In the 66 years since Prohibition's repeal, the number of crusaders pressing for its return has withered to near zero. Yet a few holdouts, most claiming that liquor consumption is an affront to God, continue to fight. Last week, about 30 of the faithful gathered in the dry township of Bird-in-Hand, Pa., for the national quadrennial convention of the Prohibition Party. In between sermons and speeches on the nation's slide into immorality, they nominated a presidential ticket for the 33rd election in a row–a record string for an American third party. And though candidate Earl Dodge knows he'll never strut onstage to the strains of "Hail to the Chief," he truly believes that liquor's days are finally numbered. "If I were to live another 20 years, I would live to see some sort of prohibition," says Dodge, 66. "That's the direction the country is moving in."

Optimism persists, but the Prohibitionists' political fortunes have nearly flatlined since the 21st Amendment was passed in 1933. Founded in 1869, the party was once a major player; Sidney Catts won Florida's governorship in 1916 under the banner of the camel, the Prohibitionists' official mascot, and their national candidates regularly registered tens of thousands of votes. Today, the party's mailing list contains under a thousand names, and Dodge attracted fewer than 1,200 votes in the 1996 election–no great shock, since his name appeared on the ballot in only four states.

"Petition requirements are the main factor," grumbles Dodge, who has run for president every election since 1984. "A party with limited resources can't go into the boonies to collect signatures in every district." Apathy hasn't helped, either; Dodge could have appeared on Louisiana's ballot in 1996, for example, but the party could not scare up the required eight people to serve as electors. Instead of seriously vying for public office–a candidate was recently drubbed in a lowly school board election–Prohibitionists have been forced to content themselves with handing out pamphlets with titles like "Old Scarecrow and the Cows," a parable in which cattle get whacked out on potent hay, and "What's Wrong With Wine," which decries cheap vintages as "soothing to marijuana-irritated throats."

But some Prohibitionists are convinced the tide is set to turn, and they are encouraged by recent trends. Consumption of alcohol has been declining for almost two decades, from 42.8 gallons per person in 1980 to 36.1 gallons in 1996. Over 40 percent of Americans now identify themselves as abstainers, up from 29 percent in 1978. In Chicago, onetime center of Al Capone's bootlegging empire, inner-city neighborhoods have been outlawing alcohol sales using so-called local option laws, which permit residents to vote their areas dry. About one fifth of the city's voting precincts–most just a few blocks in size–have kicked out liquor stores and corner bars, a movement that Ormsby calls "wonderful."

Nice try. Prohibition is also being evaluated more sympathetically in academic circles, which once viewed the "noble experiment" as "some sour, dyspeptic right-wing reaction against liberty," says Thomas Pegram, a history professor at Loyola College in Baltimore and author of Battling Demon Rum. "The images among scholars are much more nuanced now . . . . They are much more likely to see it as a generally flawed effort at reform."

A few historians even argue that the ban on booze was almost wholly positive, at least from a public-health standpoint. Mark Moore, a criminal justice professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, led the way a decade ago when he claimed that cirrhosis death rates for men dropped by two thirds and alcohol consumption declined by up to 50 percent during Prohibition, while the homicide rate remained unchanged. Moore's data have been disputed as unreliable, and he has been criticized for ignoring the thousands severely harmed by shoddily distilled moonshine. But his work still spurred many to look beyond the versions of Prohibition presented in James Cagney movies and The Untouchables.

John Burnham, a history professor at Ohio State University and author of Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History, says Prohibition's bad rap was the handiwork of yellow journalists, hot to sell stories about gangland slayings and raucous underground bars. "Any violation of the law was news, and any observation of the law was not news," says Burnham, adding that the press eventually sealed the liquor ban's fate by blaming it for the Great Depression. "Since nobody else knew what caused the Great Depression, this was picked up as a folk belief and it caught fire. Then the anti-Prohibition people promised that taxes on alcohol would save the nation financially."

Despite this revisionism–and the downturn in drinking–the party's future is somewhat uncertain. At last week's convention, an upstart faction exhorted delegates to pass over Dodge in favor of Gary Van Horn, a member of the Utah-based Independent American Party, which does not officially endorse an alcohol ban. Van Horn's backers believe a coalition with other minor parties–many of which share the Prohibitionists' archconservative views on abortion, foreign policy, and immigration, though not their ultimate aim of outlawing liquor–would help them improve upon their anemic showing at the ballot box. "We need to get away from living in the past; we need to realize we can't go it alone anymore," said Don Webb, a Van Horn supporter. "Do we want to be on the fringe and make a point instead of make a change?"

But convictions are more important than elections to the Prohibition Party's old guard, which still controls the reins of power. Dodge, who recently survived a septuple bypass, told the assembled of his pride in fighting "the liquor traffic," which he believes is condemned by the Bible. Had he died on the operating table, Dodge said, "The Lord wouldn't ask me how many elections my party had won; he would ask, had I been faithful?" Perhaps mindful of the chorus of the party's favorite rallying song–"I'd rather be right than president/I want my conscience clear"–the delegates gave Dodge a 1-vote victory over Van Horn, 9 to 8. The start of Campaign 2000 was then roundly toasted, with slices of lo-cal cake and paper cups of lemonade.