Republican John Swallow, who is trailing badly in his race to unseat Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, is now running a television commercial criticizing his opponent.

The spot, "Company You Keep," features images of some the country's most prominent Democrats including Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore.

Matheson is described as joining them in supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Then the only Democratic member of Utah's congressional delegation is cited as having voted 75 percent of the time with other members of his party.

Also, the commercial states that Matheson has voted against banning partial-birth abortion and has voted for what is described as taxpayer funded abortions. Swallow, who is pictured in the commercial talking with President Bush, promises viewers he'll stand firm with him.

"I wouldn't call it negative," Swallow's campaign manager, Tim Garon, said of the new ad. "I think we've always said we'd run an issue-based campaign. Part of that is talking about Jim Matheson's record."

Garon said the commercial highlights how out-of-touch Matheson is with 2nd District voters. "He joins the likes of liberals like Ted Kennedy, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton in supporting John Kerry," Garon said. "Second District voters are not in line with the views" of those politicians.

Matheson said he was disappointed. "I think this is a desperation attempt. It represents negative attacks against me," the congressman said, adding that the commercial "puts out information that is not true."

For example, Matheson said, he did vote against a partial-birth abortion ban in 2002 but only because he was supporting another bill banning the procedure that was more in line with Utah's own law. He said he later supported the more restrictive legislation.

"It's just not fair to say I am voting to allow these to happen. This is a gruesome procedure," Matheson said. He also said some of his votes in question had to do with providing access to military hospitals overseas for women paying for their own abortions.

Garon said some of the funding for abortions that Matheson voted for also involved prisons.

Swallow's campaign manager declined to say how much was being spent on the commercials or how long they would run. This is the second commercial the campaign has run. The first began airing earlier this week.

Matheson's campaign has been airing television commercials for about three weeks.

The latest Swallow commercial hit airwaves Friday. It comes after a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll showed Swallow far behind Matheson, with just 31 percent of the respondents saying they'd vote for him compared to 63 percent for the two-term incumbent.

The commercial debuted the same day as a new radio ad for Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. In the spot, Huntsman — who is running against Matheson's brother, Scott — pledges to keep his campaign positive.

---

E-mail: lisa@desnews.com