Tom Miller is accustomed to leading.

He served as student body president and compiled the top grade-point average in his classes at both Loras College and Harvard Law School.

He wrestled the attorney general’s office away from incumbent Richard Turner in 1978 and went on to serve three terms.

And after an unsuccessful try at the Democratic nomination for governor, he returned in 1994 for a fourth term as Iowa’s chief law enforcement officer.

This fall, he is running for re-election against Republican challenger Mark Schwickerath.

Despite the battleground atmosphere of election season, Miller’s campaign manager said his candidate works hard to keep the office free of party politics.

“That’s one of the things he’s most proud of, is having a non-partisan office,” said Kevin McCarthy, a longtime Miller aide.

“Tom’s main goal in the ’70s was to change the office from political to professional,” McCarthy said. “That’s been very successful. There are now non-partisan, career professionals who go to work every day [for the attorney general].”

One of Miller’s definite advantages in the race is his investigation of the tobacco companies’ smoking guns and his battles against the expansion of Microsoft. In fact, he is the head of the National Attorney Generals’ anti-trust committee.

Schwickerath has criticized Miller for abandoning Iowa while doing this work, but Miller stands behind his crusades.

“To say that this somehow doesn’t have an effect in Iowa is just shocking,” Miller said. “[Schwickerath] must be on another planet if he doesn’t think tobacco has an effect in Iowa.”

More than 5,000 Iowans die every year from tobacco-related diseases, Miller said, 100 times the homicide rate and 30 times the drunk-driving fatality rate.

“It’s an enormous amount of life, suffering and consequences for families,” he said.

Miller is also ahead of the pack in another area — consumer protection.

“Tom has really developed himself into the national model of what should be done,” McCarthy said. “We are the national leader.”

Iowa investigators have nabbed numerous telephone scammers by routing victims’ phone lines into the attorney general’s office, McCarthy said. When the violators call again, they unwittingly sell their scam to a member of the sting operation.

“Iowa was the first state to develop this technique for getting evidence and convicting people who were doing telemarketing fraud, particularly against the elderly,” Miller said, adding that the FBI and about 25 states adopted the strategy after seeing its success in Iowa.

McCarthy said the stings have been so effective that telemarketers in other states have posted “Do Not Call Iowa” signs in their phone banks.