But that doesn't mean the Republican challenger won't attack the 2nd Congressional District incumbent this election year for an earlier vote against the law.

Swallow's camp started airing television ads Friday - titled "Company You Keep" - lumping the two-term Democrat with national liberals like Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, who have endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

But the ad goes further. "Jim Matheson votes with John Kerry time and time again," the narrator says. The examples cited are the abortion ban and "votes for taxpayer-funded abortion."

In 2002, Matheson first voted for a version of the controversial "Partial Birth Abortion Act," saying his stance was consistent with Utah's late-term abortion statutes. When the law was changed the same year to eliminate an exception for the mother's health, Matheson voted against it. Finally, the same bill came up for a vote in June of last year and Matheson voted with the rest of Utah's delegation, citing his constituents' feelings about the issue.

At the time, the Deseret News quoted Swallow saying, "I'll never criticize someone for voting the right way."

Swallow insists his ad is not inconsistent with that pledge. "I'm going to talk about his earlier vote," Swallow said this week. "I feel that's fair to talk about."

The transcript of the political commercial ends: "John Swallow. He stands firmly with President Bush, protecting our families and the unborn."

Matheson, who has taken pains to represent his heavily Republican statewide district, counters that his opponent is going back on his word.

"This is just an election-year stunt," Matheson said. "I was up-front when I made that change in my position. I'm happy to talk about any of my votes."

Matheson says Swallow is mischaracterizing not only his votes, but the legislation. He notes that four of the votes Swallow highlights in his ad - including one date that was incorrect - were for legislation allowing U.S. military personnel to have abortions in military hospitals if they would pay the cost themselves. Matheson notes that Swallow did nothing during his six years in the Utah Legislature to change the state's more liberal partial-birth abortion law.

Brigham Young University political science professor Kelly Patterson calls Swallow's political commercial a "hard-hitting contrast ad."

"Sometimes in those contrast ads, candidates play a little fast and loose with the history and the facts," Patterson says. "That oftentimes allows the candidate to say something that's technically true, but isn't the complete truth."

The law Swallow criticizes Matheson for rejecting at first has been thrown out by federal courts in California, Nebraska, New York and Virginia as unconstitutional because it does not include an exception for the mother's health and would block some routine early abortions in the first and second trimester. All the cases are expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 2004 Legislature adopted similar legislation, but when the Center for Reproductive Rights sued the state on behalf of the Utah Women's Clinic, state leaders agreed to hold the law in abeyance until the federal court fight is resolved.

Swallow's campaign strategy follows a model set by Derek Smith in Matheson's first race four years ago. Smith sent out mailings with headlines like "San Francisco liberals love Jim Matheson" and "Why are liberals like Jane Fonda backing Jim Matheson?" Two years ago, Swallow's campaign again tried to link Matheson to liberal national Democrats.

Patterson, director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, says Swallow is trying to bring Republican voters home with a value-laden message - true or not.

"He needs to mobilize his base," Patterson said. "You do that with the bread-and-butter issues that have made Republicans popular in the district - those are moral issues."

A Salt Lake Tribune poll the last week of September showed Swallow trailing Matheson by 25 points. And, in a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll earlier this week, Swallow seemed to have slipped even further, back 32 percentage points.

Matheson figures his opponent is watching his poll numbers and deciding to dig into the mud. "It's an act of desperation," he said.