Matheson voted for President Bush's tax cuts several years ago. And he's recently voted to extend a few of them as well. However, when a Deseret Morning News questionnaire asked if he'd vote for a tax hike over the next two years, Matheson hedged, saying: "I don't foresee it." Christensen just said: "No."

Matheson voted for a U.S. constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage (it failed), and he supported Amendment 3 in 2004, which added such a prohibition to the Utah Constitution. Christensen was the legislative sponsor of Amendment 3, which easily passed the Utah Legislature and a citizen approval vote.

If Democrats do win control of the U.S. House in the Nov. 7 midterm elections (and most political pundits predict they will), Matheson says he will vote to elect a Democrat as speaker of the House.

He carefully doesn't name who that might be. But the only viable candidate is Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the current House minority leader.

Christensen gets nearly apoplectic when he talks about Pelosi — "who is from San Francisco." And his claims that there's a "liberal national Democratic agenda" may have some application to her. National Democratic leaders have asked Pelosi not to talk now about her support for equal rights for gays and lesbians. The problem for Christensen is that fewer than 15 percent of Americans know who Pelosi is.

That's why Christensen is staying with broad attacks on what could happen if Democrats rule the House, not putting any names to it.

Christensen's TV and radio ads can be viewed on his campaign Web site: www.lavarforcongress.com. Matheson, his aides say, has chosen not to buy the upgrades to his Web site to have such video presentations. His TV and radio ads are not available at his site.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com