Jim Hook

jhook@publicopinionnews.com

NEEDMORE - Gas stations can sell beer. Grocery stores will have wine. An opioid crisis grips the nation. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are running for president.

What’s this world coming to?

Jim Hedges, a member of the nation’s oldest third party, proposes an alternative. The former tax assessor from Fulton County is running for president in 2016.

“I’m 78. The other fellows in the Prohibition Party decided it was my turn,” Hedges said. “If I don’t do it now I may never have another chance.”

Hedges has no illusions about changing his address from Needmore to the White House.

His name doesn’t have the prime time ring that “Donald Trump” commands. His experience of running the Fulton County recycling program and founding a library friends' group is a far cry from Secretary Hillary Clinton’s role on the world stage.

Hedges stutters at times. His campaign photo has the cool authority of a candidate from the second half of the 19th century.

Better know locally as a tuba player, his national prospects are plain to see on the party’s ledger.

“There’s no travel money,” Hedges said. “Our total budget for this campaign is $30,000, nearly all of which is being used for ballot access.”

Hedges’ name will appear on ballots in Arkansas, Colorado and Mississippi and up to five other states.

“The first thing to accomplish is to maintain our place in the history books,” Hedges said. “We want to publicize our own unique issues and keep them on the table. Politics is the art of the possible.”

The issue that has been with the party since its inception 147 years ago: Banning the trafficking of alcohol.

The party’s 2016 platform has been updated to include banning tobacco and recreational drugs. The pro-life, anti-gambling platform also calls for a balanced federal budget, free college education, and financially sound Social Security and state-level health care systems.

Hedges, an Iowa farm boy, retired to Fulton County after a 20-year career with the U.S. Marine Band. Learning to play the tuba in fifth grade, he got a college degree in music performance. He continues to play the tuba and bass horn with community bands.

Hedges also has a master's degree in geography. He was editor-in-chief of the National Speleological Society Bulletin for 11 years.

“I was raised in a dry family and I was never tempted to drink myself,” Hedges said. “I identified with the Prohibition Party ever since high school. It was opposed to beverage alcohol. That’s what impressed me. Already I could see the damage alcohol was doing to people around me.”

Hedges was unable to be active in the party until he retired from the military in 1980. He’s been the party's long-serving executive secretary and has archived the party’s history on the Internet.

Hedges previously won election as Thompson Township assessor, but the state Legislature cut short his second term when they abolished the position across the state.

To those who say Prohibition (1920-33) didn’t work the first time around, Hedges says the national rate of alcoholic beverage consumption was reduced by two-thirds during the ban.

“No law can be perfectly enforced,” Hedges said. “How many social programs have achieved two-thirds of their stated goal?”

The Prohibition Party has fielded a presidential candidate since 1872, when cigar-smoking and whiskey-drinking Republican Ulysses S. Grant won re-election. The party, drawn as a camel in political cartoons, was most prominent just prior to the passage of the 18th amendment to the Constitution. In 1916 the Prohibition Party won 1 percent of the national vote, including more than 2 percent in California and Pennsylvania.

Hedges and his running mate Bill Bayes, a businessman and former high school band director from Mississippi, won’t be on Pennsylvania ballots.

“Pennsylvania will count write-ins,” Hedges said. “As far as getting on the ballot, it’s out of the question. Pennsylvania is much too expensive. You need something like 50,000 signatures. Even if a third party meets the requirements, they have to go to court to beat off the major parties. The legal costs are more than we can handle.”

The party has filed to be on the ballot in Iowa. Its effort has been challenged in New Jersey.

“We have a good chance in Louisiana and Tennessee and possibly Florida,” Hedges said. “Six to eight states. That would be our best showing in 50 years.”

In each of the past two presidential elections the party has failed to garner more than 1,000 votes. The party was tied to religious leaders and has since broadened its scope on social issues.

Most of the party’s 30 members live in the East.

The Prohibition Party has three websites. It has 169 likes on Facebook, and @prohibition2k16 has 11 followers on Twitter.

“There’s no TV at this point,” Hedges said. “Occasionally I’m a guest on radio talk shows.”

Every four years mainstream media picks up the historic curiosity. This time Philly.com, Atlas Obscura and The Guardian have published stories on the Prohibition Party.

Jim Hook 717-262-4759

Here are planks in the Prohibition Party 2016 platform: