GOP has an uphill battle to oust Matheson

This past week, in a short statement from his PR firm, KSL Radio talk-show host Doug Wright announced that he won't be challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson.

Wright is a Republican. But he's likely a less conservative Republican than state Rep. LaVar Christensen of Draper.

Christensen, an attorney and real estate developer, is going to run for the GOP nomination. He's opened a campaign account, put $150,000 of his own money into the account and raised more than $30,000 from individuals and PACs.

Wright said he thought he could win the Republican nomination but didn't want to have a divisive intraparty battle.

In both 2002 and 2004, a number of Republicans ran in the 2nd Congressional District. Both times, former state Rep. John Swallow and businessman Tim Bridgewater ended up in a GOP primary. And it wasn't pretty — the two pounded each other, and Matheson ended up being voted back in with very healthy GOP showings.

Truth is, while Wright may have had good name I.D. via his morning talk show, he had not been overly active in GOP politics before and didn't bring clearly conservative credentials to the race — which would have been his first run at elective office.

Christensen, a noted conservative, ran a number of bills in the House over the past four years delighting the right wing of his party.

If Wright had survived the Republican State Convention, his name and face may have well carried him over Christensen in a primary vote this June.

And if you take the measurement of how much Matheson and his staffers were complaining about Wright's "non-race — race" over the last six months, Matheson clearly worried more about Wright than he does Christensen.

Several other Republicans say they're planning on running in the 2nd District. But they are even more unknown than Christensen, likely underfunded as well.

Matheson will have more than $1.5 million to spend. He's proven he can get moderate Republican votes, even in the rural parts of his wide-ranging district.

In an off-election year where there will be no gubernatorial or U.S. president race, unmotivated voters won't have a big reason to turn out (yes, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is on the ballot, but Utahns historically turn out well for presidential and governor contests).

And bets are Matheson will have another good re-election year in 2006.