PROVIDENCE, RI -- Former Republican Attorney General Arlene Violet says she has been wooed by activists within the state GOP and the fledgling Moderate Party of Rhode Island to run for governor on their tickets.

Violet said she had told all of her political suitors: "I will think about it.''

A lawyer and former Catholic nun, the 65-year-old Violet still runs a low-key law practice while writing a local newspaper column, a musical about the mob ("with the names changed to protect the guilty'') and her latest book. Soon to be published, she said, the book - titled Me and the Mob - is about the life of former Providence Public Safety Commissioner John Partington and his role in the creation of the witness protection program.

Asked what might draw her back into election politics, she said, "the very same issues'' that first sparked her run for attorney general in 1984 when "I was a dark horse...[with] a $50 a month allowance as a nun.'' Among her issues then: "prosecuting organized crime ...trying to clean up public corruption and getting the darn Columbia drug cartel out of Central Falls, R.I. because they were a blemish on the state. I did that because I said, well, I might not win but we've got to keep pounding on these issues so people will pay attention.''

As a candidate for governor, she said, she would once again have a forum to "make people pay attention to why we are in the kind of state we are in right now, economically and otherwise...what I think Is wrong and how we can get it right...because I think we are on our last gasp around here.''

"We keep making the same mistakes,'' she said

Moderate party chairman Ken Block said he thought Violet would be "a great choice,'' but their conversations to date have focused on "if it was necessary, would she run?''

For now, Violet said: "I am in the going-to-think-about-it phase.''

A one-term attorney general (1985-86), Violet was bested in her bid for reelection by Democrat James O'Neil.

Violet is the scheduled guest speaker at a June 10 reception hosted by the "Portuguese Republican Caucus'' that the state GOP has been promoting.