You're John McCain.

Polls show your "presidential exploratory" campaign, weighed down by your steadfast support for the Iraq war, is struggling to find traction. But Wednesday night you told David Letterman - and millions of American viewers - that you are definitely running for president. You're back in everyone's minds.

So what now, senator? Do you hit up the girls at "The View," visit Oprah and talk to Jay? Do you fly to New Hampshire and Iowa? Do you head home to Arizona to rally long-time supporters?

No. You go to Utah - a state many believe will belong to a rival candidate come the state's Republican primary and a place even fewer think will even be in flux in the 2008 general election.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and part-time Utah resident, is widely regarded as the heavily Mormon state's presidential frontÂÆrunner. And if McCain does win the national Republican nomination, the "reddest state in the nation" is more than likely already in his corner.

So why is McCain spending precious time in a state where the votes may already have been counted?

McCain said his trip to Utah - he was invited by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and was the scheduled keynote speaker at a conference of business executives in Park City on Thursday - was scheduled before the Letterman appearance.

"I was grateful for Gov. Huntsman's support and we were able to get together with some other supporters," McCain said.

But Utah State University professor Peter Galderisi, who lectures on party politics and elections, said even if the timing of McCain's trip to Utah was coincidental, it "may not be a bad idea."

"If he can get support and money in Utah, which obviously has a religious connection to Romney as well as an ideological one, it's like saying 'I'm still a contender. I can play his home turf,'" Galderisi said.

McCain is not the only person to make forays into other candidates' terrain. Republican frontrunner Rudy Guliani is planning a March 30 trip to Utah, where he's expecting to raise $200,000 at a private fundraiser. And Romney has tapped popular Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to carry his banner in Arizona. This election more than any before, said Michael Lyons, Galderisi's colleague at USU, polling and funding momentum appears to have taken paramount importance to voter involvement.

"The rules of presidential nominations are being written in fundamentally different ways this year," Lyons said. "The term we're using to describe it is 'a primary of inevitability,' which means you raise so much money and get so much media attention and create so much buzz about your candidacy that long before the Iowa caucuses and long before the New Hampshire primary, the other candidates decide it's pointless too try to compete with you."

McCain insisted he wasn't trying to develop an insurmountable lead over his rivals and argued that the early campaigning was and fund-raising "is really driven, to a large degree, by how early this primary is going to be decided."

A number of states - including delegate-heavy Florida, Illinois, Texas and California - have pushed up their primary elections to the first week of February. "They've crowded the primary up and so that crowds up the campaigning," McCain said.

Yet McCain said he didn't believe that would crowd out candidates. "I don't think people really start focusing on candidates and making up their minds until rather late."

But campaign financing watchdog Nick Nyhart said candidates who haven't brought in considerable cash by April 1 - when the first campaign finance reports are due - will be nudged aside.

"Right now, they're spending a disproportionate amount of their time fundraising," said Nyhart, president of Public Campaign, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting campaign reform.

And money "is a major reason candidates go where they go," Nyhart said. "Almost anywhere you go at this point, you'll be fundraising."

McCain spokesman Danny Diaz acknowledged that part of the senator's visit to Utah indeed would be devoted to raising money. "The process is what it is," Diaz said. "And all we can control is how vigorously we communicate our message."

That didn't include any appearances open to the public on this trip, but Diaz said there would be others.

"We look forward to spending time in Utah and we look forward to returning again," he said.

mlaplante@sltrib.com

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* THOMAS BURR contributed to this report.