Florida's office of the attorney general is one of the few elected positions that requires credentials precisely suited to the job. As with judicial races, the attorney general must be an attorney.

Otherwise, citizenship, residency and a minimum age is all that it takes; hence the enamored view this election season that any Average Joe or Josephine will do.

Florida Democrats are lucky in that they have two capable attorneys seeking the party's nomination as attorney general. Dave Aronberg, 39, and Dan Gelber, 49, are both well-educated, articulate men of charm, energy and political experience.

Mr. Aronberg, elected as a state senator from Greenacres in 2002, was educated at Harvard and served for two years as an assistant attorney general in the economic crimes division. He is a former White House fellow and worked for a year as a special assistant in the U.S. Treasury.

Mr. Gelber, a state senator from Miami Beach elected in 2008, earned his undergraduate degree from Tufts University and his law degree is from the University of Florida. He was highly regarded as one of the most genial and yet on-point minority leaders the House has ever known while serving as a state representative, 2000-2008. His effectiveness is shown in the confidence the GOP leadership placed in him to write much of Florida's wiretap, public corruption and domestic security legislation.

It is Mr. Gelber's deep and broad experience in practicing law, including a decade as a federal prosecutor of civil rights violations, public corruption, narcotics, Ponzi schemes and major crimes in the U.S. attorney's office in Miami; staff director of the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; and chief counsel to Georgia's former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, that gives him a significant edge in this race.

The winner in the Democratic primary will face the Republican's choice from among Holly Benson, Pam Bondi and Jeff Kottkamp in the November election.

Mr. Gelber has a deep understanding of what the office of the attorney general is all about; indeed it is an office with a smaller scope than the work he did in U.S. Senate, directing investigations into the Oklahoma City bombing and terrorism worldwide.

In Florida, however, he says he will return the office of attorney general to its serious and intended role as chief legal counsel for the state, meaning its "everyday citizens." Mr. Gelber suggests that for nearly a decade the job has been more of a political steppingstone than a law office.

While this race has not been as contentious as some this summer, Mr. Aronberg did unsuccessfully suggest an inappropriate conflict of interest because of Mr. Gelber's association with the law firm Akerman Senterfitt, which has some 500 attorneys and has taken on BP as a client. But Mr. Gelber, who resigned from the firm, was only "of counsel" to the firm, not a partner, and his employment contract was clear that he wouldn't receive any financial benefits from the BP client.

Mr. Aronberg's continued insinuations that Mr. Gelber couldn't represent Florida against BP are unfounded and ought not be perpetuated by a person who described himself to our editorial board as "a bridge-builder not a bomb thrower."

Mr. Gelber says his "conservative's approach to law-enforcement" and skill sets in law and leadership, including a steadiness and even contrariness in championing open government, prepare him to be "a strong marquee attorney general."

It's a job that Mr. Gelber describes as "a hybrid, where you have the state as your client but you also represent the people" — and must keep constant watch "on how the citizens are going to be preyed upon next."

With his understanding of the job, his wide array of ideally suited experience and his reputation as one of the state's most honorable and effective lawmakers, Mr. Gelber is an extremely solid choice in this Democratic primary contest for attorney general.