Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

This is the guy who took on Gov. Mark Warner in a redistricting battle that ended up before the Virginia Supreme Court, and won. This is the guy who upon learning about potentially illegal Republican eavesdropping, immediately brought in the State Police, doing the right thing. This is the guy who won the skirmish to have the DC snipers tried first in Virginia. And this is the guy, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, who has gone after illegal aliens in Virginia.

Yes, we're talking about Jerry W. Kilgore, 42nd attorney general of Virginia and the odds-on favorite to be the GOP nominee for governor in 2005.

When the reserved, soft-spoken Scott County native was tapped in January 1994 to be newly elected Gov. George Allen's secretary of public safety, one or two people scratched their heads, wondering if someone barely in his 30s and looking even younger could run a secretariat with more than $10 billion running through its books.

It also would fall to no small extent on the young Kilgore's shoulders to lead the legislative fight for the new governor's signature campaign promise: abolishing what Allen had so often called Virginia's "liberal, lenient parole system."

A lot rested with Kilgore in those early years. While he'd been both a state and federal prosecutor in Southwest Virginia, some wondered if he was up to all that had been given to him.

Clearly, he was. Kilgore spent four years with Allen running a secretariat that included the state police, the huge department of corrections, and the state's Army and air militia. He oversaw a massive prison-building program. And he proved more than skillful in working the Democratic-controlled General Assembly that in Allen's first year as governor was debating his parole abolition proposal.

Allen won that battle. In surprisingly quick order -- though not without a lot of political tit-for-tat -- the legislature approved the popular Allen's plan and effectively ended parole in Virginia. The young Kilgore was given kudos for helping win the marquee fight and thus set the tone for the rest of Allen's years as governor.

Allen built on that first victory and went on to reform the state's antiquated juvenile justice system, reform its secondary education system and set higher academic standards, reform welfare, and create some 350,000 new jobs. Allen was clearly one of the most progressive -- and successful -- governors in modern times.

You have to wonder, however, whether Allen could've accomplished all that if Kilgore had not done such a good job in helping win that first, key victory. Put another way, if the Democratic legislature had beaten back the parole abolition proposal, would it not have had the upper hand with the populist Allen and then been so much less cooperative with him on everything else?

The Republican Kilgore and Warner, a Democrat, were elected to their current offices on the same day two years ago. In fact, Kilgore received more statewide votes in his attorney general race than Warner in his bid for governor. A rather rare thing it is for a down-ticket candidate to lead the top on a statewide ballot.

Just a year after taking office, Kilgore found himself in two headline cases. First, he gladly took up the case to defend the redistricting law passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly when Democrats challenged it as racially motivated and thus unconstitutional. While a circuit court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the case eventually made its way to the state Supreme Court. Warner brought in a highly regarded Stanford law professor to argue the case for the Democrats. The justices heard the arguments before a packed courtroom and then ruled within a couple of months -- unanimously -- in favor of Kilgore and the Republicans. Score a big legal -- and political -- victory for Kilgore.

While the redistricting case was being litigated, however, news reached Kilgore in his downtown office that some wayward state party Republicans had eavesdropped on a Democratic conference call where political and legal strategies had been discussed. Kilgore, without blinking, referred the matter to the state police for investigation. That led to federal charges being filed against Republican operatives and convictions being secured. Score a moral -- and yet another political -- victory for Kilgore.

Now, in his second year in office, the young attorney general has continued to win one after another. When Virginia, DC, and Maryland were angling for dibs on the two sniper suspects who terrorized the national capital region, Kilgore touted Virginia's new domestic terrorism laws -- not to mention the state's death penalty record -- as reasons to try them in the Old Dominion. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft agreed and sent the defendants to courtrooms in Fairfax and Prince William counties.

Kilgore now has pushed through the General Assembly legislation making it ever more difficult for illegal aliens to gain societal legitimacy by getting a Virginia driver's licenses and qualifying for in-state tuition rates. The Republican General Assembly passed those bills and the Democratic governor signed them. Yet more victories for Kilgore.

It's becoming clear that Virginians of all stripes (including Democrats and independents) are increasingly supportive of the man who time and again has done the right thing. No matter the issue - legal, political, or moral - he has stepped up to the plate, and he has consistently won.

Kilgore is a man for our state's times. He knows his job, and he does it.

Jerry Kilgore will be the Republican nominee for governor in 2005. And if he keeps going like he has, he'll take the oath of office in 2006.