Jason Chaffetz, the Republican candidate for the Third Congressional District, defeated incumbent Chris Cannon in the primary by running a campaign on a shoestring. But this week he's been in Washington huddling with political action committees and trying to shake the money tree. It appears he's finding some difficulty on that score.

Since he campaigned so hard for a new approach to politics, it's interesting to see him now trying to make nice with the PAC machine.

So certain is Chaffetz of winning, he's spending money on a junket to Alaska with a group of other congressional hopefuls to evaluate oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, a lobbying group that promotes energy development in the region.

It's a good thing that Chaffetz is trying to educate himself on issues like oil. But questions linger about whether he understands what being an effective congressman will mean.

Take appropriations earmarks, for example. He denounces them as pork-barrel politics, but he is naive. "Until there's reform, I will not ask for them. They're a cancer within the system, and I want to extract them," he said this week ... from Washington.

It's surprising that enough Third District voters bought this line to nominate Chaffetz for congress. Blaming earmarks for the nation's problems is a misdiagnosis. Cutting them won't trim the federal budget by a nickel. All that would happen is that your own elected representatives would no longer have a say in how your tax dollars are spent; federal bureaucrats would decide where to send your tax dollars.

Chaffetz's stump speech about earmarks seemed to play to a certain crowd. But rejecting earmarks (aside from being beyond the power of a single congressman) would be bad for Utah. Earmarks for this state have been fought for and won by some solid citizens like Sen. Bob Bennett, for example, whom Chaffetz criticizes. Bennett, with other senators, passed more than $200 million in appropriations for important Utah transportation, water and energy projects.

If Jason Chaffetz wins the election in November (which is not certain, by the way) will he oppose all appropriations for projects in Utah? One might wonder if he wants to make progress, or just make waves.

A member of Congress has to learn to work within a frustrating system and to collaborate with colleagues of all kinds, mastering the minutiae of policy and procedure, year after year, slowly accumulating seniority in the Capitol. If he wins in November (again, "if") we'll be watching to see how he translates words to action.

In the past, virtually any Republican of good character would be a sure thing in the Third District. But this year, many political rules have been broken, and Chaffetz will not be a shoo-in. There is even quiet talk in the Republican Party that it would be better if the Democrat, Bennion Spencer, won the Third District seat.

On that score, here's an interesting fact from the canvass of the June 24 primary: Turnout among unaffiliated voters (who can vote if they register with the GOP) was less than 1 percent. In Utah, there are more unaffiliated voters than Republicans and Democrats combined. Failure to draw a significant number of those voters would be a weakness for any candidate, and Chaffetz failed to motivate them to vote in June.

Chaffetz's style, inconsistency and attacks have turned off a good many Republicans. This should make things interesting going forward.