ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 4, 1996 TAG: 9612040051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO POLITICS ATTORNEY
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
Jerry Kilgore says if Virginians like the way the Allen administration has dealt with crime, then they'll like him for the state's next attorney general.
The state secretary of public safety - stressing his role as Allen's point man for abolishing parole and building more prisons - on Tuesday became the first of four expected candidates to formally declare he is running for the Republican nomination for attorney general in 1997.
Nevertheless, Kilgore is a relative latecomer to a crowded field where other contenders - state Sen. Kenneth Stolle of Virginia Beach, state Sen. Mark Earley of Chesapeake and Northern Virginia lawyer Gil Davis - have been busy lining up support among Republican Party activists for the past year.
Kilgore's challenge was highlighted by Hugh Key, the Republican chairman of Roanoke County who attended Kilgore's announcement even though he signed up months ago to support Stolle. "He's very well qualified for attorney general," Key said of Kilgore. "I wish he had decided somewhat earlier to get in because some people have already chosen sides in this race."
Kilgore, however, said his rural roots - he hails from Scott County on the Virginia-Tennessee line - and his ties to Gov. George Allen give him a fighting chance to win the Republican nomination in the June primary.
While announcing his candidacy on the steps of the Roanoke Courthouse, Kilgore recalled critics who questioned Allen's decision three years ago to tap him, a former assistant federal prosecutor and then-assistant commonwealth's attorney, for a Cabinet post.
"When my appointment was announced, there were those throughout Virginia who wondered whether a rural prosecutor from Southwest Virginia, certainly one who talked with a twang like me, could handle the job of Virginia's secretary of public safety," Kilgore said. "Three years later, we invite those doubting Thomases to look at the record."
He said Allen's changes in the state's criminal justice system have made Virginia "the model for criminal justice reform across the nation." And he said the Allen administration deserves some of the credit for the state's violent crime rate falling by 12 percent in the past year - twice as much as the national average.
"Our get-tough-on-crime policies are working, and Virginia is now a safer place to live, work and raise a family," he said.
Kilgore, who is leaving his Cabinet job at the end of this week, also said he would push for "greater personal disclosures" for those who hold public office and unspecified "campaign finance reform and changes to the judicial selection process," which he said he would elaborate on later in the campaign.
He also made it clear that geography plays a part in his political calculations. "I feel there's a big opportunity. I'm the only candidate in the race from rural Virginia and that helps, considering the Republican Party of the '90s relies on a strong rural vote to win elections."
Attorney General Jim Gilmore is in line to become the Republican candidate for governor in 1997. So far, the only Democrat mentioned for the attorney general's nomination is Arlington lawyer Bill Dolan, who lost to Gilmore in 1993.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL Staff. Secretary of Public Safety Jerryby CNBKilgore announces his run for attorney general Tuesday on the steps
of the Roanoke Courthouse.