He doesn't dazzle a room with oratory. No one has ever described him as charismatic. Nevertheless, Alabama voters have twice elected Jeff Sessions to the U.S. Senate, an indication that they like his approach and approve of his performance.

In his bid for a third term, the Republican incumbent faces an engaging challenger in Democrat Vivian Davis Figures, a state senator from Mobile. However, Figures has failed to make a compelling case for why she should replace Sessions. Given that, and given the parts of his 12-year Senate record that stand out as the best, the Advertiser recommends that voters re-elect Sessions.

Figures would make history if elected as both the first black Alabamian elected to the Senate and the first woman. (Two women, Dixie Bibb Graves and Maryon Allen, were appointed to fill unexpired Senate terms.) But race and gender are not in themselves reasons to elect a senator, and Figures' record in the state Senate is not so outstanding as to recommend her over Sessions.

Figures, a former member of the Mobile City Council who was elected to the state Senate in a special election after the death of her husband, Sen. Michael Figures, is perhaps best known for her persistent efforts to restrict smoking in public places. We applaud those efforts and have supported them on this page, but this is not the sort of issue likely to occupy a U.S. senator's time and attention.

Sessions, a former U.S. attorney in the state's Southern District, was elected attorney general in 1994. Two years later, when three-term incumbent Howell Heflin retired, he ran for the Senate and was elected. He was handily re-elected in 2002.

His Republican conservative credentials are beyond dispute. At times, however, Sessions has shown a willingness to buck his own party on issues.

For example, although he has voted with the Bush administration more than most other GOP senators, he differed sharply with the president on immigration issues and became a forceful opponent of what he viewed as a misguided policy initiative.

His committee assignments -- Budget, Energy and Natural Resources, Armed Services and Judiciary -- give Sessions important seats on panels which greatly influence national policy.

To the surprise of some, there is a commendable streak of environmentalism in Sessions' record. He engineered the addition of the Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge near Anniston to the national refuge system and secured the protection of Dugger Mountain in the Talladega National Forest. His advocacy of the expanded use of nuclear power is based in part on environmental advantages.

Taken as a whole, Sessions' record clearly is one that has met with the approval of most Alabamians. In the absence of a persuasive argument for his opponent's election, the Advertiser recommends that voters give Sessions a third term on Nov. 4.