The specifics about the latest embarrassment or outrage on Capitol Hill vary, but there is a common theme: Why do we keep electing these people?

Well, there's one very big reason. Too often, the folks who complain the loudest don't take the trouble to do the one thing - apart from voting in November - that will give them a voice in changing the status quo that so often irks them. They fail to attend their neighborhood political party caucuses, where delegates to the Republican and Democratic conventions are selected. These are the delegates who in turn vote for the candidates they want to place on their party's ballot for the primary and general elections to come.

The consequences of this pervasive political apathy are many, but one overshadows all. Utah has gradually, over the past quarter century, evolved into a largely single-party state. The fact that a majority of Utahns vote Republican isn't, by itself, necessarily unhealthy. The problem, for Democrats, independents, moderate Republicans and the state as a whole, is that Utah's GOP has increasingly fallen under the sway of the most ideologically driven and highly organized wing of the party.

Nowhere is the the grip of radical conservatism stronger than in the Utah Legislature, where Republican candidates of all bents must pay more than lip service to the right-wing purists - think Utah Eagle Forum - or risk being shunned by a majority of delegates to the state party convention, or be made to battle a more conservative candidate in the party primary.

The success of the Republican right in setting the state's political agenda begins at the party caucuses, which are scheduled for this Tuesday at 7 p.m. (To find the location of your voting precinct's party caucus, visit that party's Web site: www.utdemocrats.org or www.utgop.org.)

If you are a Republican who believes your party's power center has moved too far to the right, you should be there. If you are a Democrat who believes that your party is out of step with Utah's moderate mainstream, show up.

But if you don't mind living in a state controlled by a relatively small minority of political ideologues - the ones who pushed private school vouchers last year and who don't care a fig for ethics reform - then stay home Tuesday.

But for heaven's sake, don't moan about it later when the Legislature - the one we elect in November - continues to feel it has carte blanche to continue to skirt the moderate ground underlying the majority of Utah's electorate.