Nearly 40 points ahead in the polls and with 20 times the campaign cash that Democratic challenger Paul Van Dam has, Bennett probably could sit in his Virginia town house and win a third six-year term. He is trying to avoid such arrogant presumptions.

"My first term was kind of heady. My second, we had the Olympics," Bennett says. "With a little more seniority, I can be even more helpful. I'm in a position to be of even more benefit to the state."

While Bennett tries to avoid looking lackadaisical, Van Dam is throwing care to the wind. He has gently poked fun at the senator's absence throughout much of the campaign - taking a picture of Bennett's head, glued to a stick, to meet-the-candidate nights and recording a version of "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" that doubles as a campaign ad.

"I'm just enjoying the campaign," Van Dam says. "What else can you do?"

There isn't much else a Democrat in his position can do. The 2004 Senate race is a case study of lopsided Utah politics. A Salt Lake Tribune poll published Friday found that 55 percent of 1,200 voters surveyed statewide identify themselves as Republican, compared to 17 percent who say they are Democrats and 15 percent who are independent. Bennett was the choice of 61 percent of those surveyed, while Van Dam stood at 23 percent.

Still, they campaign on. Both say this election fight is not just for show.

"You just never know what's going to happen," Van Dam says. "It's always been about making a statement, doing the best you can. The fight, the process is the whole thing."

Brigham Young University political science professor Kelly Patterson says Van Dam deserves credit for continuing in the face of discouraging circumstances against an "effective and popular senator."

"There's always a purpose. There's something noble about providing individuals with choices even when the majority of voters seem to be comfortable with the other choice," says Patterson, director of the university's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. "In the end, that's the only guarantee you have of democratic accountability."

While pointed, the debate between Van Dam and Bennett has been cordial. In other circumstances, the two men might be friends. From the same generation, both Utah-born and -bred, Van Dam and Bennett approach politics with the same courtly, esoteric manner. The race is a gentlemen's contest.

The son of a Salt Lake City ironworker and homemaker, 67-year-old Van Dam tried to make it in a band after graduating from high school. When that failed, he followed his father into iron working and put himself through the University of Utah Law School.

In 1974, he was elected Salt Lake County attorney. He decided not to run for a second term. But politics bit again in 1988 when he successfully challenged Republican Attorney General David Wilkinson for his seat. Again, he chose not to run for re-election. He resisted until last year, when the unfolding war in Iraq compelled him to end his retirement on a sailboat in the Caribbean and run for office.

Van Dam criticizes Bennett for being too willing to accept President Bush's version of the war, tax cuts, nuclear weapons testing, the Medicare drug benefit and federal budget deficits. Bennett, Van Dam says, should not brag about the money he brings home for projects - pork - when they add to the federal red ink.

"It's inconceivable that you don't live within your budget," Van Dam says. "It's irresponsible to load up the future, your children and grandchildren, with your debts. Even if it disadvantages our state, somebody's got to be the first. Somebody's got to be an example" for responsible spending.

Bennett counters that those "pork" projects included the pre-Olympic Interstate 15 rebuild and TRAX light-rail train lines. He figures his seniority - and seat on appropriations committees - helped secure that money. That's why, Bennett says, he needs to go back to Washington.

In a life brushed by both the Watergate scandal and reclusive billionaire aviator Howard Hughes, Bennett's longest job has been his two terms in the U.S. Senate.

The 71-year-old youngest son of five-term senator Wallace Bennett, he immersed himself in politics early on. Bennett studied political science at the University of Utah, worked on his father's 1962 campaign, worked as a press secretary for then-Congressman Sherm Lloyd and took as job as a JC Penney lobbyist.

One political job, his work for the Nixon campaign in 1968, followed him for 30 years as journalists and others speculated he was "Deep Throat," a source for Washington Post stories on Watergate. The scandal seemed to end his Washington career. Bennett has steadfastly denied he was the source.

After short stints at Hughes Air West, Osmond Communication, a fledgling personal computer manufacturer and a company that made tiny records to go inside Fisher Price toys, Bennett became president of Franklin, a Utah-based personal organizer company. Those six years made him a millionaire in time for his re-entry into politics - a heated race for Senate against first Republican Joe Cannon and then Democrat Wayne Owens. Bennett prevailed.

Still inspired by the American statesmen - Adams, Jefferson, Washington - he read about in his university classes, Bennett says he has found his avocation. "I still use as a senator the things I learned as an 18-year-old," Bennett says. "My political science degree has been very valuable to me."

In a third term, Bennett says he would try to resolve the looming Social Security and Medicare funding crises, lobby for legislation limiting nuclear weapons testing in Nevada and push to reform federal income tax law - an idea he first suggested 12 years ago.