On Saturday, as car after car rolled by with waving elected officials during Provo's parade, one vehicle was missing its rider. Rep. Jason Chaffetz was instead huffing from one side of the street to the other, shaking hands and chatting for a few seconds with onlookers.

It was a scene indicative of the freshman congressman who has spent his first six months in office away from the safe harbor of anonymity, instead opting for the risky waters of public interaction. That includes becoming a regular source for national print, online and cable news outlets almost since the moment he arrived in Washington, D.C.

But does all the attention make Chaffetz a legitimate rising star or just another shooting star that will eventually crash down to earth?

Chaffetz, who spent more than a decade as a marketing executive with Nu Skin, says that while other politicians shy away from media for whatever reason, he relishes the opportunity.

"There are a lot of members here who are scared to death of a live television interview," he said. "I kind of enjoy it."

There's not much question as to what launched Chaffetz's media ubiquitousness: It was the cot.

He's certainly not the first to sleep in his office and he's not alone - reports are that at least 30 other members of congress do it instead of renting an apartment. But hauling a cheap cot through an airport caught the attention of Politico, the widely read online news source, which did a story.

That was followed by similar stories in the local press as well as other national outlets, from CNN to Fox News.

"He's one of the better people at getting back to reporters, and that pays significant dividends out here," said Daniel Libit, who writes for Politico.

The cot story in turn led to a blog offer from CNN titled "Freshman Year." Jumping into the Twitter wave headfirst garnered Chaffetz additional attention as a young, tech-savvy representative. That's made him a go-to source for government use of new technology, Libit says.

Occasionally he can use the coverage to push legislation such as his bill to restrict the use of full body imaging at airports. But as a relatively powerless member of a weak minority, successful bills are going to be few and far between.

"Republicans being in the minority, we're more in the business of communicating than we are in legislating," Chaffetz said.

Sticking around

Libit says that you don't get punished for being on TV too much in Washington, but at first, Chaffetz said he was a little worried about all the press requests.

Still, he says he has the green light from party leadership for his appearances, even if it means calling them out for their "pathetic job" of communicating with constituents. When the Republican National Committee compared Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a James Bond character, Chaffetz offered a blistering retort via Politico.

"It may get a snide chuckle inside the Beltway, but it offends most people," he said at the time.

That includes people far from Chaffetz's strongly conservative 3rd District. Katie Prown, a self-described liberal who lives in Illinois, first spotted Chaffetz on CNN.

"He comes across as a leader for a new generation of Republicans who recognize the need to clean house and move the party back to its roots," she said.

But the political landscape is littered with the dead careers of those who try to clean house or simply put their foot in their mouth at the wrong moment. A little criticism may be tolerated, but the line often comes up hard and fast.

"If he crosses that line, you're going to get a very different story," said Richard Davis, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University and head of the Utah County Democratic Party.

Media attention can get you points with constituents and the public, like Prown, but what it can't deliver is seniority and expertise, which requires time.

Chaffetz, as the new darling of the 3rd District that he wrested from Chris Cannon in November, will probably have that if he doesn't take any massive public missteps.

"Odds are that he will be around," concedes Davis.

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