South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 6

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL 6A Monday, September 20, 2004 CAMPAIGN 2004 Candidates teetotally committed to cause Edwards blasts 'politics of fear' "I think this is a calling. God wants me to do this. Earl Dodge PROHIBITION PARTY CANDIDATE Remarks by Hastert anger VP candidate suredtone. He sees himself as standard-bearer of a once great party that was among the first to fight for child labor laws, women's suffrage and the right of workers to unionize. The Prohibition Party began in 1 869 and was one of the first "third parties" in American history.

Its symbol was the camel, a creature that drank little, and then only water. Carry A. Nation, the ax-wielding zealot who chopped up saloons in the early 1900s, was probably the best known anti-liquor crusader. In 1920, the 18th Amendment was passed, banning the sale of alcohol. Clandestine bars flourished while gangsters such as Al Capone made fortunes running moonshine.

Prohibition was eventually repealed in 1933. A splintered Prohibition Party looks to end its electoral dry spelL By David Kelly LOS ANGELES TIMES lakewood, colo. Earl Dodge is a 7 1 -year-old teetotaler with a Carry Nation coffee mug and a passion for the days when beer was illegal, gin was brewed in bathtubs and alcoholism was a moral failing, not a disease. Now for the sixth time, the anti-booze activist from suburban Denver is running for president as head of the Prohibition Party. So far, he's only on the ballot in Colorado, a state brimming with microbreweries, where the mayor of Denver runs seven bars and the Republican candidate for Senate is Pete Coors, owner of one of the world's biggest beer factories.

"What better place to be?" asked Dodge, sitting ina cluttered office festooned with unsmiling portraits of past Prohibitionists. "I don't want to puff myself up, but I think this is a calling. God wants me to do this." But some of his former colleagues don't The Prohibition Party has been on the skids for almost a century. Efforts to drum up excitement for a post-modern temperance movement have fizzled. And the dismal 2000 election result, when Dodge netted just 208 votes, was the worst showing in party history.

Disaffected Prohibitionists grumbled that their leader was dragging them down, paying more attention to his mail-order campaign button business than the future of the party. Late last year, a group of dissidents quietly voted Dodge out as national chairman' They formed the Concerns of People (Prohibition) Party and nominated their own presidential candidate. "Earl was promoted to chairman emeritus which is a nice way of saying you're fired," said James Hedges, one of the dissident leaders. The 66-year-old tax assessor in rural Thompson Township, is the only Prohibitionist in office today. "Our party has been tapering off for about 1 00 years, and Earl wasn't doing anything to keep it going," Hedges said.

"He still can't get used to the idea that he's been replaced" The Rev. Gene Amondson is the candidate for the breakaway party. He's an artist from Vashon Island, who travels the country re-enacting the fiery anti-drinking sermons of the late evangelist, Billy Sunday. Amondson, 60, describes himself as a "redneck, Bible-thumbing preacher" with a simple message: Drinking alcohol is stupid. "Alcohol has no taste at all, it's just a burning sensation," he said.

"You don't drink to have a good time, you drink to forget a bad time." And he dismisses the story of Jesus turning water into wine. "If Jesus turned water into alcohol, he wasn't very bright about alcohol, was he?" he said. "I think it was grape juice." Dodge takes a more mea- The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper. president has to anticipate more terrorist attacks.

Kerry pledges fight for middle dass Washington John Kerry links the cost of the Iraq war to problems at home and promises in a new television ad to "defend America and fight for the middle class." "200 billion dollars. That's what we are spending in Iraq because George Bush chose to go it alone," Kerry says in the ad, to start airing today in 13 competitive states. "Now the president tells us we don't have the resources to take care of health care and education here at home. That's wrong." Kerry says: "As president, I'll stop at nothing to get the terrorists before they get us! But I'll also fight to build a stronger middle class." The $200 billion estimate reflects the campaign's calculation of funds already spent on combat and reconstruction in Iraq, and money anticipated to be spent through next summer, based on congressional reports. The war has cost about 120 billion, according to the White House Office of Budget and Management.

Bush has never said there's no money for education or health care. Kerry's campaign bases the claim on its interpretation of Bush's budget proposals for education and reports of rising healthcare premiums. Bush's campaign said the ad was a Kerry flip-flop, noting that in August 2003 on NBC's Meet the Press Kerry said war spending should be increased "by whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win." "After attacking the president for not spending enough on Iraq, John Kerry is now attacking the president for spending too much," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "John Kerry's hypocritical attacks and continually shifting positions on Iraq are costing him the trust of the American people." THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Daschle lashes out at negative campaign sioux falls, s.d. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and former Rep.

John Thune sparred over political ads and the increasingly negative tone of South Dakota's Senate race Sunday during a nationally televised debate. On NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Thune to respond to a recent fund-raising letter sent out by state GOP Chairman Randy Frederick that said Daschle's complaints about the administration have brought "comfort to America's enemies." Thune, a Republican aiming to unseat Daschle in November, said he would not have chosen those words. But Thune said he has talked to soldiers who could never vote for Daschle after his prewar comments that Bush has failed miserably. "What it does is emboldens our enemies and undermines the morale of our troops," Thune said. Daschle called Thune's comments disappointing.

"John's attacks on me, where I come from, would earn a trip to the woodshed," he said. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS By Bill Bergstrom THE ASSOCIATED PRESS phoenixville, pa. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert of stooping "to the politics of fear" when he said al-Qaida might launch another terrorist attack to swing the Nov. 2 election in Democrat John Kerry's favor. Hastert's comments, at a fund-raiser Saturday night in his home state of Illinois, were reminiscent of recent remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney that Edwards has called "un-American." Cheney recently told supporters that terrorists will strike again "if we make the wrong choice" on Election Day.

He clarified the remarks in an interview two days later. Edwards said Hastert had joined the "fear-mongering choir." "One clear sign of weakness and failed leadership is when a politician stoops to the politics of fear," he said, campaigning near Philadelphia. "Last night, he said something to the effect that al-Qaida wants John Kerry to be president of the United States. "Let me say this in the simplest possible terms: When They want to scare the American people." John Edwards KERRY'S RUNNING MATE John Kerry is president of the United States, we will find al-Qaida where they are and crush them before they can do damage to the American people," Edwards said. Hastert's made his remarks about the terrorist network that is blamed for the Sept.

11, 2001, before a 1 50-a-plate GOP fund-raiser in De Kalb, 111., that featured Cheney. "I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another, but I would think they would be more apt to go for somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court or something rather than respond with troops," Hastert said of Kerry. Asked by reporters whether he believed al-Qaida could operate better with Kerry in the White House, Hastert replied: "That's my opinion, yes." Edwards said Bush and his allies were continuing to play politics with the Sept. 1 1 attacks. "They want to scare the American people but they will pay a price in November," he said.

"None of us should be surprised by this, because just two or three weeks ago we heard what Dick Cheney said about this." Cheney told supporters on Sept. 7: "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." Two days later, he told The Cincinnati Enquirer he was trying to say that the next THE SMART, FLEXIBLE PLATINUM CHECKING ACCOUNT PLATINUM CHECKING ACCOUNT 1 IP The Platinum Checking account from Washington Mutual gives you the best of all worlds interest earnings like a money market deposit account, easy and flexible access, and a Platinum Visa Check Card. Plus, as long as you keep a combined balance of $10,000 in your Platinum Checking account and your other linked Washington Mutual deposit and loan accounts, there's no monthly Platinum Checking account fee. To open your Platinum Checking account, visit any Washington Mutual Financial Center or call 1-800-788-7000.

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