“Zero. None whatsoever.”
Jim Hedges is the 2016 presidential candidate for the Prohibition party. He isn’t optimistic about his chances of winning.
Nor should he be. The Prohibition party got 270,000 votes in one presidential election, but that was in 1892. In 2012, the party made it onto the ballot in only one state and only 518 people voted for it.
But this time will be different, Hedges says. The Prohibition party is hoping to be on the ballot in six states.
“If I get a thousand votes in each of these six states I’ll be happy,” Hedges says. “It’ll make us look like a going concern again.”
The Prohibition party was founded in 1879 and is the oldest third party in the US. For 137 years the core aim has been to ban the production and sale of alcohol in the US. Members got their wish in 1919, but prohibition was repealed in 1933, and there seems little hope of it returning. None of the contenders for the Republican or Democratic candidacy have prohibition as part of their platform.
I’ve arranged to meet Hedges, who served for 20 years in the United States Marine Band, at the Fulton County courthouse in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania. McConnellsburg is an hour’s drive south-west of Harrisburg, about 20 miles north of the Maryland border.
We sit on a wooden bench outside the courthouse and Hedges, who turned 78 on 10 May, tells me about his campaign. He was selected as the Prohibition party’s candidate last July. He admits to having had some trepidation about running for president – “I’m too old and too infirm. And I stutter” – but is confident in his attributes.
“Experience in a variety of different things,” he says when I ask him about his strengths. “Organisational experience. Not in a big organisation, but community groups. I was in the recycling committee and the friends of the library. And I’ve been an officer in some of the town bands. It’s not much compared to the party candidates, but it’s what I’ve done.”
“And you were town assessor, that was for the Prohibition party,” says Carolyn Hedges, Hedges’ wife (who has come along because she wanted to chat to an English person).
“Oh yes, in my township,” Hedges says. “I was elected twice – two four-year terms – as the township tax assessor. But there were no other candidates.”
Hedges’ spell as a tax assessor in the Thompson Township – population 1,098 – represents the only time a member of Prohibition party has held elected office since the 1920s.
The party has been dwindling in size ever since the early 20th century – essentially ever since prohibition was passed. Hedges tells me there are currently about three dozen fee-paying members, who each contributes $10 a year. I originally heard him say as “3,000”, which made him burst into laughter.