The Republican and Democratic candidates for attorney general are clashing over the incument’s performance in office. Democrat Tom Miller has been Iowa’s attorney general for 32 years. Republican Adam Gregg is an attorney who left his job in Governor Terry Branstad’s office to run against Miller.

“He refuses to travel the state to meet with Iowans who, after all, are his clients,” Gregg says. “(Miller) sides with the Obama administration every chance he gets and on top of that he’s got a disturbing trend of soliciting the targets of his investigations for campaign contributions.”

Miller denies the charges.

“Adam, you couldn’t be more wrong. You’ve got a litany there where you’ve hit each point incorrectly,” Miller says. “I do travel the state. I do take very seriously my responsibility to communicate with constituents and know what they’re thinking about.”

While a few other statewide races on November’s ballot feature candidates from other parties as well as Democrats and Republicans, the attorney general’s race is a just two-person contest between the Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger. Gregg, who is waging his first campaign for elected office, is accusing Miller of running a partisan operation.

“It seems like every opportunity he gets he’s siding with the Obama Administration,” Gregg says. “It’s gotten so bad, in fact, he seems like Obama’s lawyer instead of Iowa’s lawyer.”

Miller calls that “nonsense” and cites his bipartisan work on a law that toughens penalities for those found guilty of human trafficking, as well as his opposition to the Obama Administration’s proposed regulation of water on farms.

“I’m the lawyer for the people of Iowa, for the ordinary Iowan, for state government — for Governor Branstad and the agencies,” Miller says. “…What I do in this office is I call ’em as I see ’em.”

Yesterday Miller and Gregg appeared together for the taping of the “Iowa Press” program that airs tonight on Iowa Public Television.