He claims it doesn't bother him. "I welcome the comparison," he says.

But he physically brushes away a copy of a newspaper letter to the editor taking the congressman to task for voting for the so-called "torture bill" earlier this month. The writer figures Scott Matheson would be "rolling in his grave." That line was particularly irritating to the governor's son.

"I've seen it," he says, dismissively waving his hand.

The comparisons are inevitable. Utah's lone Democratic member of Congress carries more than the psyche of his political party on his shoulders. He also is the standard-bearer for the Matheson family legacy. And with Democratic loyalists feeling comfortable in the power of his incumbency, more and more are emboldened to challenge his politics as a betrayal of the party generally and his father more specifically.

It was bound to happen after three terms in office, in which he has voted with President Bush on most of the big issues - tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage and immigration reform. This year, he voted 63 percent of the time with the president, according to Congressional Quarterly. As a result, he has alienated many liberal voters in his Democratic base with his efforts to woo Republicans.

Now, facing a fourth bid for re-election and comfortably leading Republican state lawmaker LaVar Christensen, according to the latest polls, Matheson is carefully avoiding controversy, shying away from anything that could upset his predicted landslide. But with some Democrats vowing to vote Green this year - if only to send a message to the incumbent - the questions about his political philosophy could linger after the Nov. 7 election.

One of four Matheson children, the congressman likes to say he learned his politics at the dinner table. The family's Scottish coat of arms has a Latin name: "Hope and Do." The Matheson kids were expected to make the world a better place - whether in politics or sweeping streets. In 1976, at the age of 16, he silk-screened T-shirts for his father's first campaign for governor. Four years later, when his father won a second term, he was studying at Harvard.

He returned to Utah, worked as an energy consultant, married and had a child before he decided to run for the seat representing Utah's 2nd Congressional District - his first bid for office. He and Republican Derek Smith outlasted a host of candidates to face off in the general election six years ago. In 2002 and 2004, Matheson ran for re-election in a gerrymandered, sprawling district the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page called a "scam" and still prevailed against Republican lawmaker John Swallow both years.

Now, facing another GOP state legislator, he apparently has made a Republican district his own. To do it, he has focused on constituent service and votes that blur the margins between Democrat and Republican.

Matheson has three more staffers in Utah - including offices in Price and St. George - than in Washington. They field hundreds of calls a year, helping with foreign adoptions, visas, arranging for long-forgotten military medals.

St. George resident Roy Cloyd, an 83-year-old veteran from Kentucky, called the congressman's office to try to get the Purple Heart he earned more than 41 years ago at the battle of Iwo Jima.

"They sent a lot of us home without the medals we had earned. And we were so anxious to get home, we never stopped to complain about it," Cloyd says. Matheson missed President Bush's speech in Salt Lake City to pin the award on Cloyd at a ceremony in August.

"I'm not a registered Democrat, but I'm very impressed with what he did," Cloyd says.

Julie Cawley Hanson called Matheson's office after her pleas to other Utah congressmen went unanswered. The sister of James Cawley, Utah's first casualty in Iraq, wanted her brother's personal effects and a change in the $6,000 death benefit. Matheson launched an investigation to find Cawley's belongings and introduced legislation to raise that amount to $100,000. Congress has since increased the benefit. Cawley's belongings were never found.

"He lent a listening ear and acted upon it," Hanson says. "That was more than I got from any of the congressional delegates in my party. I just got rhetoric."

While Matheson has distinguished himself for constituent service, he has established a reputation as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. He votes with Republicans on most social issues. He sides with Democrats on most environmental and nuclear issues. He insists he has not become more conservative in the past six years. And he says he wouldn't be different in a different congressional district.

Matheson says he is being true to himself and to his father. "Different time, different place," he says. "But I think my politics and my dad's are real similar."

Those who know both Mathesons say he's right; the son's perspective on issues from budgeting to public lands are not far from his father's. It just may turn out that Scott Matheson was more conservative than many in his political party remember.

"It's not just Jim pandering to the 2nd District. It's Jim being Jim," says former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson. "He's always had a pretty conservative side. He's been a surprise to the Democratic Party. The more liberal element of the party feels a sense of betrayal from Jim. The more practical people in the party are more accepting of it."

GOP legislative candidates whose districts fall within Matheson's lament a "Matheson factor" - Republicans who vote for him feel comfortable breaking party lines in legislative races, too, giving Democratic challengers a three- or four-point boost. There's a flip side to the "Matheson factor." While Matheson was wooing Republicans, he simultaneously lost the backing of many liberal Democratic voters.

This year, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson suggested Utah Democrats vote for Green Party candidate Bob Brister. Anderson says the two Mathesons, father and son, are very different.

"I have no idea what Jim Matheson believes in, if he really does believe in anything," Anderson says. "Jim Matheson votes the way he does so that he can get re-elected.

"Scott Matheson was a good Democrat. He was also very pragmatic. He had a lot of good bipartisan support," the mayor adds. "But he would also stand up and call it like he saw it."

Former first lady Norma Matheson says she is "emotionally distressed" by the comparisons. She knows what her son is facing. She was criticized for standing next to President Clinton 10 years ago when he declared the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument protected wilderness. Many Republicans cast her attendance as a betrayal of her husband's conservative stance on public lands.

"It's offensive to me for anyone to presume they know what Scott would say at a given time or a given place when he isn't here to say it," she says.

Brigham Young University political scientist Kelly Patterson says the debate about Matheson and his father comes down to a traditional schism in Utah's Democratic Party - between liberals and moderates. Matheson may have lost some of the left wing of his party, but more conservative Utah Democrats still will be happy to vote for the congressman.

"It doesn't mean they agree with him on every issue," Patterson says. But "it's in the best interests of the state party to have candidates who can win."

And Matheson has proved he can do that.

walsh@sltrib.com