"LEXINGTON - Challenge Republicans on economic policy, don't imitate them, one of nine Democrats running for president in 2004 urged the large pack of White House hopefuls Thursday.

Democratic presidential hopeful the Rev. Al Sharpton said President Bush can be beaten in next year's election if Democrats address the ills of the economy and social justice issues instead of trying to imitate Republicans.

'The Democratic nominee must be someone who stands for something,' Sharpton said.

'Bush is the biggest deficit spender in the history of the United States, and we are not challenging that,' Sharpton said in remarks kicking off the Washington and Lee University Mock Convention.

Speaking in front of W & L's Lee Chapel, in which the former Confederate general and university president Robert E. Lee is buried, Sharpton challenged his party to stop 'taking African-American voters for granted' and to start speaking out and 'challenging the criminal justice system so it is fair.'

Sharpton said he is not soft on crime but feels it is unfair to have a mandatory minimum five-year term 'for someone caught with a Sweet and Low bag of crack,' and less time demanded for someone caught with pounds of powder cocaine.

One of nine candidates lining up for Virginia's Feb. 10 Democratic presidential primary, Sharpton said too many top Democrats 'are a bunch of elephants running around with donkey jackets on.'

People see the hypocrisy and are turned off by it, the former New York City mayoral candidate told a large student crowd in a speech liberally sprinkled with humorous asides that had many student laughing at and applauding his remarks.

After his speech, Sharpton toured Lee Chapel, spoke with reporters and predicted that he is likely to be one of only half a dozen or fewer candidates still in the race by the time of Virginia's primary.

'Certainly not all nine' still will be running, Sharpton said. 'Maybe four or five.'

And, the New York civil rights figure said, 'I can assure you there will be one serious candidate - and he's here today.'

'I intend to campaign with a vigor among Virginians,' he said, noting that he already has sought advice and support from Del. Dwight C. Jones, a black Richmond minister.

Sharpton said he and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut are the only candidates really familiar with and comfortable on a national political stage. Most of the seven other Democrats running have experience largely campaigning in elections only in their home states, he said.

Appearing with Sharpton at the mock convention's spring kickoff was political consultant and author Dick Morris, an intimate friend and close advisor to former president Bill Clinton since the two of them met at age 30 in 1977, when Clinton was attorney general of Arkansas.

Morris said Democratic Party bosses are so afraid Sharpton will capture significant black support that they put former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun in the race as a black alternative candidate.

'She is bought and paid for by the Democratic Party establishment,' Morris said.

Morris said U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina will be the first of the nine candidates to drop out of the race.

He predicted Edwards will drop out after raising $7 million in contributions but with probably too many of his $2,000 contributors not likely to have given their own money.

The Hill newspaper in Washington found paralegals with relatively low incomes, some of whom have never voted, making maximum contributions to Edwards as part of bundles of contributions from law firms.

Morris said Republican federal prosecutors are likely to find and indict people after seeing reports of $18,000-a-year paralegals at law firms with large numbers of contributors donating the maximum $2,000 to Edwards' campaign.

'This guy is going to have indictments raining down on his contributor lists,' Morris said. 'I believe that John Edwards will be out of this race in six weeks.'

Morris said a centrist Democrat would have been the best change of beating Bush and ranked Lieberman there.

With no state Republican primary next year, centrist Democrats can attract large numbers of independent voters who will flock to Democratic primaries, Morris said.

He said the question Sharpton will duck is whether he would run as an independent if he does not get the Democratic nomination.

'I'm not ducking,' Sharpton said shortly afterward. 'I'm just not telling.'

He urged the hundreds of attentive W & L students to 'decide early in life what you believe in, what you stand for.'

The W & L Mock Convention, which has accurately picked 17 of the last 22 non-incumbent presidential nominees, will culminate Jan. 30 and 31, when students stage a nominating convention and choose a Democratic nominee 10 days before Virginians can vote in the state's next presidential primary." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 9, 2003)