ALBANY - Candidates lining up to succeed departing Attorney General Eliot Spitzer know it will be a tough task measuring up.

Spitzer, as the chief law enforcement officer in the state for the past seven years, set a new standard for the office, going after Wall Street malfeasance, insurance industry corruption, e-mail spammers and purveyors of spyware. Spitzer effectively made the office a national one and stepped in where federal regulators and prosecutors would not, candidates say.

“Because he has expanded the scope and visibility of the office, he's really defining the campaign to succeed him,” said Mark Green, the former New York City Public Advocate. “No ordinary politician or lawyer will do.”

Green is one of six Democrats seeking the attorney general's nomination. Also joining the fray are former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Assemblymen Richard Brodsky, former Clinton administration aide Sean Patrick Maloney and Charlie King, a lawyer and former housing official in the Clinton Administration.

Jeanine Pirro, the former Westchester County District Attorney, is the only Republican who has publicly said she'll seek the office. Other Republicans, including state Sen. Michael Balboni of Long Island and Chauncey Parker, the state's criminal justice coordinator, have expressed an interest in running for attorney general.

Brodsky, who has investigated scandals at the Thruway Authority's Canal Corp. and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, however, says what is most needed in the office is someone who “knows how to sue people and defend lawsuits.”

“What Eliot showed, is that if a lawyer is in that job who understands how to apply the law to the problems people face, the attorney general is not just another statewide public official,” said Brodsky, who has been endorsed by the 75,000-member Communications Workers of America union as well as many of his fellow Assembly Democrats. “There is a job to be done here.”

Cuomo, who has won the backing of several party officials and major unions, including the more than 200,000-member Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, said Spitzer's biggest impact has been to “nationalize” the office, investigating areas where Washington has taken a hands off approach.

Spitzer “took the job beyond traditional state jurisdiction,” said Cuomo, son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo. “On Wall Street, he stepped into a domain previously policed by the federal government. Eliot's paradigm has been to step in if the federal government is not doing its job.”

It's a point that O'Donnell agrees with.

“Eliot Spitzer has shown what an independent and experienced prosecutor can do in the office,” she said. “The federal government has left the job to the states to enforce laws. It is falling increasingly on attorneys general to address these issues” including workplace safety and environmental law.“

Maloney said Spitzer also set new precedent by remaining independent and not filling his office with patronage jobs.

“The critical question is who is going to keep it running as a professional law firm, not a political shop,”' he said. “There is a lot more to do. It matters who you elect. Eliot ran the office as an independent lawyer. He didn't turn it into a patronage mill.”

Challenges awaiting the new attorney general include going after billions of dollars in annual Medicaid fraud, tackling corruption at the state's public authorities and prosecuting lobbying violations, the candidates said.

Spitzer has shown “an attorney general can have a positive effect on the way New Yorkers live in ways previously unimagined,” King said.