Matheson baffling GOP leaders

Jim Matheson is driving national and Utah Republican leaders nuts.

Together, the Republicans are pouring millions of dollars into the campaign against the 2nd Congressional District Democrat.

But they're not making much headway, at least not yet.

National political journals are saying the 2nd District, held by GOP representatives for much of the 1990s, is leaning Democratic in this election. Even national party leaders are wondering what's happening here.

A new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll to be published Sunday will show the race in the same status where it's been for months. Republican Derek Smith just isn't moving much against Matheson, who holds a double-digit lead.

Utah's 2nd District is seen as a key race in the Republicans' bid to keep a majority in the U.S. House. Republicans hold a slim six-vote lead now and only a couple of dozen close races — including Utah's —will decide the majority in the 435-member body next year.

Matheson's TV ads have especially frustrated Republicans.

"You look at his ads, he's running away from the Democratic Party label. He's running away from his party's presidential nominee. He's trying to get away with something," said Scott Simpson, state Republican Party executive director.

"Not so. I am who I am," Matheson said. "We sat down, discussed the issues important to me. And we made those ads. They're not liberal or conservative."

While the GOP strategists are trying to cast Matheson as a national Democrat, big on taxes, soft on moral issues like abortion or gun control, Matheson in ad after ad talks about conservative fiscal principles, not trusting the federal government, paying down the national debt, giving tax cuts, protecting people's private information from the Internet and giving prescription coverage to seniors and all Utahns the unrestricted ability to select their doctors and health treatments.

At every turn, Matheson seems to have an answer to Republicans, sometimes out front of the GOP attacks.

For example, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is spending $1 million on "soft money" ads against Matheson and for Smith, two weeks ago started running an advertisement criticizing Matheson for voting for a small Salt Lake City water rate increase when he served on a citizen advisory board. But that's not much to pin a "tax-and-spend Democrat" label on him.

"Sure. It's tough. He doesn't have a record. He didn't have a primary to help define him," says Simpson.