In the quiet political landscape of the upcoming statewide election, one race has the potential to make a lot of noise.

The bid for attorney general pits two skilled candidates, Democrat Steve Bullock and Republican Tim Fox, both of Helena, in a wide-open race.

The stakes are high. Republicans, who have called the race one of their top priorities this election, haven't held the state attorney general seat since 1993, when former Gov. Marc Racicot left the office to become governor. Current Attorney General Mike McGrath so firmly dominated the office in his 2004 re-election campaign, Republicans didn't bother running anyone against him.

Both Fox and Bullock have long been involved in their political parties, have lengthy and diverse legal careers and have shown the ability to raise campaign money and spend it effectively. In a race that could likely turn on television ads, both are also tall, athletic, charming and well-spoken.

They both have experienced advisers on their side. Bullock is working with Democratic consultant Doug Mitchell, a veteran of Sen. Max Baucus' staff who has run many successful campaigns in the past. Fox's campaign manager is Chuck Denowh, the aggressive former executive director of the Montana Republican Party.

And Bullock has already run two successful statewide campaigns: former Attorney General Joe Mazurek's in 1992 and the enormously successful 2006 ballot initiative that raised the state's minimum wage for the first time since 1997 and provides yearly cost-of-living adjustments.

But the race is about more than either candidate.

For the Republicans, the seat is a chance to take some ground long held by Democrats and score a significant victory after losing the governor's chair and control of the Legislature in 2004, along with watching Democrat Jon Tester knock off longtime Republican incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns in 2006.

Democrats, however, are not ceding an inch. The attorney general seat has been theirs for almost a generation and they intend to keep it. The party is likely to get some help from Baucus, who has amassed a sizable war chest and has no real opposition in his bid for a sixth term.

First, some introductions:

Steve Bullock

Bullock, 42, is a family man. He and his wife Lisa have three children under the age of 7 and it's not uncommon for a conversation with Bullock to begin with a discussion of politics, but end with a story about his daughters' first fishing trip or the joys of splashing in the Missouri River with his 2-year-old son, Cameron.

Born in Missoula, Bullock moved to Helena when he was 4. His parents divorced when he was in grade school and his mother, Penny, raised Bullock and his older brother, Bill, mostly on her own. Bullock describes a fairly typical Montana childhood. His family was never rich; even as a kid he mowed lawns and delivered the newspaper for spending money. He spent a lot of time hiking in the mountains around town, fishing in nearby rivers and boating the Missouri River.

An avid long-distance runner, Bullock ran cross country and track at Helena High School. He was a wrestler, Boy's State and Boy's Nation delegate and student-body president.

"Helena was an idyllic place to grow up," he said. "I'd leave my keys in the car. My friends were an extended family. That's probably the principal reason Lisa and I wanted to raise our kids here."

At nights in high school, Bullock worked as a busboy at El Vaquero Mexican restaurant. In the summers, he was the gas boy at the Gates of the Mountains tour boat concession, later working his way up to tour boat pilot. Even now, decades later, Bullock can rattle off the monologue he recited thousands of times as he steered his tourist-laden boat: "Six miles down the river, then we'll make a brief stop at the picnic area. ..."

When he was in late high school, Bullock's mom married Jack Copps, now the superintendent of Billings School District 2, and Bullock's family expanded to include three step-siblings, an older sister and twin boys the same age as him.

Bullock earned a combined political science, philosophy and economics degree in 1988 at Claremont McKenna College, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. He typically worked two jobs through school but still needed student loans to graduate on time.

After graduation, he took a job with an annuities and investment firm in Philadelphia. It was a job that might have put him on a wealthy path. But it was far from home, Bullock said, and the salary wasn't worth a lifetime of doing something he didn't like. So he moved home, took a job with the Montana Democratic Party and got his old job back as the Gates of the Mountains tour boat pilot.

That fall he started law school at Columbia Law School in New York City.

In late 1996, almost three years out of law school and working his way up the ladder at big, East Coast law firms, family and the pull of home brought Bullock back to Helena. His father was dying of lung cancer. Bullock moved back to care for him.

He landed a job at the Secretary of State's office working for Democrat Mike Cooney, and moved over to the Attorney General's office shortly thereafter as Mazurek's chief deputy.

Shortly after he moved back home, Bullock caught up with, Lisa Downs, a girl with whom he'd gone to high school. She was in town working with Habitat for Humanity to build a shelter for homeless men and women in downtown Helena.

"I called her up, not intending to date or anything but we ended up dating," Bullock said. He proposed to her while cross-country skiing near Seeley Lake. They were married in Helena in 1999.

"We mostly spend time playing with the kids, going to the farmer's market, going to church," he said of his weekends.

While Bullock cut his political teeth in 1992 managing Mazurek's bid for attorney general, he re-introduced himself to voters in a big way in 2006. Bullock directed the push behind Initiative 151, the successful ballot drive that increased Montana's minimum wage, which passed by better than a 2-to-1 margin.

He said he is running for attorney general because he wants his own children and all Montana children to have the same opportunities he had: the chance to fish and hike on public lands, to be safe in their towns and to be protected from people who would victimize them.

"Having served in the attorney general's office, I truly believe that this single elected office can meaningfully impact our quality of life," Bullock said. "There is so much more that can be done. I want to do it."

Tim Fox

Fox, 51, likes to list the "many blessings" he enjoyed growing up in small-town Hardin, surrounded by family and wide-open country.

"I had wonderful, loving parents and big brothers," said Fox, the youngest of five boys.

His parents and aunts and uncles ran small businesses together, including a Chrysler dealership, a farm-equipment distributorship and a gas station, where all the kids were expected to work.

As a teenager, Fox changed oil, pumped gas and catalogued parts in addition to delivering the local paper.

His cousins lived just a short walk away. They all had "shirt-sleeve tans" in the summer, Fox said, from running around catching frogs. Fox's mother made sure her boys knew how to cook and sew and do laundry, he added.

Their house was filled with music. His father played the violin, his mother was musically gifted and all the Fox boys played instruments.

At Hardin High School, Fox played trumpet in the band, but he gained his fame -- and his ticket out of town -- as a runner. Fox went to the University of Montana on a track scholarship, where he set several records for the hurdles and earned a degree in geology in 1981.

Fox took his first professional job as a drilling engineer in Wyoming's oil fields, near Evanston.

"They were booming," he said, recalling living in a "man camp" where some desperate men lived all winter in thin backpacking tents. An industry bust came shortly after and Fox, along with many other at his company, lost his job late in 1982. He began training for the 1984 Olympics, but his dreams were dashed by a torn hamstring and he didn't attend the trials.

He turned his sights to graduate school, choosing a joint master's in public administration and law degree program at the University of Montana. Fox graduated from law school in 1987, but fell one course and a professional paper short of his MPA.

He worked as a Montana Supreme Court clerk for a year before moving to Billings to work for an established firm, Moulton Bellingham. Later, Fox took a job with the state Board of Oil and Gas and later started his own firm in Billings.

There Fox married his first wife, Mary Jo, a devoted Republican like him, who later worked on Gov. Marc Racicot's 1992 and 1996 campaigns and serving as Racicot's policy adviser, and then briefly as a spokeswoman for Gov. Judy Martz, Racicot's successor.

Their marriage ended more than 11 years ago, but it produced Fox's daughter Caroline, now 15 and a sophomore at Billings Skyview High School. Fox loves to brag about her and is obviously devoted.

Fox later moved to Helena to take a job as a lawyer -- and later a temporary administrator -- with the Department of Environmental Quality under the Racicot administration.

After a few years as a bachelor, a relative told Fox about "a wonderful lady" named Karen. Turns out she worked in a building owned by the Helena bank he was working for at the time.

"Eventually, I asked her to go to lunch. I was pretty smitten," Fox said. "I do believe in such things as love at first sight."

He proposed in her living room; they were married in 2001. Karen Fox had three children of her own from a previous marriage, two in college and a third in high school when she married Fox.

"They have been a wonderful blessing to me," Fox said of his stepchildren.

Fox is active in his church. He once played in a Christian rock group. A nationally certified track-and-field official, Fox officiates college track meets and has made sports photography -- particularly Carroll College's Fighting Saints football program --something of a professional hobby. His photos have appeared in papers throughout the state.

Fox said growing up in Hardin, near two American Indian reservations, gave him insight into and appreciation of American Indian culture. As attorney general, Fox said he hopes to focus at least some of his efforts alleviating the poor conditions, particularly with law enforcement, in Montana's Indian communities.

Fox said he is running for attorney general because he feels called to give back to the state that has given him so much.

"I have the experience to make a positive difference," he said. "And because my lifelong commitment to Montana and my love for Montanans will provide the daily motivation, drive and passion to hard work to get things done as Montana's next attorney general."

Brief bios

Steve Bullock

Office sought: Attorney General

Political party: Democrat

Age: 42

Birthdate and place: April 11, 1966; Missoula.

Home: Helena

Occupation: Attorney, Bullock Law Firm, PLLC

Family: Married to Lisa (Downs); children are Caroline (6), Alexandria (3) and Cameron (2). Parents are Jack and Penny Copps, Billings, and Mike Bullock (deceased)

Education: Helena High School, 1984; Claremont McKenna College, 1988; Columbia University School of Law, 1994.

Past employment: Associate attorney, Shaw Pittman law firm, Washington, D.C., 1994-95; associate attorney, Dew Ballantine law firm, New York, N.Y., 1995-96; chief legal counsel, Montana Secretary of State, Helena, 1996-97; executive assistant Montana attorney general, Montana Department of Justice, 1997-2001; adjunct instructor, George Washington University School of Law, Washington, D.C., 2002-04; associate attorney, Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D.C., 2001-04, Attorney, Bullock Law Firm, PLLC, Helena, 2004-present.

Military: None

Political experience: Montana delegate to Democratic National Convention, 1992; executive director of the Raise Montana ballot initiative campaign to increase Montana minimum wage, 2006.

Tim Fox

Age: 51

Birthdate and place: Aug. 22, 1957, Billings.

Home: Helena.

Occupation: Attorney in the Helena law firm of Gough, Shanahan, Johnson & Waterman since 2003, and partner since 2005.

Family: Wife, Karen, and children Anna Emmert, Michael McMahon, Laura McMahon and Caroline Fox

Education: Graduated from Hardin High School, 1976; bachelor's degree in geology, 1981, University of Montana; law degree, UM, 1987.

Past employment: Vice president and general counsel, Mountain West Bank, Helena, 1999-2003; acting division administrator, state Department of Environmental Quality, 1998; attorney, Department of Environmental Quality, 1998-99; solo private practice, Billings and Helena, 1993-96; environmental coordinator, state Board of Oil and Gas Conservation in Billings, 1990-93; associate attorney, Moulton, Bellingham, Longo & Mather law firm in Billings, 1988-90; law clerk to Montana Supreme Court Justice L.C. Gulbrandson, 1987-88.

Military: None.

Political experience: Has not run for public office previously but has been active in Republican politics and helped GOP candidates.