And one may wonder why Hughes and other elected members of House and Senate GOP leadership would put forth such an effort to attract 20 or 30 people to a meeting?

I don't doubt Hughes' stated purpose: to educate Utahns about vouchers in a close, personal setting where concerns about the new program can be answered.

But I also see another politically worthy side to the PIC — shore up the hard-core GOP base of legislators who may well see one of their most far-reaching education reform efforts fail before voters.

Jones' survey shows that even 54 percent of those who say they are Republicans oppose vouchers. Only 39 percent of Republicans support them.

Worse for GOP legislators, Jones found that 51 percent of those who said they "strongly vote Republican" in elections oppose vouchers. Forty percent of "strong Republicans" support vouchers.

And even though the state Republican Party platform hints at supporting vouchers, it's not good political news for incumbent legislators — who by and large are not well-known among their own party members — to pass a controversial law not supported by a majority of their own party.

So, do you just sit by and let the voucher election move past you?

Or do you do something that most political observers say has never been done in Utah before: You organize your own PIC, raise money and go out and fight for the bill you passed, telling anyone who will listen why you did so?

"Obviously, we want our constituents to concur with what we did," says Hughes, who has shown himself over the years to be an astute political operative. All 75 members of the Utah House, and half of the 29-member Senate are up for election next year.

"But we also want to show people that we made this decision" — to start what some call the most broad-ranging private school voucher program in the nation — "in a thoughtful, considered way. That we were not controlled by outside interests" but rather by what the majority legislative Republicans believe is in the best interest of all Utahns, says Hughes.

Democrats and the few GOP legislators who voted against HB148 may hoot at those arguments. But it's clear the majority of Republicans in the Utah Legislature are not going quietly into the good night on the voucher issue.

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Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com