As the challenger in the race for Iowa attorney general, Republican candidate Mark Schwickerath knows he faces a tough task.

Incumbent Tom Miller has criss-crossed the country fighting Microsoft and the tobacco companies, crusades that have gained him name recognition and free advertising.

But Schwickerath is ready to take on Miller, who served three terms from 1978 to 1990 and returned for a fourth in 1995.

“If the Iowa taxpayer realized how much Tom Miller is actually spending and how inadequate his record is in the enforcement area, they would be shocked, and that’s the message I need to get out,” Schwickerath said.

Schwickerath, a New Hampton lawyer in his first run for statewide office, accuses Miller of neglecting Iowa to tackle national problems.

“Tom Miller is spending a lot of Iowa taxpayer dollars extending and enhancing his career,” he said, calling Miller’s work “legal fishing expeditions” designed to generate press releases and enhance his political image.

Literature from the Schwickerath campaign cites a spending increase in the attorney general’s office from $2.9 million in fiscal year 1977-78 to $23.3 million in 1996-97.

In that same period, the brochure states the expenditures of the state auditor’s office grew only from $2.6 million to $6.2 million.

“He is failing to focus on juvenile crime and juvenile violence, which are becoming epidemic,” Schwickerath said. “We need an attorney general who will look at that before we have children killing children on the playgrounds.”

Schwickerath advocates drivers’ license suspension and parental notification as punishments for young offenders.

“We are not addressing [juvenile crime] well in Iowa,” he said. “Juveniles aren’t impressed with fines. They don’t care about getting their names in the paper.”

The other key issue on which Schwickerath hammers Miller is methamphetamine control.

“Iowa is known as the methamphetamine capital of the nation,” he said. “That’s the drug scourge — that’s the epidemic we’re facing.”

He suggests forming drug task forces around the state that will combat the production, sale and abuse of meth. Then, Schwickerath said, the task forces can improve themselves by increased communication.

“We can pick out the best things that each is doing and get the attorney general’s office to help share that between the drug task forces, so they can become more efficient,” he said.

It seems like an uphill battle, but Schwickerath said he’s not worried.

Iowans will vote for him, he said, “If they want to raise families here, and help ensure that Iowa is the safest place in the world to raise children.”