organized — an organization in every county. I know the issues. I represent the values."

And Bridgewater is ready to put some of his own cash in the race, too.

Before the May 8 state GOP convention, where he finished with 54 percent of the vote, ahead of Swallow, he'd put $160,000 into his campaign. Latest filings show he's put a quarter of a million dollars in his race, and this for a man who says "on a good day in the stock market I could be considered a millionaire but just barely."

Since his ouster in June 2002, Bridgewater at first returned to his small-business consulting firm. One of his new clients was a seafood production association. And in that capacity he's testified before Congress on Utah's oft-times troubled brine shrimp industry on the Great Salt Lake.

But in September 2003, Bridgewater joined with several other Utahns to take over a Cedar Falls, Iowa, small capital firm and move it to Utah.

"It's small, just $50 million. Mainly we help Small Business Association-backed firms with early money."

This kid from the wrong side of the tracks — as he likes to define himself — has worked in the private sector for years, creating jobs and formulating a political philosophy.

Bridgewater, 43, was born and raised in Utah. But his father left his mother with two small boys — who to this day rarely see their biological father.

"For a while, my mother lived on welfare, in a trailer park in West Jordan," Bridgewater has said at a number of public appearances this year.