Chaffetz started Maxtera, a marketing/communication firm with his brother. Their top client was a firm in Arizona, where he moved for around nine months with his young family. But Chaffetz said he and Julie missed Utah County. "It's home to us." So he quit and moved back to Utah.

Around the same time in 2003 he heard that Jon Huntsman Jr. might run for governor in 2004. "I knew of him and wanted to meet him." A friend set up an appointment, and soon Chaffetz was working on the campaign as communications director. When the campaign manager quit, Huntsman made Chaffetz the manager.

"I like to joke that I wasn't qualified. I'd never run a campaign before. He said that was OK. He'd never been a candidate before. We learned together." After Huntsman's victory, Chaffetz said he was surprised Huntsman asked him to be his chief of staff. "I hadn't done that, either. He said that was OK. He'd never been a governor before."

Chaffetz said he learned a lot with Huntsman — candidate and governor — mainly how to form policy and implement it.

"We had a very good first year" of the Huntsman administration, says Chaffetz. "Not trying to be pretentious, I know I can be a good congressman and represent these 850,000 people. I don't have all the answers. But as chief of staff I saw up close that I can do" the congressman's job "better than Chris Cannon, every day."

After almost a year as chief of staff, Chaffetz resigned and went back to Maxtera, where his main clients are a subsection of the Ford Motor Co., Omni Brokerage in South Jordan and Orchard Securities in Sandy. Chaffetz said his clients have nothing to do with his campaign. And the Maxtera Web site says the firm is taking on no new clients until Chaffetz's campaign is over.

In the state Republican Convention, Chaffetz came within nine votes of eliminating Cannon. "Getting so close (and failing) is painful. Now we have to beat him in the primary. Cannon has to go, either me or someone else — the public wants a change, now or in two years."

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com