Pubdate: Thu, 08 Nov 2007
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2007 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: George Merritt

6-TIME PROHIBITION CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT DIES AT AGE 74

DENVER - A Prohibition Party campaign song says, "I'd rather be
right than president." By that score, Earl Dodge was right six times.

Dodge, an activist in the Prohibition Party since 1952, ran for
president in every campaign since 1984. He died Wednesday, the same
week his family received campaign buttons for his seventh bid for the
White House in 2008. He was 74.

Dodge lived in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. He collapsed and died at
Denver International Airport at the start of a business trip, said his
daughter, Faith Nelson. The cause of death had not been determined.

Dodge mounted 13 campaigns across nearly every level of government
beginning with a 1969 run for City Council in Kalamazoo, Mich. He
never won a race.

But family and colleagues said he was undaunted even as the party's
prominence continued to slip from its heyday before the 1933 repeal of
the 18th Amendment, which had banned alcoholic drinks.

"He firmly believed in the party, more so than many people believe in
anything," said Howard Lydick, Dodge's running mate in 2004. "He was
very concerned about personal integrity."

Lydick, 78, of Richardson, Texas, said he and Dodge were working on
strategies to get on the ballot in more states in 2008. In 2004, they
had managed to make it on the ballot only in Colorado, which allows
any political party to nominate a presidential candidate. They
received 140 votes.

After decades in the party, Dodge was the subject of a split among
national prohibitionists in 2004. A faction of the party spurned Dodge
and nominated Rev. Gene Amondson for president.

"He very much saw things as black and white," said Nelson, one of
Dodge's seven children. "When he thought something was right, he did
not care if he was the only person to stand up and say it."

He was a Baptist Sunday school teacher, and his family said his faith
permeated his politics.

Dodge's love of politics and history led him to own a campaign
memorabilia business. He was on his way to a memorabilia show in
Pennsylvania when he died.

"It was a real surprise to us," Nelson said. "He has been doing well."

Dodge was born in Malden, Mass., in 1932. He began volunteering with
the Prohibition Party at 19 - two years before he could vote at the
time, his wife Barbara said.

In his life with the party, Dodge also ran for vice president,
governor of Colorado, senator from Kansas and University of Colorado
regent.
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